Great Action RPG
Title: Phantasy Star Portable
Format: UMD
Genre: Action/RPG
Developed by: Sega/Criware
Phantasy Star Portable is good, and I mean really good so I am going to start with everything bad so I can get to the good stuff. The friendly AI sucks. They are more than willing to watch you get devoured by a De Ragan or observe you getting crushed by a 100 foot ancient temple protector. The story levels are big, sprawling, and varied, but some are too big and sprawly, and are easy to get confused and may cause you to constantly guess where to go, but it isn't as easy to get lost as it sounds. You never talk. Well almost never, sometimes you get to make a dialogue choice, but there are considerably less as the story progresses. When you go to a shop or your room and then go back to the menu you may run into 2 allies and they have a conversation that you take no part in, and it is merely to help develop their character, or remind you that they are still alive. Finally the camera during some boss fights changes from the directly behind you view, to something slightly higher up, but it is enough to throw you off until you become accustomed to it. Also the lack of infrastructure is sad, but overlooked if you have a friend with a copy.
Now no more negativity, all positivity. There are so many choices to make for customizing your character its almost overwhelming. At the beginning you select your race, class, and Robot Ally. The four races include CAST, Beast, Humans, and Newmans. You select your class from one of three basic classes, but you can change it later to one of 7 other classes all with different attributes, skill sets and weapon sets. The basic classes cover melee, ranged, and technic, which is essentially to magic. There are also advanced classes that specialize in one field of weapons, and 2 classes specializing in 1 handed melee/dual wielding, and a 2 handed melee/ranged weapons. Each class gains EXP which is used to level up your class, which will allow you to meet the requirements to use the advanced classes. Your robot ally is one of the few helpful allies you will have, and I strongly recommend the nurse ally as it uses a grenade launcher, laser cannon, shotgun, and an incredibly powerful laser turret that pops up over its head, and fires a massive laser in a 180 degree arc, and does massive amounts of damage, around 2000-3000, and also uses its technic to heal you and itself.
The weapons in this game are diverse, and plentiful. There are great swords, knuckles, spears, axes, sabers, dual sabers, claws, dual claws, whips, slicers, rifles, shotguns, longbows, laser cannons, grenade launchers, handguns, crossbows, sub machine gun, heavy machine gun, floating turrets, staffs, and wands. Each weapon has a grade, S, A, B, or C, a rarity, 1-10 stars, and a permanent element linked to it, and for ranged weapons a changeable element. In addition to each weapon's basic attack you can add a disc to it which adds a secondary, more powerful attack to melee weapons, and adds an element, and increases attack power, and lowers accuracy for ranged weapons. Some weapon classes have smaller/ harder to find weapons in the category, but are a different kind of weapon. For instance I found a 10 star great sword, but after equipping it found out it was a scythe. There is also a gun classified as a rifle, but fires fully automatic, like the sub machine gun.
The combat in the game is very smooth, challenging, and diverse based on the enemy. Some enemies will explode after being killed, which makes using melee weapons more of a challenge than ranged ones. Some weapons carry advantages over other ones, for example several bosses fly across the map, making fighting them easier if you have a rifle than a sword, and if you are surrounded by enemies a shotgun would prove incredibly effective. Now back to the combat, and enemy AI. The enemy AI seems to have it in for you, mostly targeting you, but not your allies as much. A variety of enemies are packed into this game and each one fits the environment it is in perfectly, even though most are copies of old ones, with a different skin on. Each enemy has a distinct set of attacks, and uses them very well based on its surroundings. In short combat is varied, fluid, fast paced, but not too fast paced, and challenging.
As for sound and graphics this game looks very good both in game and during cut scenes. The sound is just amazing. Music plays almost subtly, but just loud enough to hear it, and each weapon, bullet, and technic makes its own distinct sound, that makes you wonder how many fine details were added into this game.
The story is long, and based on recent game stories, is well above par. So here it goes, the story is about you, a new GUARDIAN recruit fresh out of training , and your CAST friend Vivienne, who was made incredibly lifelike, and on your first mission you find remnants of SEED, a virus that infects life forms, and changes them into basically evil creatures, that had been believed to have been wiped out. Shortly after your discovery you are transferred into the intelligence section of the Guardians, and put on classified missions. Throughout the rest of the game you will partner up, and meet new people and try to find the cause of the SEED outbreaks. During the story missions there are small cut scenes, if you can call them that, where you may have to select a dialogue option, that subtly affects the story by altering Vivienne's view on people, beasts, newman, and other CASTs. These choices will only seem relevant to the cut scene you are in, but all of them affect the story, and will be used to settle on a final ending based on the way you alter Vivienne's beliefs. This is all I can say without giving much away but the ending I had was unexpected, and I can only hope that the rest are just as good. It is also a loooong story, It took around 20-26 hours for me to finish.
After beating a story mission you are given a "free time" to get supplies, upgrade weapons, get new weapons, or discs, and you can go on non-story missions that you unlock as the story goes on, and each one as 4 difficulties, that you unlock as you level up, for instance to unlock the S rank mission you would have to be level 40, but for a different S rank you need to be level 55.
The game also uses an achievement system where you complete a goal, and receive a title and a reward. For instance completing a story mission unlocks a new disk. The goals aren't all revealed art the beginning, but if they have subsequent objectives they display themselves. Below is a short list of achievements.
Beat All Chapters
Play Co-op Mode
Defeat 10 De Ragans
Kill 100,000 Enemies
Have a Weapon With Over 18000 Attack Power
PROS
Its an Interesting/Long Story
Weapons Are Plentiful, Diverse, and Some Are Hilarious
Deep Character Customization
Changeable Classes
Lots of Minor Details Help shape the Game
Camera Issues are Virtually Non-Existent
CONS
Friendly AI seems Overlooked
Levels Can be Confusing
Camera Focus Changes During Some Boss Fights
