Phantasy Star Online 2 Vita Optimized for Efficiency

In an interview with 4Gamer, Sakai shed some minor details about the Vita version. Most of the information is old, but some interesting tidbits about the game's development were sprinkled in.

The PlayStation Vita version of PSO2 releases on February 28th, 2013. You can download it for free at the PlayStation Store. You can opt into purchasing the Special Package version which includes a variety of goodies like the 30 Day Premium Set and 1000 Fun Ticket among other things.

 

Those that buy the Special Package version will receive three items depicting the Clad 6 colony and Little Wing! Players can choose 2 out of the 8 default costumes from Phantasy Star Portable 2. You can even place stickers on your character's body replacing the default ARKS logo with Little Wing stickers. You can listen to the Phantasy Star Portable opening and ending theme in your Jukebox.

 

Lastly, Special Package owners will receive the Clarita evolution device that transforms your mag into an angel that represents Emilia.

 

Currently, the Vita version is in debugging stages and is roughly 4GB in size, however once released, both special package and download versions must download patches to access online content. The Vita version will also support offline character creation.

As for the PC version's Premium Package, he's thinking about whether he should create a new updated version of that package. However, the PC version currently takes up a lot of space, almost 10GB in size. Surely the game won't be able to fit on 1 DVD. He feels it's difficult to put this in motion as some PCs don't support dual-layer DVDs or Blu-Ray.

 

The Vita version plans to be roughly similar to the PC version but there will be some minor differences to the way the game is set up. For one, you'll see fewer enemies appearing at the same time and fewer emergency trials compared to the PC version. Since people will be playing in shorter spurts, the game's map sizes will be smaller, it will take less time to encounter enemies, and PSE Burst will last longer than the PC version. These changes will also apply if a PC player joins the Vita blocks. The Vita version will also support less button configurations than the PC version but that is to be expected.

These changes had to be implemented so that the Vita version could run efficiently. Little did you know, back at TGS, the game couldn't even support 12 person multi-parties. He had to make sacrifices to the frame rate, map sizes, and enemy appearance numbers to support it.

 

Toro and Kuro will be giving out client orders in the Vita version. If you clear them, you'll receive their partner cards. Once they've grown to liking you, they'll even hand out a "Toro Mag" and "Kuro Mag." If you manage to get their partner cards, you can even call on them on the PC version.

 

Did you know, Toro and Kuro run on their own separate shaders?
The Dev team coined it "Toro Kuro Shaders"

So far we know the closed beta test will have Forest, Caves, and Urban. After the test is over, character data gets deleted. If you reach level 10 in any class during the beta test, you'll receive special items. For testing purposes they will allow 3G connections during the CBT, but overall they recommend playing on Wi-Fi anyway.

  • The Smartphone version is still in development, for now they believe they can support Android 2.3 or higher and iPhone 4 but this is subject to change.

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