I spent a fair bit of time in Phantasy Star Online 2 today figuring out what's what. And I spent a pleasing amount of time just pissing about in the game as well as doing actual progression-related stuff.
There were a few notable things that happened. Firstly, I happened to be in the Shopping area when a "live concert" was set to go off, so I managed to catch space idol Quna doing a performance. This is actually really neat; while you're standing in the area, you can hit a button to get a properly directed "cutscene" version of her song, or you can just hang out and act like an idiot in front of the stage. Or, as most people did, a bit of both. There's also a physics-based ball game in front of the stage, so you can waste some time competing against a rando to knock this ball into one of the two nearby coloured goals for… no reward whatsoever besides your own personal satisfaction. Love it.
Staying for Quna's song provides you with a buff that lasts quite a while. Plus, when she's finished, you can actually type "ENCORE" and if enough people do that, she comes back out for another song. Very cool.
As her performance finished, I received a notification that an "Urgent Quest" was underway. These are quests that only show up at specific times of day for short periods of time, and it just so happened that it was one I needed to progress in the currently running "Wedding Event", so I jumped in.
It was a ton of fun, and the kind of multiplayer I actually enjoy — no obligation to do things directly with others or competitiveness, but a whole bunch of people in the same area all working towards a common goal. I think there was a full 12 of us in the quest at once, all doing our best to take down as many enemies as possible as quickly as we could — and making a beeline for the various special events any time they happened.
Of particular note in that regard was the occasional appearance of Nyau (presumably a distant relation of Myau from the original Phantasy Star) who goads you into a pointless fight then accidentally opens interdimensional portals to bring unspeakable horrors tumbling out while attempting to escape.
Really enjoying the game so far… aside from the horrendous lag on the lobby ship during peak hours. I'm sure that'll settle down with time, though, and the actual in-game action is smooth and slick as anything. So I feel like I'll be spending quite some time in this game!
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