Phantasy Star Online, Episode I & II Plus

If you like to play games for 200+ hours, then this is the game for you. There is millions of different items, weapons, and other stuff to find. If you follow the missions you'll discover a delightful story and characters. Enjoy!

I have played PSO with my best friend for a couple years, and when he left for the Fleet in the Marine Corps, I couldn't play anymore because he took it with him :( I broke down and bought a NGC and this game was the first on my list. The game arrived in excellent condition and I've needed to buy another memory card just to keep up with my character list now ^_^

This game is pretty darn good. It's graphics are detailed, the sound is of decent quality and the story line actually makes sense.

We'll start with the storyline. If you don't pay attention to the rambally of the principal at the beginning of the game you won't know why the heck your fighting until the 3rd or 4th level. It turns out you're in a spaceship with a ton of people looking for a new home planet -Your misson: Fight through the alien monsters and see if it's safe. There are no cutscenes which is a definite time saver but you end up forgetting about the story in general through out the game. The end of the game kinda leaves you hanging too...

Next, the gameplay. The game could definitly use a tutorial i got killed like 5 times before i got the rythem of the game. Other than that though it's great. You go around different areas such as forests, caves, mines, runes, temples, spaceships and some others and kill monsters. What's great about the maps of this game is that it has the "maze element" but not so much to the point where you get frusterated and turn the gamecube off. Occansionally you'll turn around and retrace your steps but you always find your way through. You attack in a combo up to 3 hits at a time. You can choose a fast, but weak attack, and slow but strong attack or a very slow but special attack (such as lightning, freezing, steal money, steal health etc.) in a rythmic pattern. As you progress though the game you can find and buy different weapons, powerups and armor. Nintendo pros will even spend much time on this game due to multiple things. #1 you can choose from 3 different classes: hunter (melee) ranger (gun-ranger) or a mage type (range-magic). #2 each class has different attributes such as robot, human male, human female, girl robot etc. #3 There are different difficulty levels, once you beat normal you can try hard, then very hard, then ultimate. And best yet you can play online! (requires and gamecube internet adapter though...)

Lastly, the graphics. If you're looking for a game with realistic, beautiful, colorful backgrounds, i can't say i'd recommend this game. The graphics are nice... but a little cartoony for my taste; the monsters don't have much detail (for instance it took me 3 months to relizes the evil sharks had dark green scails) and although the backgrounds are colorful, not realistic, for example most caves (or at least the ones i've seen) don't have lava waterfalls with a metal bridge going over them...

Anyway over all it's definitly worth buying and playing. (I'm still trying to beat very hard mode with a ranger...)