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| John McCarroll |
Phantasy Star Portable 2 hits the PSP.
06.15.10 - 9:43 PM
Sega knows its fans love their Phantasy Star, so they brought their new guns to the show. With Phantasy Star Portable 2, Sega intends to win back old-school PSO players with a slew of new improvements. I said last year in my review for Phantasy Star 0 that it would be great to see a title that had features mixed between that an Phantasy Star Portable. It looks like Phantasy Star Portable 2 is that game.
PSP2, most importantly, has free online play. This play will be akin to its DS cousin, where players select a game from a lobby menu. This iteration will also feature the return of Battle Mode, so players online will be able to fight each other to their delight. Also included is a Challenge Mode, where players will be presented with trap-filled levels and a lack of Scape Dolls and have to make it out of the stage alive. It's a great set of features, and fans of Phantasy Star Online will love the return of these features.
The game continues the storyline of the original PSP and also brings the original game to the table. Players can take down their old favorites on top of these new levels. There are now timed quests that add additional rewards, hundreds of new items, and all of the sorts of things you would expect from a sequel to a dungeon crawler. More of the items come from and are inspired by Phantasy Star Online, so longtime fans will be happy to see that.
Longtime fans may also remember that the Japanese version of the game included things such as pictures of AV idols and Pizza Hut-styled weapons. Unfortunately, Sega confirmed that some of these items won't make it to North America, mostly because of the lawyers, but they did state that they tried to replace anything that they couldn't bring stateside. The pictures of AV idols have been replaced by fan art selected by Sega of America, and there will be similar things to replace the missing items.
Fans of Phantasy Star Portable or Phantasy Star 0 will want to take this new title for a spin when it sees release in the fall.
