Looking back on Phantasy Star Online 2’s closed beta

Exploring the Hub World

One the things I’ve always appreciated about PSO was how streamlined the hub world is. I have this special talent to repeatedly get lost in the large cities of Final Fantasy XIV or Elder Scrolls Online. While one could admire the level of detail placed in the lore of those worlds, I hated having to track down what floor a quest-giving NPC was in an area.

PSO 2 cuts the nonsense out. There’s four main hubs to keep track of: the ARKS Lobby, Shops, Casino and the Campship. The ARKS Lobby serves as the core location for managing your main quests – known as ARKS Missions, collecting titles and upgrading class skills. Sometimes, you’ll be chartered to talk to one of the reoccurring NPCs from the story line and take up “Client Orders.” These are mini quests you can take up that are tied to your daily mission count.

The shop should be self explanatory: having access to purchasing low-to-mid-level weapons and armor slots, upgrades for your equipment, general consumables and more. The trading grounds also feature a small concert hall where vocaloid-like NPCs can put on small shows for you and give you temporary buffs (Note: This could be a feature exclusive to the CBT. I did not encounter this on Japanese servers).

The casino gives players a chance to relax and play fun little mini games of chance. There’s a Rappy-inspired slot machine, Gallery Shooting, Black Jack, so on and so forth. I didn’t spend too much time in the casino (if any at all) due to the limited amount of time we had.

Finally, there’s the Campship. This vessel serves as a private room for your four-man party to queue up instances for dungeons and such. What’s neat is that all the important aspects of the hub world, like having access to your quests on the fly or being able to replenish your consumables. are right there. There’s also a Drink Terminal for stat bonuses and a counter to hire AI-controlled NPCs to assist you on your missions.

Brave Old World

The meat and potatoes of the game is made up in executing your ARKS Missions and Client Orders. As mentioned before, ARKS Missions are either going to be your story missions, weekly and daily missions. Most of the time, they’ll be comprised of “Exterminate X field monsters,” or “Subdue the feral Wolf Monster!” Client Missions are more personal missions, where you’re usually running around doing various errands for the NPCs. Through completing these Client Orders, you begin to build a relationship with these characters and will unlock more missions with better rewards.

There are also Free Missions for each area in the form of an expedition. These missions are pretty straight forward – get to the last area and subdue the big bad. I highly recommend taking them on as each expedition you complete will net you a 15,000 EXP voucher. The last notable mission archetype are the Urgent Quests. These can appear to be scheduled raids or random events where players can join forces and take on Super Bosses. There’s usually high-quality loot that drops with any of these raids, if not a significant chunk of EXP and Meseta (money).

Emergency Code

So we’ve gone over most of the administrative parts of PSO 2, but what about the actual gameplay? What makes this game tick?

Unlike most of the other popular MMO RPGs, PSO 2 is very action oriented. Combat is more hack ‘n slash formula, with you dodging and weaving away from enemy attacks. You’ll also have access to special abilities called photon arts that are tied to your weapons. For example, Sword users start off with Rising Edge – a jumping anti-air attack that will launch grounded targets into the air. Partizan users have access to Slide Shaker, an area-of-effect attack where the user will swing the weapon around and damage any enemies in the surrounding area.

While exploring during the expedition or executing an ARKS Mission, you may be called upon to join mini-missions known as Emergency Codes. These small instances appear randomly, although most frequently appear in areas where a lot of players are congregating. You’ll usually be called upon to exterminate a large group of enemies or work together to collect special-field items. Other Emergency Codes might isolate a player into a barrier somewhere remote on the map while the other players work together to break them free. All in all, Emergency Codes are a great way to break up the monotony of going from point A to point B and mindlessly clearing the missions.

Final Thoughts

Jumping back in the saddle wasn’t nearly as painful as I thought it was going to be. The transition from PC to Xbox One was seamless as PSO 2’s gameplay proved to be a better experience with a controller. Aside from the broken launch, I think my biggest gripe with the Closed Beta Test was the degraded resolution. Textures in the field came in extremely grainy and motion blur came in really hard when in high-populated areas.

But beyond the small hiccups, I would say the beta was a success. PSO 2 is a game better enjoyed in the company of friends, and being there to watch the newbies in our group soak in the experience was surreal. Be sure to count on weekly Mega Visions streams in the future, and we encourage all of you to link up with us!