Well, after a very long wait, Phantasy Star Online 2 is finally here for English-speaking audiences — officially this time, none of that South-East Asia shenanigans — and I've spent a fair portion of today playing it.
I'll be writing something more substantial on the subject on MoeGamer soon (possibly tomorrow, taking a look at "my first day" and the history of the game) but suffice to say for now that I'm thoroughly enamoured with it.
It suffers a little from that "online game that has been up for a while" issue, whereby the moment you log on you are bombarded with about a zillion things you can do, but if you take the time to focus on what you're doing, work your way through what are clearly intended to be the introductory, tutorial quests and features, you'll soon figure out what's going on.
Mechanically and structurally, it's not super-complex or difficult to get into, but there is plenty of depth there — and in contrast to cooldown-based online RPGs, there's a strong emphasis on skill and timing. The combat is enormously satisfying, and feels very true to the original Dreamcast version; after hitting so many Perfect Attacks in the last six hours or so I feel like I'm going to be seeing that red circle in my sleep tonight!
If you happen to want to jump in and go on some space adventures with me, I'm on Ship 1 under the player ID "MoeGamer", so you should be able to find me that way. Alternatively, shoot me a DM via some means (here, Twitter, Discord) and we can arrange a time to meet up and hit Rappies in the head with pointy sticks.
I feel like I'm going to have to control myself with this game; it has the potential to be a real life-devourer, I can feel it now!
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