Phantasy Star Online 2 to Bring Monster Hunting to North America and Europe
Phantasy Star Online was probably the first online multiplayer action-RPG for consoles. Thousands of SEGA Dreamcast and GameCube players enjoyed teaming up as hunters on the harsh alien planet of Ragol. Phantasy Star Universe, Zero, and Portable have since followed, but a true sequel has long remained as elusive as a blue rappy... Until now. SEGA has officially confirmed Phantasy Star Online 2 will see a western release! Several variables - such as whether both the PC and Vita versions will be brought over - remain unknown, but we do have an announcement trailer and screenshots to share with you today.
How about that? It looks like an FMV intro to me. I don't know about you guys, but I kind of miss those. SEGA's Saturn and Dreamcast games always had choice introductions that made you want to put down the controller for a while.
The official Phantasy Star Online 2 site is now open as well. It's a bit light on content at the moment, but it does feature bios of the three playable races as well as the following features list:
- Deep sci-fi fantasy universe filled with lush landscapes, extraordinary creatures, and epic adventures
- Revolutionary real-time combat and third-person action with devastating combos and counters to master
- Flexible, class-based leveling system that lets players define their own play-style with distinctive melee, ranged, and magic weapon types
- Randomized maps and unexpected mid-quest encounters that ensure each quest is different for each player
- Deep character creation system with a nearly limitless number of potential appearances
- Three degrees of humanity to experience across three unique races: the versatile Humans, spiritually-powered Newmen, and artificial CAST
Phantasy Star Online 2 will feature co-op parties of up to 12 players. The game has no specific release date, but winter 2012 or spring 2013 seem likely. A smartphone companion game is also in the works. We'll have more details soon!
SCREENSHOTS
Reader Comments
Shazoo
8:12 AMthe 360 version is the Last phantasy star game I play, after the fiasco of having to CALL MICROSOFT to cancel your subscription because there was no way to do it in-game, yet they allowed you to sign up in-game! Along with only having about a months play worth of content and being a complete grind. It was fun for a couple weeks though.
Engineer Seven
10:05 AMI was such an insanely huge fan of the DC and GC iterations, even Blue Burst on the PC was great. Not going to say Shaz is wrong about PSU, I downloaded it and erased it within 3 days, it was an utter mess.
PSO was always the perfect console Diablo to me. Active combat, tons of loot and item hunting, really fun boss battles (De Rol Le anyone?). I can't wait to get my hands on a new MAG and Chainsawd (not a typo, that's a weapon name).
ipsum
10:23 AMWhat the hell is going on in that picture?! Is she horribly deformed?
eastx
10:24 AMShazoo, this one is free-to-play so there will be no monthly fees. Resolves your problem right there.
Shazoo
11:02 AM--- Replying to eastx -----
as long as there's more content then PSU, and not a micro transaction nightmare that plagues some F2P games, I'll most likely give it a go then.
Engineer Seven
11:16 AMShaz, it's an older article but SEGA talks about the cashop stuff here. Comments are vague but if they stick to the plan it should be ok http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/04/26 ... f2p-model/
ipsum
2:09 PMOh NOW I get the picture.