It's not a garbage game, sorry folks.

[SGT_Saunders]

So many folks hating on NGS. I played the original PSO on Dreamcast. I've played NGS and PSO2. Both are good games in their own right. You don't like NGS I get it but it's neither trash or bad. Its just radically different from what you're used to. Yes you're not gonna see events like you used to in PSO2. NGS is going to be the focus from here on out because thats where they've put their money.

IF I had to P2W then I'd have a problem or if they had a shady energy system that restricted play and force a Pay to Play model then I would be against it. The game is entirely free and you don't have to spend a dime on anything if you don't want to, on BOTH versions of PSO2.

I've played a lot of different game types from simulators to side scrollers. Hell, I came from an era where PacMan was the king of arcades. Nearly 40 years gaming and this is far from a bad game. I've played enough games good and bad and this is not one of the bad ones.

[shadonic]

when i read something like "it's going to focus from here on out" after 2 year, i feel like a little kid just kicked me in the balls.
if a game, any game, takes 2 years to get into motion, it's usually not a good lookout.
sure, it's not a garbage game, i agree. but looking back 20 years, i can certainly say, sega has learned zeo about what made PSO interesting and engaging in the first place.
but i'm not worried. Capcom took note and made it big with MH, having learned from PSO directly.

[Null_User]

I'm an 80's gamer too. My first console, the one I first pulled out of a brand new box, was an Atari 2600. I've also played Phantasy Star games since the Master System (though only 1 and 4). I played PSO on both Dreamcast and GameCube and then Blue Burst on PC. Ran through Universe and both Playstation Portable entries. Yeah, didn't play ALL of the games but I can say I've seen a good deal of them.

Now, I also agree this isn't the worst game out there. Far from it. I'm having fun on it once in awhile. But I also understand where the "haters" are coming from. I can't exactly pin point it, but I also feel this game could have been more than it is. Certain things added and certain things asked for but not added have put an amount of players on edge. And in this era when people have so many options and can get bored so easily, you'd need a master stroke of gaming (exactly like what the last two Zelda games did for the Switch) to keep players looking at the product for more than a few minutes.

[chill out]

I don't get the point of going to bat for a corporation with excuses like "that's just how it is! they spent money on it and have to see it through!"
That's not a reason to play a game, and there are plenty of reasons why NGS is bad.(and good) Dismissing criticism because "well, SEGA is going to focus on NGS so get used to it" is like saying "well, stop complaining about the people stabbing you in the face, because they're going to keep doing it". It's completely counterproductive. It's actually worse than saying nothing.

I've played a lot of games, too, including PSO classic, PSO2, NGS, PSU, PSP2/i, and PS0. NGS, much like PSO2, is a solid concept, and a nice looking game that's being horribly mismanaged by overpaid corporate execs that don't understand the product they have, or how to cultivate it. Much like PSO2 classic was, NGS is going in a bad direction with very little long-term hope for a solid, reliable, rich product with lasting appeal. Much like PSO2 classic, SEGA won't actually do anything about this as long as people tolerate mediocrity.

PSO2 classic was fantastic at launch. Sparse on content, but a massive improvement from actual experimentation and taking feedback from other members of the game industry and other products on the market. It took a look at what worked, said "you know, we used to have this great product that was very competitive and now it's not, let's change that", and made something genuinely pretty amazing for the time.
By episode 2, it already had problems with balance and pacing, and they were already pushing hard to turn it into a dayjob, but the market hadn't caught up yet, so they had some free space all the way through Ep3 to do whatever they wanted and really lay into their userbase hard. When the market caught up, though? People started to quit. Everyone blamed Episode 4 for being terrible story-wise, but story was never what kept people playing in the first place, and SEGA didn't even begin to reevaluate in a meaningful way until Ep5 with the hero update and reworked class balance. By the time episode 6 was finished, each class had a unique and relevant playstyle with a variety of fun options, with only the numbers game and general dayjob-grind pacing holding it back.

NGS, on launch, expectedly sucked; it was a downgrade over PSO2 in every meaningful way because PSO2 was a massive game that had a lot of mechanics layered overtop of eachother. Flawed and broken as it was, and sad as it is that it was abandoned in a nearly-almost-actually-good state, hey, new game, maybe they can get it right eventually. However, every single thing in NGS since launch has been whalebait. There hasn't been a single meaningful improvement to the content pacing or game mechanics, and with two games in a row with the same huge problems, that are now commonplace in online games, it's pretty obvious the game isn't going anywhere good. On top of that, the slower, less precise action of NGS has failed to see any improvements, and some of it's flop and jank has actually bled back into PSO2.

Mechanically, NGS is a tumor on the original PSO2 game which, mechanically, has a solid action base and a competent gameplay loop, but lacks any real cohesive structure to it's content, and has a dayjob grind-pace. Mechanically, NGS is an inferior, floppy, imprecise reinvention of PSO2 classic with the only significant "improvements" being the open-world environment structure and separation and consolidation of "level up" guruguru zones into the free-field equivalents. Mechanically, the game, the thing that you play and interface with using the buttons, that the audiovisual feedback is a means to understand, is objectively less cohesive and less competently structured. Mechanically, SEGA has shown no interest in actually fixing any of these problems with either game, because as far as they're concerned, this game is a gacha scratch dump, and they make more money on that miku game anyway.

Mechanically, PSO2 classic would be better restructured as a standalone offline game with optional online coop, ala PSP2/i, but less lol20fps.
Mechanically, NGS would also be better as an exploratory coop experience rather than an online dayjob, with some kind of incentive loop ala blueburst.
Mechanically, SEGA would be better just doing that mikugame thing tbqh.

NGS isn't what's sticking around because SEGA sunk money into it, NGS is what's slowly bleeding out because SEGA didn't and won't put any thought into it. Thinking, in the business world, can be very expensive, and PSO2/NGS, and SEGA in general, is in low-effort mode, soaking up easy money from low hanging fruit.

[Cute Anime Fencer]

I don't think people actually think the game is trash or bad, I think they just want more out of it because there IS a good game there waiting to be unleashed. It's been two years and things still largely feel the same, so people are understandably feeling slighted.

[UrbanMech]

Are we comparing games like PacMac to NGS? I'd argue PacMac is the better game here for what it does and the era it came from.

NGS is a bad game. It lacks a end goal and challenge. The combat moves are not well thought out and you have superior options and options that just don't have a use. You can't even fail in this game .... which is like a core part of most games is to try to win and not get a "game over".

What is the motivation for NGS? To grind meseta to buy cosmetics for most players. A few players grind meseta to buy better gear to ..... grind more meseta for cosmetics at a faster rate? Is NGS a good dress up game? I guess so but that's not really what sega advertises it as.

[Terrence M. Delawgan]

Originally posted by SGT_Saunders:

It's not a garbage game, sorry folks.

NGS is empty, with no gameplay content, two and a half PAs/Techs, zero endgame content and the same few bosses and quests again and again and again but you find the game great nonetheless just because you like it. Since when "fanboy" started to rhyme with "moron" ?
I'm sure you already know where you can put your parody of argument......

[Prokaizer]

I haven't played the new update yet, but the game has nothing interesting to do in it.

They handout equipement like candies, so there is no point to grind.

Having 90% potency and 110% potency feels the same, so it kills the purpose of gearing up.

All weapons feel the same, no unique potentials like the base game.

Duel quests kill the purpose of building a good gear, because why build a good gear when it is completely useless in Duel quests?
Propably the most idiotic thing they introduced in the game.

Why should i stay AFK in lobby, when i can have fun playing Killing Floor or any other game?

[Metadigital]

Originally posted by Terrence M. Delawgan:

Since when "fanboy" started to rhyme with "moron" ?

"Fan" is derived from "fanatic" which was originally defined as someone who loves something so much that they destroy it.

So, basically, it always meant that.

[bruh]

it's not a terrible game but there is a reason why the term "first impressions matters most" exists.

the state the game is in is the state it should have been at launch. but since the damage has already been done people are not willing to back and check the game out again.

[chill out]

Originally posted by bruh:

it's not a terrible game but there is a reason why the term "first impressions matters most" exists.

the state the game is in is the state it should have been at launch. but since the damage has already been done people are not willing to back and check the game out again.

Not really. The game STILL has no cohesive design direction, and having a sparse content field at launch is still very normal for online games.
The bigger problem with NGS is SEGA has no clue what they even want to do with it as a game, because all they want is easy gacha scratch money, and they get that much easier and cheaper from the miku game.

[Maple Medic]

Sure you can like it but at the end of the day numbers don't lie. NGS started on a downward slope and never ever recovered since. At the end of the day if the game isn't getting enough revenue then Sega will shut this game down. Honestly I feel that anyone who is a true "gamer" would push back against games that have a hard lifespan, once NGS gets its plug pulled then that is it. How many other games are now lost to the ether because of live services?

It is trash because it is a very thinly veiled attempt to fleece money from people. You can enjoy it but it doesn't make it objectively good.

[Mr_Bloodjack]

Originally posted by SGT_Saunders:

I've played a lot of different game types from simulators to side scrollers. Hell, I came from an era where PacMan was the king of arcades. Nearly 40 years gaming and this is far from a bad game. I've played enough games good and bad and this is not one of the bad ones.

For someone (like me) who's into video games since PacMan and space invaders, you seems to have missed a huge point about what makes a franchise last!
...When a gamer likes a game he hopes that the second one will be "the same but improved"
And it always works (...up to some point) Look at the assassin's creed, Sonic 2D, Borderlands, even Mario! (there are a lot more examples)

Point is, PSONGS lost what PSO2 and PSO episode 1&2 were.

I tried PSONGS, honestly gave it a shot, granted it's not a bad game (not talking about the dress-up crap, the game itself) but it is not "a PSO" !

[Null_User]

Originally posted by Maple Medic:

Honestly I feel that anyone who is a true "gamer" would push back against games that have a hard lifespan, once NGS gets its plug pulled then that is it. How many other games are now lost to the ether because of live services?

Sadly the gaming industry is moving at high speed towards live service (most if not all MMOs fall into this) and games the publishers can take from you whenever they want (recent example, Overwatch 1). And when cloud is added and is firmly secured, we won't ever see a game download again. Even single player games will become just like rentals.

[Maple Medic]

Also I find it very funny about how he wants to push his cred on a gamer when it means jack crap. Just cause you played video games for 40 years doesn't give you any profound insight on them, just like if you listened to music for 40 years doesn't give you a profound insight to music either.

But yes NGS isn't the worst game ever or even should be on anyone's top 10 worst games ever but it is still a bad game in its own right and has damaged the franchise. There was an air of mysticism to PSO2 from its previous games to the point that people still clamored for it years after its release. Now NGS comes around and I can assure you that it will be a great effort to get new people interested in the next game, I doubt there will be 60k people at launch for the next enxdeavor.

[Milhiore]

It is a garbage game, sorry friend.