dreamcast phantasy star online question...

[bradjewell]

Is there a reason to buy this game?

Can you play it without playing online..

are there any servers still up?

 

Brad

[Kialan]

It has an offline mode. There are many quests to do also. There are Normal, Hard, Very Hard, and Ultimate (v2 only) modes of difficulty.

 

 

I played it online when it came out. It can get a bit repetitive. Searching for rares is a big thing, not much storyline once you play it through a lot.

 

As far as I know, there are no servers up anymore, since the death of the Dreamcast. It is one of the great games for the console though. Get it.

 

Any more specific questions? I know all about the game, ins and outs.

[bradjewell]

thanks a ton man...

since you're answering questions...

 

which version do you suggest version 2 or the first one?

 

Brad

[chrisbid]

its out there for under five bucks, while you may not play it until you get to level 100, it is quite fun for at least one run through on normal difficulty.

[Kialan]

Version 2 was basically a big patch the the previous game, to thwart hackers and cheaters who modded weapons, characters etc.

 

V2 adds the following:

-Ultimate difficulty. It is pretty difficult too especially for forces (magic users) offline.

-Extended level max from 100 to 200.

-Turns the character's name from white to orangish yellow

-Adds online battle mode, and S-Rank (weapon reward) challenges/ Only playable online, unfortunately.

-Certain downloadable quests are v2 only (once again not available officially from sega anymore. I have like 3 saved to one of my vmus)

-New WEAPONS, new Rares, and the definition of 'special weapon?' items have changed. Basically the extremely common weapons that were previously marked as special are not anymore and don't have to be "tekkered" (identified)

-New enemies and rare enemies.

-New mags I'm pretty sure (pets who boost your stats)

-New look of Pioneer 2 headquarters (golden brown instead of greyish blue)

-Higher stats for characters, this goes with the lvl 200 thing.

-Characters take longer to load at the char select screen.

-Ability to change your clothes and look, as long as you have 100,000 meseta handy at the char select screen. This is called the Dressing Room. Previously in v1, once you created your char you could never change your look again.

-There was something about it being more difficult to hack but I've forgot the specifics as it's been so long. Hacking was only a problem online.

-With v2 you had to pay-to-play online, and v1 was still free.

 

EDIT: Also:

-Technique (spells) levels were extended from 15 max to 30. These cast extremely fast !

-There is a new quick-switch menu feature for quickly using items, spells, or switching weapons, instead of having to go through the start menu each time.

[bradjewell]

I went ahead and ordered v1, it was a little cheaper...

 

thanks a lot kialan and chris...

 

i look foward to playing it...

ive never played a dreamcast, but i got one on its way to me.. ;o)

 

Brad

[Kialan]

There was also something to prevent character loss, or item loss, which plagued the online experience. Basically hackers could FSOD (frozen screen of death) you, and you'd have to turn the system off (bad for PSO) and you'd load your character up again and you'd lose all your unequipped items.

 

PSO v2 saves after pretty much everything, like banking, shopping, going to diff. levels, etc. V1 only saved when you quit.

[AtariYoungin]

There were some home servers being set up, I don't know how far they are these day. About 5 months ago they had it so you could enter the lobby area. Should do a search on the fourm for em. You should be able to find it.

[SteveW]

I got my character to something like level 97. It was a total freakin' nightmare killing Dark Falz on Hard level, so I would go through the Ruins in the Very Hard level, and then quit before facing Dark Falz. I just didn't have the guts to spend so much time and frustration killing him on Very Hard level.

 

I bought the GameCube version, but haven't defeated Dark Falz on Hard mode. I just lost interest, going through the same levels on two different consoles. And Episode II's monsters seem a lot tougher, so I didn't play it that much. I just got tired of constantly trying to level up.

 

PSO is a fun game offline. You can play it for months and months before getting tired of it. I've never tried playing it online. I'd rather have a null modem cable to play directly against another console.

[chrisbid]

Dark Falz is a wuss at that point. It takes some time, but its not hard. Plus if you save up your scape dolls, then youll have no problem whatsoever

[SteveW]

I guess i'll have to go after Dark Falz again. I'd like to see what kind of stuff there is to find in Ultimate mode.

 

When I fought De Rol Le, the boss in the Caves, it took forever, and I got nervous about fighting the boss in the Mines. So i'd clear out the Mines over and over, but not fight the boss. I kept chickening out. I ended up leveling up pretty high while in the Mines, though. Eventually, I decided to check the boss out, so I deposited my money and chose a crappy weapon that I didn't mind losing when I got killed (Shock Mechguns), and fought him. I destroyed him on my first try, barely taking any hits in the process. They really screwed up on the difficulty on those bosses. De Rol Le should have been the boss in the Mines, and the Mine boss should have been at the end of the Caves. The difficulty level would be more balanced that way.

[Trooper]

I don't know if this is interesting at all but I'll post it anyway

 

http://dcog.netfirms.com/

 

/Troop

[moycon]

Didnt I read somewhere that you couldnt play the game online if you bought it used? Is this true? I'm guessing that if it was it wouldn't affect offline play...right?

[goatdan]

I think that was true about Phantasy Star Online if the previous owner went online with it. You need to make ure that you have a key with it to use it though. Any key will work as long as it hasn't been registered to your Dreamcast already, I think.

[Kialan]

If a previous owner went online with it, you would have to call Sega of America to get the serials reset server-side. It was really an issue in that your specific dreamcast was registered online, and if yours broke down from heavy use and you bought a new one you'd have to get the serials reset. So yes different dreamcasts was the issue. It only affects online play.

 

Oh yeah if you got a different copy of the game you'd have to use a Net Browser and a button combo to reset the internal memory, erasing the registered serial. (you can't play one cd on two consoles, but you can play your characters on a friend's console, just not online) This was the offline issue.

 

Btw, I forgot:

V2 adds lobbies 11-15 online, which are like giant soccer fields. You could choose which ball you want to kick around, with characters from chu chu rocket, a bomb, and a beach ball. The game did keep score of goals. It would be really funny when the game lagged (connection issues) and ...the ball would jump around, and you'd think you'd have it but the game just didn't get the information that another player stole it 2 minutes ago. Fun stuff.