Phantasy Star Eternal Planets Launches and More

Ricardo 7 Comments

Yesterday marked the launch of Phantasy Star Eternal Planets which is currently running on the Yahoo Mobage site. 

Phantasy Star Eternal Planets is a social game that can be played on the web browser. The player is a member of Little Wing who is tasked with searching planets, finding items, and leveling up characters. Though you will see familiar things in past games like the monsters, items, and characters, this game is not an action rpg, the battles are run automatically. It is meant to be enjoyed in a short amount of time.

Battles are in front view perspective and you can set them to battle automatically or manually.

 

 

A new feature since the Closed Open Beta, is the "VR Battle Arena" which allows one to compete against a CPU of the other player's party. You can enter the Battle Arena after level 10. 

 

 

 Sakai at Korea Interview

Sakai was interviewed by THIS IS GAME, a Korean gaming news site, and commented about Phantasy Star and the future of the series. However, these ideas are concepts that he may or may not go through with.

Shougai had the interview in Japanese which I guess they translated from Korean.

  • They plan to start Alpha Test 2 in early 2012, PSO2 was originally supposed to release in 2011, but during the first alpha test, they had some trouble with the game servers. They decided to push back the release of the game to spend more time fixing it.
  • They know that PvP is important to Korean players, but in Japan, the demand for PvP is not as high. In the Japanese version, PvP won't be added initially after the game starts. But when they officially decide on doing a Korean version, then they may think about adding PvP in.
  • Interrupt Events, where they appear, when they occur, and the chances they may occur are all completely random, even the developers can't predict when they happen. 
  • He can't say yet what the game's official specs are, he's still investigating about widening the range (of the graphical capabilities) as much as possible, and certainly, DirectX 9 is supported.

And for the most interesting part, THIS IS GAME asked what will become of the console games for the series?

  • There's no need for you to worry, the Phantasy Star Series will continue to develop.

It sounds like we may be getting new games in the Phantasy Star Series aimed at console gamers.

  • PC Gamers: Phantasy Star Online 2
  • Handheld Gamers: Phantasy Star Victory [Tentative Title]
  • Casual Gamers: Phantasy Star Eternal Planets
  • Console Gamers: Phantasy Star [Title Unknown?]

 

DEEP

Phantasy Star Universe has a brand new song. This song is for Seabed Relics, an area that was released in Phantasy Star Portable 2, but at the time it used an older pre-existing song. On twitter EspioKaos asked the name of the song, but Hideaki Kobayashi didn't finish deciding on a title yet, but thinks he'd could use the word DEEP in there.

This of course is really leading Shougai to speculate a new album like "Songs of Gurhal Oddysey" might be in the works, but in a previous twitter post Hideaki Kobayashi said they haven't decided on making an album yet.

[via shougai]

Phantasy Star Online 2 Starting Weapon Concepts

Ricardo 10 Comments

Sakai updated today about his first trip to Korea and the second revolution as explained below. I'm guessing you shouldn't expect much new information until he's finished with these three revolutions.

 

Revolution 2: High Action Online RPG

The idea of this revolution started by asking if it was possible to take the same level of action from console games and place them into an Online RPG. Even though the Phantasy Star series has added action characteristics like Guard and Evasion, PSO2 has finally added the ability to Jump to the table.

 

 

By introducing Jump, different gameplay tactics can be utilized. You can jump and attack aerial enemies and can even give the final blow while in the air. You can also jump on higher terrain to snipe at enemies. 

 

The game also for the first time in the series utilizes a Third Person Shooter mechanic known as TPS Style. Now you're able to move freely while shooting. In addition you can aim precisely at an enemy's weakpoint during battle, or even shoot at eggs the enemies drop from the sky.

PSO2 also has three classes which have a characteristic that's different from each other. In particular, the urgent evasion (how you evade attacks), is distinct by each class.

The Hunter class is for close combat and their evasive maneuver is called "Step." It allows them to reach behind the enemy very quickly.

Rangers are for mid-range combat and they focus mainly on shooting weapons. Rangers use special bullets to help out Hunters, and provide backup support for the entire party. Their evasion is called the "Dive Roll", allowing them to leap out of the way.

Forces are for long range combat, they have various roles like support, attack, and recovery. Forces have an evasive maneuver called "Mirage Escape", which has a longer duration of invincibility.

 

 Your playstyle changes based on each weapon category too. 

For example, all classes have access to the Gunslash, that lets you shoot and attack from the same weapon.

 

Hunters (at the time of the alpha test) have access to two exclusive weapon categories. Swords can attack surrounding enemies with it's wide attack range.

 

Then there is the Wired Lance that can swing around and throw enemies. 

 

Rangers have exclusive access to the Assault Rifle. It allows them to shoot at long distances, aim for a weakpoint in TPS style, and have access to special bullets. 

 

Forces have rods which they can charge, use technics, and do physical attacks striking the enemy with the weapon itself.

Of course these aren't the only weapon categories for PSO2. What other weapon types will be revealed in the future?

In PSO2, player levels are no more, instead the level of your character is dependent on your class level. By leveling your class, you can apply various skills to open up different features for battle. 

PSO2 also allows one to play with keyboard and mouse, or gamepad, but since neither of these methods were fully complete in the first alpha test, you should expect more improvements in these controlling methods for the second alpha test. 

 

Starting Weapon Concepts!

Today's porori images are the starting weapon concepts for PSO2.

 

Gunslash

 

Sword

 

Wired Lance

 

Assault Rifle

 

Rod

 They will become cooler when you acquire rare weapons!

 

Email Newsletter Signups!

Based on popular demand from Twitter, you are now able to signup for the glorious PSO2 Newsletter for free. You are required to have a SEGA ID, so please use the SEGA ID Signup page if you don't already have one. Please Note: You will need to have basic knowledge of Katakana to sign into the PSO2 Newsletter page.  Those that sign up will also be randomly selected for a spot in the 2nd Alpha Test.

 

 Sakai in Korea

Last Wednesday through Saturday, Sakai took a trip with PSO2 Director Kimura to Korea. They set up their booth at G*Star, a Korean Online Games Show. But wait? Is PSO2 announced for Korea? I'm sure it looks this way at first glance but actually this was just an exhibition. Sakai states that currently they have not yet decided if they will release the game in Korea. And even so, the game hasn't even officially released yet in Japan. 

 

The booth was quite small, they only had 8 stations available, so there were many people waiting in lines. 

 

Here's Kimura eating a chili pepper! Spicy!

 

PSO2: A Brief Recap

Ricardo 24 Comments

Phantasy Star Korea!

Some minor things happened this weekend, firstly Sega attended the G-Star 2011, a Korean Game Show, and showcased a localized Korean version of Phantasy Star Online 2. This version is based on the Tokyo Game Show 2011 version. The news article from Games Watch wrote that the Korean's interest for the game was pretty high and they had long waiting lines to the booth.

 

The article mentioned, "The game plans to officially start in Japan in 2012. It's undecided if the game will open in other areas including Korea." As we already know, the 2nd Alpha Test version will start early next year. As was brought up in the article, it looks like Sakai is aiming for 10,000 simultaneous connections (compared to 6,000 in the first alpha test.)

Sakai also plans to bring PSO2 to another event before the end of the year.

 

 

The Language of the Oracle

Shougai wrote up an interesting article deciphering the text around the lobby. The Arks utilize a custom font which corresponds to a letter in the alphabet. From this, the following text was found:

  • Item Shop
  • Weapon Shop
  • Costume Shop
  • Weapon Shop
  • Disk Shop
  • Peony
  • Quest Counter
  • Departure
  • Arks Counter
  • Quest Board

So this shall solidify the correct spelling of the "ARKS" as well as introduce "PEONY" into the PSO2 world. What is PEONY? We're not sure, but possibly it is for the makeup counter.

 PSO2: A Brief Recap

Today Sakai discusses information that was touched upon in the Media Briefing last July. They are the three revolutions of Phantasy Star Online 2. Not much new information though, sorry!

Revolution 1: Infinite Adventure

By making PSO2 a completely new game, he wants players to feel the sense of pleasure, surprise, and discovery of playing an online game in the same way as they did when they first started Phantasy Star Online all those years ago. They're aiming for the feeling of "adventure," a concept that seems to be lost in today's RPG.

 

First, one of the new systems to incorporate this concept is the "Random Fields." Each time you play, it gives the sensation of a different area. Except for some typographical features at the goal of your quest, the route from start to finish and the enemy appearance is generated at random.

 

In addition, PSE (Photon Sensitive Effect) gives the player levels of various effects that include increasing your attacking power as you defeat enemies. At the final level of PSE, it becomes a PSE BURST. Large quantities of enemies may appear and the chances of getting a rare item increases.

 

The Interrupt Event invokes sudden various things to occur during game play. For example, from relatively simple events like, "defeating a number of specific enemies" "gather keys to open a door" to, "protect an aircraft that crashed until its repairs are completed." Yes, even the difficulty can change based on the strength of enemies, and the location it occurs.

 

In the past games, you could have up to 6 players in the party, but Phantasy Star Online 2 incorporates a maximum of 4 people in a party. But now, you can actually meet other parties and have up to 12 players in a multi-party area. It has been misunderstood that you could only have 3 parties together, but in reality if 1 person is in each party, you can essentially have 12 parties playing together.

So we have Random Fields, Interrupt Events, Photon Sensitive Effect, and Multi-party Area, each system is complexly intertwined with each other that  changes the situations that occur.  As if it were a brilliant table-top RPG game-master, PSO2 allows you to enjoy a different adventure each time!

*Please note the images are representation of the first alpha test version of Phantasy Star Online 2. It is not the current representation now since the 2nd Alpha test version is releasing later on.

Ah a new PORORI image. (My friend explained this term means something that suddenly slips, like the Janet Jackson incident…) this time it is the concept art of the ウーダン Udan (Woodan) or however you want to spell it. It has various appearance patterns and actions.

 

A monkey-like enemy from the planet Naberius.

 

ザウーダン Zaudan Concept

 

Shino Ver. APSY

Mizuno, from the art team (who pretty much does all the concept art for the games) drew this box art for the new Plastic Modelling Kit Shino. Sakai takes out his own modelling kit and touches on some of the details this one has included:

  • Agito
  • H&S 25 Justice
  • Beryl Knuckles
  • Mag Varaha

And look her skirt is painted this time!

 

Project Diva Extend

For Hatsune Miku Project Diva Extend,  in addition to this Nagisa Repca outfit for that game, Luka sings the Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity Theme Song on the pre-order bonus CD!