Recent reviews by Zovc

I'm gonna say it: PSO2 has more to offer and is more interesting than PSO2:NG.

I loved Phantasy Star Online: Episodes I & II on the Gamecube. I probably put thousands of hours into it by myself and with one other friend. A few times, I've tried playing it online using various (third-party) free options and it just never stuck. That game really shines as a couch co-op experience or just a solo dungeon crawler, IMO.

A long time ago, I gave PSO2 a chance and it just didn't land for me. Obviously, it's differnet from ye olde PSO, but it was too different and I couldn't get into it. The gameplay was different, yeah, but the pacing and feeling were way off. It felt like something else, not a new version. I remember being disappointed, not really enjoying it, and not wanting to play through the tedious cinematics and early levels to see what else is for offer.

Well, I've been in lockdown for a while now and saw some friends playing PSO2 "New Genesis" and figured I'd see what that's all about.

Long story short: It's a completely new game that exists alongside the original PSO2, which leads to some interesting and/or weird pairities. You can fully play through one game without touching the other. But each character exists in both games, and is free to switch back and forth without even needing to log out and log back in.

Having tried both games again, I've actually come to enjoy original PSO2 a lot. I like PSO2:NG, too, but it's suffering a lot from being a new game. Ironically, the original PSO2 suffered a lot from being new, but it's a much better, more developed game now than it was when I first tried it.

This is very much an "ARPG", an 'Action Game' with RPG stats behind the scenes. That's what it feels like, but unfortunately, this game falls into the trap that a lot of "ARPGs"--especially modern mobile games--do where you've got a "Battle Power" that 'measures how powerful' your character is. In addition to that, if you are more than five levels below an enemy, you automatically have your damage reduced by an absurd ratio, I don't know what it is, but I'm pretty sure you do less than 50% what you normally would. Both of these are VERY arbitrary and they do an insane amount of work to get in the way of you playing the game how you want and are barriers to doing things as soon as you find them or decide you want to do them.

The game's emphasis on locking its content behind these numbers (Battle Rating and Character Level) make it extremely unfun and tedious for me, but the real issue is that there is nothing to do when you run into one of these walls because... there's honestly not much of anything to do in PSO2:NG yet.

Just by naturally following the game's story, you'll finish a quest and it'll be like, "Good job, champ! Now you need to raise your Battle Power to x00 or (xx00)!" In my experience you'll need at least 50 more BR, possibly 100+.

So... what do you do? Well, you can grind. A character level will get you somewhere between 10 and 20 Battle Rating. You can use your (limited, IMO) resources to empower your gear. Each +1 on your armor is worth 1 to your battle rating, not sure the ratio on weapons. Augments seem to contribute more than one point, but I don't know exactly how much. But, mind you, augments have a chance of failing unless you use cash shop items to increase your chances.

All that said, New Genesis has a great foundation of fun gameplay going for it. I wouldn't be surprised if--barring grinding--you could make it through all the game's content in about 30 hours. And for A LOT of that content, you'll be fighting the same enemies. There's very little variety at the moment and that's a huge tragedy because the game does give you a lot of tools to play with and being forced to switch between them would be really interesting.

Eventually, you get to create "Mult-Weapons" where you can combine any two weapons you're able to use (you also get a sub-class and can use all their weapons) and it's exactly what it sounds like. (Awesome, it sounds awesome.) I'm using a rod from the Force class and Twin Machine Guns from the Gunner class, so I use all of my mana throwing out fireballs or whatever 'ball' the enemy in question is weak to, and then I flip around shooting machine guns at them which helps me regenerate my mana to do it over again. Rods have one of the best 'block' abilities in the game, and Twin Machine guns can shoot while they're dodging, so--I don't know if this is optimal--but I feel extremely powerful defensively and offensively. It's fun.

Again, it just falls flat when I'm in a new area and like, "Oh, I'm fighting this guy again. Only he's level 15 now." And the fight is exactly the same as it was the last time.

The last thing I'll say about NG is that mobility is a little "floaty", but it's very fun and satisfying for a MMO. There's one particularly big enemy in the game and, I'm not sure if you're supposed to be able to do this, but I always just dash double-jump onto its back and shoot its weak spot until it's dead. You're able to use the weird wall jump along with dashing double jumps to scale walls and mountains that feel like you really shouldn't be able to, which in my opinion is a good thing.


Honestly? There's just so much content here.

Like New Genesis, you're (eventually, level 20) able to choose a sub-class and something about this just really got my wheels turning. The skill trees are convoluted and you're likely to make mistakes if you don't check guides just because a lot of things in the game are unintuitive. Like, I didn't realize kicking people used my magic attack stat instead of physical damage (unless you spend a skill point to change it*, which I also didn't know)

This game has aged really well, in my opinion. You can tell New Genesis is trying to use a lot of lessons learned in PSO2, but it just doesn't as many of years of TLC put into it. There's a casino, there's a cafe dedicated to gathering and crafting, there's a billion different versions of every quest and map (just like in original PSO).

If you're going to give original PSO2 a shot, actually look into Client Orders. They allow you to slingshot really quickly through the early levels and build up a decent amount of resources. You can often work on more than one at a time, or do them while doing the main quest (which comes with its own boosts to XP and money).

This game is excellent.

In my opinion, this is the best execution of Roguelike platforming. It's like a marriage between Risk of Rain and Rogue Legacy. The gameplay sort of "slow and tight" like Risk of Rain, but also manages to feel a lot more frantic and fast paced. The different classes have drastically different play styles (in a good way) but there's also the original Diablo principle of 'anyone ~CAN~ learn magic.'

The game's very challenging but also very fair. You'll get punished by visible pannel traps and realize after the fact it was in plain sight, you'll get knocked back into spikes and die and realize it's your fault for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You'll accidentally summon/anger bosses and learn not to do those things again (or do them again on purpose if that's your thing). For me, it's the perfect level of dificulty to keep me trying and dying and trying and dying.

The 2-4 player co-op in this game is seamless and perfectly done. When a player dies, they can revive as a cannon-fodder skeleton that is essentially useless in combat but can function as a warm body to scout/distract enemies. Dead players are tactically useful, but have no 'actively powerful' impact on the game. It's a clear punishment for dying, but keeps players engaged and useful. If you're lucky, on future floors you may find items that can revive one dead player. If the entire party wipes, of course, it's game over.

I highly recommend this game and really appreciate the developers for creating it.

Elegantly designed game that is interesting and taps well into the "cardboard crack" power source. It's fun to grind out new card packs and I'm enjoying working my way through the silly story with bizarre characters.

The card game itself is very simple, but the cards themselves and deckbuilding make the play much more diverse and interesting than the mechanics would lead one to believe. There's a lot of complexity, choice, and expression in building your own deck.

I'm going to be printing a copy of this game out for my personal use and potentially recruiting friends into purchasing/playing this game with me. (I got this game as part of the Humble Card Game Bundle and the compressed archive includes printable versions of the game.)