Phantasy Star Online

Phantasy Star Online (PSO), released in 2000, was an online title for Sega Dreamcast. A bugfix/upgrade edition was released the following year, entitled Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2. This version was also later ported to Microsoft Windows, but this version was only released in Asia. Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II was later released for Nintendo GameCube and Xbox. Phantasy Star Online Episode III was later released for Nintendo GameCube with a changed gameplay formula, in the form of a card game. In turn, the Xbox's Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II was ported to Microsoft Windows with the added episode IV,NPC's, quests, team system and server-side saving system, as Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst. The Phantasy Star Online titles are a sub-series of Sega's Phantasy Star series of games that began in 1987. The PSO games themselves are simple hack and slash type role-playing games where the player slays monsters, levels up, buys new equipment, etc. The Online Phantasy Stars differ from the previous games of the series by offering a real-time -- rather than turn-based -- approach to combat and seamlessly integrating this with the exploration/plot development aspects of the game. Episode III reverted back to a turn-based combat system.

Communication system

Communication between players is achieved via a combination of direct 2-line text entry, Symbol Chat and Word Select. As PSO online servers support international co-operative play, the Symbol Chat and Word Select features encouraged players to attempt communication with others, regardless of language.

Symbol Chat allows the player to define a collection of symbols within a speech bubble, in order to convey an emotion or simple instruction. These symbols could then be invoked via a player-defined shortcut, or accessed via an in-game menu.

Word Select acts as a limited phrasebook, allowing sentences to be constructed through a hierarchy of menus. Once complete, a sentence is automatically translated into the configured language of other nearby players, thus bridging the language gap encountered in cross-cultural multiplayer games. (Word Select was removed in Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst)

Keyboard users can also trigger a number of gesture during chats in the online lobby.

The Xbox version (Episodes I & II) also allows voice communication with the Xbox Live headset.

Modes of play

The first two episodes of PSO (excluding the original Dreamcast version prior to the Ver. 2 revision disc) offered the following game modes:

Normal Mode

This is the plot-driven bulk of the game, in which a player or group of players fight through a number of levels spread over four distinct areas. Each area has a boss at the end. Upon defeating the final boss, the credits roll and in some cases, an extra feature will be unlocked.

In addition to the main story, players can also take Hunter's Guild sidequest, which explores the lives of Pioneer 2's citizens, and further delves into the backstory behind the game. The rewards for these sidequests are the Meseta for the job, the chance to explore the stories behind Pioneer 2 and meet some interesting NPC, the opportunity to get special weapons that can't be found anywhere else, and of course, whatever weapons, experience, and Meseta you can get while fighting on these missions.

Blue Burst adds several new quests that can be accessed via a special desk in The Principal's Office or Lab that essentially structures the levels in the quest environment. Items such as weapons and techniques are awarded as prizes after certain progression.

Challenge Mode

Challenge mode sets all participants to a set level with set equipment when beginning (this is temporary and does not alter other important data in any way), and requires the team to reach a predefined point in a series of specially-designed levels that are different versions of areas seen mid-game, but have their appearance drastically changed. This includes laser barriers, buttons, and so on, and sometimes strategically placed enemies/types of enemies. Players may only die once (unless given a spare Scape Doll by another team member), so teamwork is encouraged; if one player is disqualified, the entire team also fails the challenge. At the completion of all the stages at an "S rank" total time, players are awarded weapons which can be customized with an 8-letter name which precedes the weapon's type ("SABER", "CLAW", et cetera). Challenge Mode is available for Episodes 1 and 2.

Battle Mode

This is a deathmatch mode. In this mode, players are permitted to attack each other. A team may play while being able to attack allies (as well as monsters) to create their rules, or they may play one of several predefined sets of battle rules. This mode can only be accessed for Episode 1.

1 Player Mode

Exclusive to Blue Burst, this mode essentially allows Blue Burst players to play the offline mode online, complete with Episode I & II's side story quests. (Blue Burst lacks a true offline mode.) At the moment Episode 4 lacks this functionality.

Phantasy Star Online Episode 1 and 2 Plus (Gamecube) features

1.'Central Dome Fire Swirl' is available offline in Episode 1

2.The GBA downloads in 'The Fake in Yellow' in Episode 1 are now available offline

3.'Seat of the Heart','East Tower' and 'West Tower' are available offline in Episode 2.

4.The Episode 2 Challenge Mode is now available offline.Users who have the original release of Episode 1 and 2 can only play Episode 2 Challenge Mode while online.

Offline vs online play

Despite the 'online' in the title, all games in the Phantasy Star Online series except Blue Burst may be played offline, allowing the player to develop their character between online sessions, although at a lessened rate. Some versions (PSO Episodes I&II) also support split-screen offline multiplayer modes, but these suffer badly from reduced draw-distances, awkward cameras, and in some cases, the inabilty to finish certain sections of the game (One cannot get their team to the end of the game without already having been there). However, the Xbox version of PSO Ep. I&II requires the user to have an active Xbox Live Silver account to play the game, both online and offline. Hacking, whether from bug glitches or people just being unpleasant, has in essence, ruined the online communities of this game.

It should be noted that the Sega Dreamcast version of the game was susceptible to cheats from the U.K. Xploder Dreamcast cheat disc, which operated similarly to the more famous Pro Action Replay, but without the latter's American legal constraints. The codes originally provided with the Xploder were relatively harmless to players (item copy, raise level etc), but later developers wrote code to seriously effect, sometimes destroy other users' characters. Later, a bug in the GameCube version made it possible to duplicate items. Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution was destroyed by hackers damaging people's accounts with custom programs that forced most players to lose their data.

Episode IV

Episode IV was exclusively designed for PSO: Blue Burst, only available on the Windows operating system.

Episode IV features unseen enemies to those that have only played Episode I, II and III. Including with the new monsters came with new maps and items.

The new maps include Crater, Crater Interior and Subterranean Desert.

Episode IV is notable for being significantly more difficult than the other chapters of the Phantasy Star Online game.

Version list

Version	Platform	Release Date
Phantasy Star Online Network Trial Edition	Sega Dreamcast	Q3 2000 (Japan)
Phantasy Star Online	Sega Dreamcast	21 November 2000 (Japan) 29 January 2001 (North America) 23 February 2001 (Europe)
Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2	Sega Dreamcast	6 July 2001 (Japan) 24 September 2001 (North America) 1 March 2002 (Europe)
Phantasy Star Online Beta	Microsoft Windows	Q4 2001 (Japan)
Phantasy Star Online	Microsoft Windows	20 December 2001 (Japan) 2002 (Asia)
Phantasy Star Online Demo	Microsoft Windows	20 December 2001 (Japan) January 2002 (UK)¹
Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Trial Edition	Nintendo Gamecube	May 2002 (Japan)
Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II (ver 1.0)	Nintendo Gamecube	12 September 2002 (Japan)²
Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II (ver 1.1)	Nintendo Gamecube	29 October 2002 (North America) November 2002 (Japan)² 7 March 2003 (Europe)
Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II	Microsoft Xbox	Q1 2003 (Japan) 15 April 2003 (North America) 23 May 2003 (Europe)
Phantasy Star Online Episode III C.A.R.D. Revolution Trial Edition	Nintendo GameCube	June 24 2003 (Japan)
Phantasy Star Online Episode III C.A.R.D. Revolution	Nintendo GameCube	27 November 2003 (Japan) 2 March 2004 (North America) 18 June 2004 (Europe) ³
Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus	Nintendo Gamecube	27 November 2003 (Japan) 15 September 2004 (North America)
Personal Phantasy Star Online Server ⁴	Microsoft Windows Sega Dreamcast	17 December 2003 (Worldwide)
Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst Beta	Microsoft Windows	21 May 2003 (Japan) 10 May 2004 (North America/Europe)
Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst	Microsoft Windows	15 July 2004 (Japan) 23 June 2005 (North America/Europe)
Phantasy Star Online: Episode IV Beta ⁵	Microsoft Windows	November 2004 (Japan)
Phantasy Star Online: Episode IV ⁵	Microsoft Windows	Q1 2005 (Japan)
Phantasy Star Universe	Microsoft Xbox 360	October 2006*
Phantasy Star Universe	Sony Playstation 2	October 2006*
Phantasy Star Universe	Microsoft Windows	October 2006*

¹ Demo included on January Issue of PC Gamer (UK)

² Contained a serious item duplication bug, fixed in ver 1.1 in Japan, and discovered before the North American and European versions were mastered.

³ The GAME retail group had an exclusive deal, allowing them to distrbuite the game from the 11 June 2004

⁴ Homebrew server for PSO on Dreamcast and Microsoft Windows. More Info

⁵ Episode IV expansion pack included with the North American and European versions of Blue Burst

Windows version to be released at this time, SP2 and XBox 360 To most likely be around same time.

Server Shutdown Dates

Phantasy Star Online Episode III C.A.R.D. Revolution Trial Edition - 15 September 2003
Phantasy Star Online/Phantasy Star Online ver. 2 (North America) - 1 October 2003
Phantasy Star Online (Microsoft Windows) - January 2004

Third Party Code Error

Phantasy Star Online for GameCube connects to the server by first resolving the address through a DNS server. By using a third party DNS server, it is possible to setup a program that will send code to have the GameCube reboot and load code streaming from the network adapter. For a long time, this was the only way to load up third party code. It is now possible to just use a modchip.

External links

Phantasy Star Online | Phantasy Star Online | Phantasy Star Online | ファンタシースターオンライン | Phantasy Star Online

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