phantasy-star-universe posts (Subscribe to this feed)

"Who said we are lost again in this lonely world?" That's the first line of the somewhat hokey but infectious theme song to Phantasy Star Universe. When the song was written, that was a rhetorical question, but now it's been answered: Sega says you're lost in this lonely world. At least, that's the message the publisher is sending the remaining players of the PS2 and PC versions, whose servers will be shut down soon.

Following the January 29 "Maximum Attack G+" event, Sega will convert everyone's account to a free account, and allow the players to enjoy what time they can before the servers shut off on March 31. This won't affect the Xbox 360 version in any way other than the flood of refugees from other platforms.

It may not be much of a flood, however: GM Edward@Sega said that the shutdown is taking place because "[t]he population is simply too low for us to be able to continue to support this platform."

[Via Massively]

There's a lot of reason to be excited for the upcoming Phantasy Star Portable 2. Well, there's at least one reason that stands out quite a bit: online Infrastructure support. The Sega-developed RPG was always meant to be played with friends, but the first game was relegated to local Ad-Hoc support. With the addition of Infrastructure, we can play PSP the way it was meant to be played.

The Japanese website for PSP2 has been updated with the intro movie to the game which features a theme song by Hideaki Kobayashi. Don't be surprised if you find yourself humming along to the catchy, English language chorus. Phantasy Star Universe ...

[Via PSPHyper]

It's true that Phantasy Star of today is hardly recognizable to those who grew up playing with talking cats, but that probably doesn't keep Sega awake at night, especially given reports that its PSP RPG Phantasy Star Portable has been difficult to keep in stock since it was released in Japan last week.

The pint-sized version of Phantasy Star Universe has shown Monster Hunter-like momentum, apparently flying off Japanese store shelves, with both Wired and AkibaBlog reporting that 90% of the original shipment went out the door on July 31, the first day it went on sale. There remains no word as to when or if Sega will bring Phantasy Star Portable to PSP owners outside of Japan, but we'll continue to save our meseta 'til it happens.

We should add a disclaimer -- when we say port, we mean port sans a true online mode. Yeah, it's what makes Phantasy Star Universe tick, but if you've been a loyal Phantasy Star phan, you'll have played the story mode of the original as well as episode 2 and the beginning of 3 with the Ambition of Illuminus expansion. It's not the best dialogue or narrative, but the concepts and twists of the story are pretty cool and true to the franchise in terms of tone, believe it or not.

Unless you think that playing as one character, then moving past him to play as your own to fight an evil organization (who houses the main bad guy, who actually turns out to be nothing but a pawn) is lame. Sound like Kingdom Hearts, a little bit? Did KH force you to participate in a planetary genocide? Did it cause an entire race of robotic beings to get hacked and run a space fleet into your satellite which crashes onto another planet? Face it -- Phantasy Star Universe is a cool and constantly changing experience. And the PSP is getting a port.

The port is basically that: Ambition of Illuminus on your PSP, with some added missions and story points. While there's no true online mode, you do get 4-player ad hoc play. Commence the groans. The port is being handled by Alpha Systems, who is pretty unknown. Check out the scan from Famitsu if you'd like and hope this hits shores outside of Japan.

Phantasy Star gamers have been waiting for this lil' download ever since it was officially announced last month and now the time is here. Phantasy Star's Ambition of the Illuminus expansion pack is now available for purchase off the Marketplace for 1600 Microsoft points. But AotI purchasers know that you may have to clear some content from your HDD, because this expansion of awesomeness weighs in at a more than hefty 1.9GB. But if space isn't a concern (shout-out to the 120GB'ers of the world!) and PSU is your 360 addiction, then pay the $20 and get all the new, new, new. Or you could be dull and stick with the PSU old, old, old ... but really, how fun is that?

Recently, SEGA announced that the new Phantasy Star Universe expansion, Ambition of the Illuminus, will be headed to the Xbox 360, but only via a download off the Xbox Live Marketplace. SEGA is setting the Ambition of the Illuminus expansion for a worldwide November 20th release onto the XBLM and it will be priced at 1600 Microsoft points, which is cheaper than the $39 PS2 / PC retail version. But know that you must own a copy of Phantasy Star Universe for the 360 to play the new downloadable expansion content. But then again, why would a person purchase an expansion pack without having the original game disc. That would just be silly, now wouldn't it?