Having played this game for nearly 8 years, it saddens me to say that I cannot recommend this game to new players.

In 2013, SEGA announced that we would see a western release for this game after giving us the launch trailer and a preview at E3. Sadly, the port/project was halted and we were met with radio silence for 7 years. When we finally did get our 'global' release, it felt odd, like something was missing. Ah yes, many things were missing, many things were broken, and many things were completely ignored or neglected.

Let's start with something very basic: How ports work.

PSO2 in Japan was made for and released on the PC; it then was given a port to Vita, and finally PS4.

Why did I bring this up?

Well, let's talk about the state of Microsoft in Japan. While one would think that Microsoft should be big in Japan given that many computers run Windows these days, and admittedly, when PSO2 JP was released, it was created for Windows; The Xbox platform, console sales, etc. have consistently failed to make a market in Japan where Sony and Nintendo are king.

Why does this matter?

If you think about why ports work it's because there are proper logistics, funding, and planning behind the port itself. With this port however, it is very clear where it falls short in comparison to the other platforms the game was ported to. That's not to say that Microsoft doesn't have the funding, as we can clearly see, however, I must question the planning behind such a chaotic release, and the many issues the game has had even up 'til now.

Collectively, I have around 5,000 hours on this game.

Steam does not have the hours I put into PSO2 from my time on the JP server, however, I want to elaborate on a few things that way many of you can understand the current state of this game. I started playing PSO2 around Halloween of 2013. I've seen many, many events, shops, collaborations, scratches, concerts, etc. that the global release never got, and probably will never get.

PSO2 has 8 years of content, and while the accelerated schedule may have seemed to be a good idea on paper, well, scratch that, the whole idea of an accelerated schedule for a game with 8 years of content is a horrible idea on paper, in theory, and as we can see, in practice! Who would have thought!

Many of the shops and scratches (I'm looking at you, SG support scratch.) were released on a schedule in tandem with the content and appropriate difficulty. Global on the other hand, gets the SG support scratch, an AC support scratch, and 4 different fashion scratches with nearly all the content released in global so far with, get this, an unknown expiration date! But wait! Why would the developers do this after we've all grinded this game from launch and put so much time into affixing and creating nearly perfect equipment?

The game is dead, and the developers are killing it for good.

It seems there are plenty of people in denial about this statement, however, I'm not sure that even a picture of a gravestone on the login screen would convince them at this point.

Listen, I defended this game when it was released. I heard many people say that this was a cash grab from the get-go, and I defended it, saying that this game was a new release for global players and it would be appropriate to treat it as such, but boy was I wrong, and let me tell you, it's humbling. Imagine playing this game for nearly 1,900 hours on global, planning out your endgame affixes from Eps. 1-3, spending money on scratch tickets to make your character look amazing, ASSUMING that there would be some sort of exclusivity from these scratches and limited-time AC support scratches for your affixes, all to have them re-released less than a year later in a pack with EVERYTHING, not to mention the free reward ticket for every 10 - 20 scratches. I can recall some scratches where there was no reward ticket for nearly 40 scratches, but these, with these scratches, you can get almost ANYTHING you want for less than half of that! It's not upsetting so much as it is disappointing to say the least.

Affixing? Easy! Just spend money on the AC support tickets! You can buy fodders for nearly nothing at this point because of cradle farming, which is great for newer players when you think about it, but wait, when people start a game, namely MMOs, or in this case, a Pseudo-MMO, there's usually some kind of content to grind for, or upcoming content to prepare for, right? Of course! Well, actually, you missed it! But you can still basically treat this as a single-player game with a very mixed story. (cough Looking at you Ep. 5)

Let me point out exactly how this game is dead:

-There is no more upcoming content, ever. (Unless you like spending money on scratch items)
-There will be no more login campaign bonuses.
-There will no longer be a mission pass.
-There will no longer be a fresh finds shop.
-Recycled festival/holiday events will be introduced to the game on a set schedule rather than having direct developer involvement. (This part is semi-speculation, but with the announcement regarding the schedule and the developers being much more involved with NGS, this is HIGHLY likely to be the case.)
-There will be no more scheduled urgent quests, meaning you have NO CHOICE but to turn to farming triggers to get materials for certain items you may want.
-There are no more features for returning players.
-The friend referral system is shutting down. Oh wow look at that, no more incentives to invite your friends into playing this game because NGS is the new wave. Oh right, even the devs wonder why you'd invite your friends to a dying game. Checkmate denialists.

Oh but that's not all! Let me point out the things newer players will experience coming to this game.

-Hyperinflation. (The market is PSO2 is WILD. There are items from scratches released less than 2 weeks ago that are going for ridiculously high amounts, and legacy items? Think 4, 5, or even 6 times higher than that.) The economy is not going to stabilize for a long time given that the only people really investing in AC items are whales now that making meseta is fast and easy. While I don't consider myself a whale, I've spent an undisclosed amount of money on this game and have quite a bit of meseta accumulated over the span of this game's life cycle.
-Horrible pubs. (Good luck finding a good party to clear content with if you're behind. Here are a few quests I guarantee you will struggle finding a party to run with: Buster quests, magatsu, TD (Mining bases 1, 2, 3, and probably 4), Deus, Mother, Luther (not omega), and pretty much anything before ep. 6)
-No upcoming content. (There are few things a new player can look forward to now. Before, we had the story, urgent quests, holiday events, collab events, login bonuses, and a lot of other content coming out.

Now, 4 types of gamers remain:

-Depth gamers (Gamers who run depths: which is basically the same fight over and over and over again, but with more health. 100 times! Fun.)
-Endless gamers (Gamers who run endless quests: which is basically the same fights over and over and over again, but in no particular order. Until the timer runs out! Or until you die! A bit more fun than depths.)
-Masquerade gamers (Gamers who run masquerade: which is basically the same fight over and over and over again, but with more health. 999 times! Fun.)
-Fashion gamers (Gamers who buy scratch items and afk in the lobby)

Yes, you'll have the few occasional players that genuinely grind content regularly in the game, but at this point, even checking the charts for PSO2, you can see just how low the playerbase has gotten.

I'm not sure how else to spell this out, but with NGS right around the corner, I highly suggest newer players just wait for its release and start then if you're considering putting any serious amount of time into this game.