Didn't sleep very well last night. This was done during a bout of insomnia, during which I was playing around with aforementioned game, looking at want ads for jobs again, and generally trying to get back to sleep. In the wake of all this, I started thinking:
All this aside, my very favorite game(s) of this genre was and always will be the Phantasy Star Online series. Probably because it was the first I'd ever seen. Sega and its Dreamcast did a lot of 'firsts' that are much shooed under the table. PSO boasted being able to play both offline through a story and online with other people. Back then, that was about as common as seeing a cow fly. But anyway, way back when, when I was much much younger, my Older Brother showed me his Dreamcast and PSO, saying that he'd thought I'd like it. He'd done a little with it, but it didn't catch his attention much.
I adored that game.
I made myself a very pink Keebler-elf looking girl with triangle face make-up, a big silly jester hat and ran her through the Forest fighting the Dragon until I was very much blue in the face, but more importantly, had enough money to by the Almighty Megrid(white holy magic spell). That spell was GODLY. Run out into a group of enemies, cast it, then pick up the goodies that drop. It was fun, and challenging. That girl couldn't take hits very well, and I got into the habit of running into a room, casting a spell, then running out praying no boomba hit me with a stray claw. The story was a little hard to understand(basically humanity destroyed its own planet, went to colonize another, everything was fine until it ticked off an ancient being that already lived there; easy to kinda shrug your shoulders at and go back to running from hil de bars).
Years went by, I forgot about the game, then the Xbox came out, and was I surprised to see PSO Episode 1 & 2. I immediately told my friends, and about 3 of us joint bought a copy, went to a friend's house(who had a 'Box), where we stayed up late, making characters and playing around with the voice feature(since Xbox was pushing voice chat like a new brand of Coke product). Which added to the fun. Silly stuff.
That came and went, and then came PSO Blue Burst. This was only released on the PC. It was basically a rehash of Eps 1 &2, with two more Episodes periodically released as free content. Really pretty; new areas included a really pretty beach and jungle. And a lot of fun once again. That came and went as well. Until I noticed the section of Sega's site announcing work on Phantasy Star Universe. A completely NEW chapter to the PS story.
No.
Freakin'.
Way.
But until there was a ton of complaining from the fan base, there originally was no online version planned. Eventually this was changed, and although rocky at first, the online play, or 'Network' as they call it, was wildly popular. So much so, that there's even been a sequal released(expansion? not sure what to call it; it builds off the original story to be sure, but you don't need to have one to play the other *shrug*).
I never really stopped to think what always brought me back to this series. As far as other MMOs go, its really simple. Pick a few different classes, go out into a lobby esque area, beat the muffins out of monsters until you hit a boss. Rinse. Repeat. Follow the story if you feel like it, but its not necissary and entirely skipable. I guess what I really liked about it was that. The game is so simple. Its just pick what you like, play what you like, beat the heck out of monsters, and optionally pick up random junk they drop and make decorations out of it(side note, I made myself a whole bunch of monster dolls yay me!). Good old fashioned fun that won't threaten to take over your life.
No comments:
Post a Comment