If you are a PSO veteran you will find an issue with PSO2 aesthethics. Here is why...

[Reia]

I've been playing PSO since I was 12 and now I am 32 years old. The game combines a bit of dark space fantasy with cyberpunk blade runner aspects with good old 80s and 90s style influence. Meanwhile PSO2 is a completely different game focused on colorful and TV japanese anime style themes and tropes everywhere. And if you were a western fan of PSO you might feel conflicted and sometimes cringed with the direction of PSO2, specially in EP4.

You might find this is one of the predominant reasons why this game never came to the west? Then yes you guessed right but it wasn't the only reason. For it I'll talk a bit about PSO1's development.

It all started since the Sega Saturn days when SEGA wanted to get into the online games market on console since they are a total blast on PC. Forgive me as I am not good remembering japanese names so I'll name them by roles, the future to become producer of PSO wanted it originally to be a coop game, which resulted to be "Burning Rangers!", but the online didn't work so they made it a single player game instead. But they still took the game engine and moved it to a new title Which originally wasn't going to be Phantasy Star Related, they took inspiration mostly from the Diablo franchise from Blizzard. Which he said "Diablo 1 and 2 are such a fun coop experience Action RPG, but sadly it's westernized aesthethics doesn't make it appealing for the japanese people, I want to make a game like Diablo but for Japan!" and that's how the initial idea began for an action RPG instead but still taking the cooperative focus (Unlike Diablo that was a solo game with ocasional coop, PSO would feature more roughened situations where players would have to work together to level up and beat the game). Why am I getting so long with this? Because Diablo WAS A HUGE INFLUENCE IN THE GAME'S DIRECTION. Originally it was suppossed to be a Dark Fantasy medieval setting game, until SONIC TEAM's Daddy Yuji Naka came and said you are making a dark game? Why not use phantasy star? It is very popular on SEGA and it is dark on it's own! And that's how it got later shaped into PSO.

This game featured dark themes and future sci fi like mentioned, the game launched but they didn't got the expected results they wanted (During this times it was the downfall of SEGA, they needed big hit success with this title or otherwise the company would face serious issues, which is what happenned with PSO and many of the franchises that were working at the same time). Japanese sales were much lower than their anticipation but they had unexpectedly huge sales on the west, but it wasn't enough. In the end they failed on their goal of making a Diablo game for the japanese, not only people found it "Too spooky and unnerving for their taste" also the development team was uneasy with the style of the game, and said next time we will make the next game more colorful and bright anime themed but we don't want to upset the fanbase so they made PSU instead! (Even the game featured an offline storymode that it's presentation and storytelling was like a 10 episode anime show with each episode having cuts, openings, and endings, etc.)

PSU launched around 5 to 6 years later, respecting the wish of the development team they went for a more of a SONIC TEAM like game. The game was a MASSIVE SUCCESS in japan! But it got SERIOUS BACKLASH IN THE WEST! Why? Well let's talk now how was PSO in the west!

PSO launched in 2000, and it was a huge hit, during this time it was known as a "Dark Age" for online MMOs, all their models were getting old and dated, with games like ultima online, runescape, etc. When PSO came westerners loved it! Basically because it is like Diablo but better (And those with unfamiliar with Diablo really liked how the game was an improved version of it on it's own rights!). This made PSO a cult classic for online gamers, but this success only lasted for 4 years, with the game that ended the dark age of MMOs. World of Warcraft! After WoW's release it only took 1 year for PSO's west subscription to plummet down massively and shut down the server due to not having enough playerbase for SEGA to consider profitable enough to hold the servers.

Now PSU comes and veterans get excited, only to find out it's nothing like PSO, saying "Why this game turned into some Weaboo garbage!?" being confused at the massive change in direction the game took in favour of the staff, this became clear that "What the westerners wanted isn't what the development team wanted to take on". Sum up this with the facts that SEGA is in tatters in 2006, they can't produce a game that can compete with WoW in terms of gameplay and most westerners just called the game bad becuase they compared it with WoW, and also called it bad because it didn't share the dark themes of PSO.

This is where SEGA 5 years later decided to pull off the attention off the west, they concluded the facts that:
1. They know what the westerners want but our dev team don't want to make a game with the same style as PSO, it was too stressful to develop.
2. Japanese people didn't like PSO as much as they liked PSU, and the japanese sales were abysmally high, meaning japanese audience takes priority first.
3. Even if they could give attention to the west, it would be too costly and risky, due to their mainstream competitor Blizzard Games who they don't have any hopes of beating them in the western market.

They did release some phantasy star games before PSO2 but they only came out in japan, I think they were 4 total. (PSPo2, PSPo2i and a reboot of the original Phantasy Star 1 and 2)

1 year later PSO2 gets announced and everyone is hyped. The PSO producer (please if anyone remembers his name tell me because I forgot!) wanted to finally make a sequel to PSO2 as a vice-producer, and worked with Sakai who was in PSO the main game designer, mostly credited for
it's memorable monster designs and PSU's producer. To go back to it's darker themes, but not as edgy as the original but a game that would appease both east and west. The game not only was going to be out in english but also in multiple languages like spanish, french, german, etc.

But then close to the release the PSO producer left SEGA, reasons not disclosed, sounded like personal issues mostly. This actually broken the hopes of the game taking a direction for global, since they were planning to make it as two sepparate content for global and japan, without him they felt like they wouldnt be able to do it and pulled it back, leaving our notable silence. There is also the fact that SEGA was very concerned of the fall of the MMO genre and wanted it to play it more safe and stay in japan only, which allowed Sakai as now taking full producer role to make the game more appeasing for the japanese people with more content relatable to their culture.

So in the end we have PSO2 and this is why it is so different from PSO. Hopefully you would be able to understand that it wasn't that PSO became goofy, but rather PSO was a Black Sheep in SONIC TEAM (now known as the PHANTASY STAR TEAM), and they did want to work games following their usual vibe instead. So there is nothing wrong with disliking it because it is more colorful and anime, as we are not gonna get an anime style dark space fantasy with a diablo like vibe again.

A fun anecdote is that PSO2 Episode 4 is the most successful thing that happenned to SEGA in a long time, and most westerners hated it! Because they thought it was isekai and some other kind of anime trending topics that are extremely cringe for the west (thou in my honest opinion EP4 is pretty good! It just started very rough with both gameplay and story presentation at the beggining). And the Dev team is absolutely proud of their direction since this is what they wanted for a phantasy star game.

As a closing message to this long story, I want to tell that as someone who spent 20 years since PSO's original release on the dreamcast, PSO2 is the most PSO game ever. Both in gameplay and as an experience, it has all that made PSO but expanded upon. It was hard even for me to get used to the changes of this game brought over the original until i came to understand the whole history and decided to see it with a more broaded mindset. Now that you understand why they became like "this"... You are free to decide if you want to accept PSO2 as it is or not. Worth a try at the end, specially when EP5 and 6 comes but If you feel they betrayed your expectations and don't want to play it because of that you are free to don't accept it and move over. PSO is still an unforgettable memory after all!

[Ryoga]

While I prefer the tone of the original PSO over PSU/PSO2 that's not what is really off putting. It's the change to content structure and certain game elements (like weapon design) where they really screwed up.

Originally posted by Reia:

their mainstream competitor Blizzard Games who they don't have any hopes of beating them in the western market

I don't think WoW is really the competitor here, WoW is an MMORPG while PSO was a 1-4 player co-op RPG with an online mode. If anything the closest western "competitor" would be Borderlands. The lack of a proper successor for PSO left a market niche which was unfilled until the release of Borderlands 1 back in 2009.

Many people got into Borderlands because of its similarities with PSO including one of the most prominent content creators for the Borderlands franchise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KKITpdJBwM

Originally posted by Reia:

PSO2 is the most PSO game ever.

No, I wish but that's not the case at all. The closest thing you can get to this day is still Borderlands. It's as if they made first person gameplay based on the Ranger class and cranked up the cynicism to 11. Everything else is pretty much as close to the original PSO as it gets. PSO2 doesn't even come close. If anything:

"PSO2 is the most PSU game ever. Both in gameplay and as an experience, it has all that made PSU but expanded upon."

[Ronnie42]

I don't get it..........the designs were great just like when I played the first PSO on the original Xbox, with PSU on the 360. My only issues are mainly the gambling systems forcing to grinds to unlocks and smaller hub places compared to previous games. Plus keep hoping they don't keep needing 2 different launchers for the game on PC.

[Reia]

Originally posted by Ryoga:

While I prefer the tone of the original PSO over PSU/PSO2 that's not what is really off putting. It's the change to content structure and certain game elements (like weapon design) where they really screwed up.

Originally posted by Reia:

their mainstream competitor Blizzard Games who they don't have any hopes of beating them in the western market

I don't think WoW is really the competitor here, WoW is an MMORPG while PSO was a 1-4 player co-op RPG with an online mode. If anything the closest western "competitor" would be Borderlands. The lack of a proper successor for PSO left a market niche which was unfilled until the release of Borderlands 1 back in 2009.

Many people got into Borderlands because of its similarities with PSO including one of the most prominent content creators for the borderlands franchise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KKITpdJBwM

Originally posted by Reia:

PSO2 is the most PSO game ever.

No, I wish but that's not the case at all. The closest thing you can get to this day is still Borderlands. It's as if they made first person gameplay based on the Ranger class and cranked up the cynicism to 11. Everything else is pretty much as close to the original PSO as it gets. PSO2 doesn't even come close. If anything:

"PSO2 is the most PSU game ever. Both in gameplay and as an experience, it has all that made PSU but expanded upon."

Well it is a fact that the devs looked constantly up for blizzard for their references for online games as the they said. They didn't even knew borderlands back in the PSU development days.

It was less of a case of WoW vs PSO but rather WoW vs every single online game out there. The narrow minded choice of players made sense, because both were subscription based games and it was down to how they would invest their monthly 15 dollars better!

I do agree that borderlands also is very much a PSO inspired game made for the westerners just like PSO was diablo for the japanese, but that is just my own theory territory there, I do not know much of it's development since Gearbox studios doesn't let devs disclose much, I wish there were interviews with the original borderlands devs, would be cool to hear.

One thing that also has facts and outright quotes is Monster Hunter. The first game was massively inspired from PSO and you can notice all it's references on it's classic games. (However many of this PSO like features were removed in World's release due to their process of streamlining the game for the western audience, you'll find a lot of content from MH to MH4U share a ton of PSO features.)



I also decided to take myself a bit out of the way and look in the internet some information regarding PSO development but there isn't much translated in english but there is this interviews that can be used to cross referenced with the anecdotes im talking about how much I know on PSO's development.

https://www.polygon.com/interviews/2020/8/2/21348946/phantasy-star-online-director-diablo-cut-features-christmas-nights

TAKAO MIYOSHI! Thats the guy whose name I forgot! Ill try my best to remember it now.

https://www.polygon.com/interviews/2020/7/26/21332950/yuji-naka-sega-phantasy-star-online-20th-anniversary


I also suggest watching if you are bored and still waiting for PSO2's release for tomorrow Maximillian Dood's PSO2 analysis video as well, he is good at describing the PSO2 and PSO experience without much knowledge and actually shed some light on things I didn't mention too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-ex-ONEyG8

Originally posted by Ronnie42:

I don't get it..........the designs were great just like when I played the first PSO on the original Xbox, with PSU on the 360. My only issues are mainly the gambling systems forcing to grinds to unlocks and smaller hub places compared to previous games. Plus keep hoping they don't keep needing 2 different launchers for the game on PC.

This mostly related to their monetization program change, the game became Free to Play, formerly PSO and PSU were subscription based like WoW or FF14 with a mandatory 15 dollars per month payment to even play those games, the subscription based games had a much more awful RNG than actual PSO2 when it comes to getting stuff like fashion and other contents than weapons as well as things tied to seasonal events because SEGA really wanted you to pay that subscription money. of course this model worked great for them since they know one of the reasons PSU wasn't Number 1 like some other MMOs were because you had to pay to even see the game, and the Episode 1 introduction was a bit lackluster for an offline player to consider the online.

As for PSU it had the total opposite issue than PSO2, lack of tutorials online, they had one when you create your character with a certain story character based on your character's race introduce you to basic mechanics but mostly they thought the whole story of Ethan Waber to be a giant tutorial, but many people skipped it. Without this knowledge it was rough to understand how unlocks worked in PSU.

[Ikagura]

Nice Borderlands comparison but honestly I wish Gearbox didn't mess up their series....

[Reia]

You could also say that borderlands was inspired from Diablo, their green and blue variations are akin to the blue and green weapons in the Diablo games. So you could also theorize that instead of being inspired from PSO, both PSO and Borderlands were inspired from the same game. Then again unlike PSO I do not know much about the development of that game so it's all theory i'm saying about this.

[Set]

That was a good read and it adds extra appeal to give PSO2 more of a chance, thank you OP.

Personally, as someone else who has also been playing PSO since the original Dreamcast version, I've been playing PSO2 already and it's a decent game.

My gripes with the game are that where I am in Ep1 story hasn't hooked me, it lacks the mystery or the original which I was immediately fascinated by. The other issue is the pace most players go because they are action spamming for movement is so fast that I don't enjoy playing the keep up game.

In saying that though, I plan to try playing it again tomorrow when this version launches. If it's not any better than the MS store version then I'll be using the Tweaker.

[GEL]

While I find your write up...questionable in a few areas I'll say this:

I like PSO's style the best, and I like PSO2's style second best. PSO1 has a very unique look that really reminded me of Phantasy Star 2 and I did like the darker look while still being quite anime. What I like about PSO2 is that it is over-the-top with its anime-ness. It's more anime than most anime these days.

And I HAAAAAAAAATED Phantasy Star Universe's style. It was just...BORING! It wasn't anime ENOUGH for me! Very representative of my issues with modern Japanese design in general really (like Under Night In-Birth. There are no interesting characters in that game! It's not anime enough!). The contrast between PSO2 and PSU is that while both are very colorful and anime, PSO2 is just extra ridiculous and I think that works to its benefit.

Heck, even Phantasy Star Zero, my favorite of the series, is kinda bland. Not as bad as PSU but not much better.

But it is worth mentioning that Universe was a massive screw up in many ways. The main reason it was made was to have a PSO game on PS2 and despite building it for PS2 it ran HORRIBLE on it. They also pretended to have content updates by locking content...and then they forgot about America, leaving us with ONE DUNGEON for MONTHS after launch. Also the combat was far more shallow and the netcode weirdly lacklustre among many other issues such as the weird character customization (there's barely any proportion edit because characters instantly get super fat if you move more than 5 pixels away from the center lines).

[Powerful Holy God]

PSO2 has generic anime fighting game graphics but thats why they are remaking the graphics with the new "genesis" version, so i wouldnt take PSO2 that seriously because genesis looks to be far superior

[Reia]

Originally posted by Set:

That was a good read and it adds extra appeal to give PSO2 more of a chance, thank you OP.

Personally, as someone else who has also been playing PSO since the original Dreamcast version, I've been playing PSO2 already and it's a decent game.

My gripes with the game are that where I am in Ep1 story hasn't hooked me, it lacks the mystery or the original which I was immediately fascinated by. The other issue is the pace most players go because they are action spamming for movement is so fast that I don't enjoy playing the keep up game.

In saying that though, I plan to try playing it again tomorrow when this version launches. If it's not any better than the MS store version then I'll be using the Tweaker.

Thanks! As for the EP1 not hooking is because it was made longer than intended, they should had shortened it, in reality I would had preferred the Chapters 9 and 10 to be left as the opening part of EP2 to don't prolong too long. EP1 actually makes better justice in EP5 and 6 which we won't see soonish as EP1 is just a massive set up for the events of those 2.

Originally posted by GEL:

While I find your write up...questionable in a few areas I'll say this:

I like PSO's style the best, and I like PSO2's style second best. PSO1 has a very unique look that really reminded me of Phantasy Star 2 and I did like the darker look while still being quite anime. What I like about PSO2 is that it is over-the-top with its anime-ness. It's more anime than most anime these days.

And I HAAAAAAAAATED Phantasy Star Universe's style. It was just...BORING! It wasn't anime ENOUGH for me! Very representative of my issues with modern Japanese design in general really (like Under Night In-Birth. There are no interesting characters in that game! It's not anime enough!). The contrast between PSO2 and PSU is that while both are very colorful and anime, PSO2 is just extra ridiculous and I think that works to its benefit.

Heck, even Phantasy Star Zero, my favorite of the series, is kinda bland. Not as bad as PSU but not much better.

But it is worth mentioning that Universe was a massive screw up in many ways. The main reason it was made was to have a PSO game on PS2 and despite building it for PS2 it ran HORRIBLE on it. They also pretended to have content updates by locking content...and then they forgot about America, leaving us with ONE DUNGEON for MONTHS after launch. Also the combat was far more shallow and the netcode weirdly lacklustre among many other issues such as the weird character customization (there's barely any proportion edit because characters instantly get super fat if you move more than 5 pixels away from the center lines).

Questionable reaction is fine because i am just talking out of what I remember across 20 years of my life that I seen the events and history of this franchise, they are not totally accurate as some parts of my memories are blurry about it (for example i couldn't remember Takao Miyoshi's name as the PSO director) and I forgot some extra details, you are always welcome to source any mistakes or things that are untrue because I haven't remembered them correctly. But that's how it was in and it is mostly rememberable, I did leave some posts of actual interviews that some topics of what I mentioned are on about if you would like to look for cross reference, I did read them and it lined up with many events I talked minus some details.

PSU also was plagued with bugs and exploits, poor event handling and NA tended to suffer the issue that their authenthication servers tended to die on a friday night or saturday and the staff wouldn't be back until monday to fix it, Making you wanting to stay online forever and if you ever logged off that means you woudn't get back in until the next monday. EN servers had very poor management. In reality it is unexcusable to leave a subscription based with such little staff to take care of the game, the amount of GMs and moderators was extremely lackluster which JP had a great number of them. The PS2 was mostly a poor man's choices for those who couldn't afford computers as well and it was very atrocious in performance, I can personally say I played PSU originally in PS2 because my PC couldn't run it even at 10 FPS, and then as soon as I got a newer rig I dumped the PS2 version entirely, after all it was crossplay so your character moved over.
This show how NA service was out of control for them at least on their side, Xbox which was in microsoft management like PSO2 is both for MStore and Steam had a much better service in comparison. The big bomb was Japan of course, if you played both servers all universe (lobbies) were 1 empty star and ocasionally a star on Universe 02, and 2 star and half for peak times, which possibly was 200-300 active players on PC EN, meanwhile JP had a full page of universes with 5 stars on their peak times in a very long duration.
As a game itself the idea was neat but the execution poor due to the low budget this game had compared to its competitors. Ethan waber's adventure is literally PSU in a nutshell and if you liked it or not would judge if you wanted to play PSU as your main online game or not. Like said you would be able to use the features brought to PSU to your own control and use for your amusement, or you would just think its bad and focus on how bad the story is (and gets worse when Laia gets introduced and moving onwards).

Originally posted by Powerful Holy God:

PSO2 has generic anime fighting game graphics but thats why they are remaking the graphics with the new "genesis" version, so i wouldnt take PSO2 that seriously because genesis looks to be far superior

Well it is the Microsoft influence in this title, they looking for a direction that appeases the west now and they found the sweet spot using Xenoblade X and above aesthethics and more action dynamic from modern AAA games for their combat as a reference. The generic anime look like I said so much in this thread is becuase what SONIC TEAM enjoys, they were a bit unsettled with the whole Dark Space Fantasy Theme. So think it not as it got worse, think it more as they accidently made the game too dark for their taste and didn't want to ever work on somethiing like that again because it's not the comfort zone of the development team.

[ScoobyDum]

Good to see original dreamcast players still around. Still got my PSO-World forum account from back in the day.

Oh the fun it was importing V2 and walking around with that golden name months before anyone else could in the US.

[Ikagura]

Dark fantasy in general don't sell that well...

[Remnar]

PSO1 did well because it was fun and different. It was the first 3D MMO on the Dreamcast (to my knowledge). PSO1 combat was fun. Progression was fun, and difficult. It was worth grinding the same thing over and over to find that rare that allowed you to progress even further, eventually into Ultimate where monsters looked different and were super hard to defeat. I really don't get that in PSO2. Ruins in PSO2 is a joke. It's not even ruins like it was in PSO1, but remants of a fight that occured a few decades ago in the story. Big woop. In PSO1, the Ruins were real, alien, and contained a dark secret. The music also made it wonderful.

[Ryoga]

Originally posted by Reia:

So you could also theorize that instead of being inspired from PSO, both PSO and Borderlands were inspired from the same game.

Like you said we don't exactly know what inspired Borderlands but Borderlands has definitely more in common with PSO than Diablo. The setting is pretty much the same: it's futuristic Si-Fi and you're on a planet where some immortal evil space god monster is sealed away. In both games you're some kind of mercenary that works for cash and there are militaristic forces that want to use the situation for their benefit. The way how Dark Falz (PSO) and the Destroyer are portrayed is pretty much identical which stands in sharp contrast to how the multiple versions of Dark Falz are portrayed in PSO2.

Originally posted by Reia:

it always been an ENDLESS GRIND game since the first one

The grind isn't the issue, the issue is the power creep. The original PSO had very little power creep after you reached the ultimate mode. The Frozen Shooter you found in forest never stopped being useful, same with many other items. I always found that this horizontal approach to item design was vastly superior to the standard power creep version which only really makes sense for traditional single player RPGs. It looks like they only regressed to the bad system in order to push people to buy more upgrade items for real money (well either that or they're just incompetent).

[Curious Mando]

Originally posted by Ryoga:

Originally posted by Reia:

So you could also theorize that instead of being inspired from PSO, both PSO and Borderlands were inspired from the same game.

Like you said we don't exactly know what inspired Borderlands but Borderlands has definitely more in common with PSO than Diablo. The setting is pretty much the same: it's futuristic Si-Fi and you're on a planet where some immortal evil space god monster is sealed away. In both games you're some kind of mercenary that works for cash and there are militaristic forces that want to use the situation for their benefit. The way how Dark Falz (PSO) and the Destroyer are portrayed is pretty much identical which stands in sharp contrast to how the multiple versions of Dark Falz are portrayed in PSO2.

Originally posted by Reia:

it always been an ENDLESS GRIND game since the first one

The grind isn't the issue, the issue is the power creep. The original PSO had very little power creep after you reached the ultimate mode. The Frozen Shooter you found in forest never stopped being useful, same with many other items. I always found that this horizontal approach to item design was vastly superior to the standard power creep version which only really makes sense for traditional single player RPGs. It looks like they only regressed to the bad system in order to push people to buy more upgrade items for real money (well either that or they're just incompetent).

the game plays like third person diablo my dude, minus the gore.

*if you've seen some of the players I have on JP servers youd agree with me. Esecially how fast they cross the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ map while your ranger ass cant possibly keep up.*

[Miraglyth]

Originally posted by Reia:

If you are a PSO veteran you will find an issue with PSO2 aesthethics.

It's nice to cross paths with a fellow series veteran. For having played 20 years ago you must have played one of the classic series games as Online released in 2001 in the west.

Originally posted by Reia:

PSO2 is a completely different game focused on colorful and TV japanese anime style themes

This is nothing new for the series. I would recommend looking at the in-game character portraits in both Phantasy Star II[fantasyanime.com] (1989) and Phantasy Star IV[fantasyanime.com] (1993).

Online may have diverged a little by having a reduced anime stylising, but that doesn't mean Online 2 introduced something that wasn't there before. That'd be like saying people would have an issue with Myau as a new creature when musk cats' place in the series is older than Sonic.