http://operationrainfall.com/2015/07/18/phantasy-star-online-2-sea-has-ip-block-removed

For all you folks waiting on an English version of the game, there you go! It's still not as ideal as having a North American version, but it's something! I haven't personally confirmed it yet, but it's downloading as I write this and will update it once I know for sure.

EDIT: CONFIRMED!

EDIT EDIT:BLOCK IS BACK IN PLACE. NOTHING TO SEE HERE...MOVE ALONG.

Beats a blank. I didn't feel like jumping through various hoops in order to play the game two three years ago.

I've been wanting to play this since announcement. i'll jump on the grenade with you guys.

You're much better off downloading the JP version and using the English patch. There is a program that installs everything for you, the translations better and there's more content on JP than on SEA. If anyone wants to get started on there let me know!

Here's the link the the English patcher:

http://arks-layer.com/

This reddit post will explain the differences between servers for anyone interested
https://www.reddit.com/r/PSO2/comments/3dviht/mod_post_concerning_naenglish_releases/

Yeah seriously if you have any interest in this game skip the this version and go straight for the translated JP one. The SEA version is stupidly far behind in content and the PSO2 Tweaker program make it trivial to actually get the game up, translated, and running now.

I'll be logging onto this towards the weekend, needing to finish rebuilding my machine first, its in a bad way lol. I worry that getting invested in the JP one again, even with the translation is going to lead to having very few people to play with, there is always the danger that someone is going to report us for not being Japanese too and get our accounts banned. Is there a big presense on the JP servers? When i played there was next to no one on and i had to solo most of the stuff...in Japanse (we didnt have the patch back then)

I'm downloading the Japanese version now, been wanting to check this game out and it seems like the unofficial English patch is to a point now where the game is totally playable.

Downloading the JP version now too, even though it might take awhile. Now I just need to remember my old SegaID login info. Wondering if the GB group still exists or if it has been wiped out at some point.

Join that Ship 2!

@giefcookie: I'm using the torrent file found at http://arks-layer.com/setup.php instead of the direct download and getting 3 MiB/s

@mb: Same, but I'm getting 400 kB/s because I'm temporarily stuck on a GREAT 3g connection, visiting some family. Looks like I might get to patching some time tomorrow.

Wondering if my old character is still there, I feel like I made it to mid 20s level-wise. Though I might just start a new character and go through it again.

@giefcookie: Any luck on getting this installed? I downloaded the entire installation file no problem, got it installed, then ran the PSO2 Tweaker launcher. I'm getting nothing but a black screen on launch and error NP1013, which looking around online, it seems is pretty common and there isn't one specific problem that can cause it. It seems to be related to GameGuard, but running the GameGuard Fix option in Tweaker only seems to cause it to redownload missing files on launch, then I get the same NP1013 error.

EDIT: I've made some progress. Restarted but disabled a bunch of services that weren't completely necessary, such as MSI Afterburner and Malwarebytes. This seems to have gotten me past the NP1013 error, but the English patches don't seem to have taken. Reapplying them now.

I would like to play the Japanese version with the English patch but the japanese captcha broke me last time, fucking captcha's

@soulcake: I got it on the second try. It's only five characters, I just took my time with it. I still wasn't 100% sure I was getting the right characters, then again the same is true for English Captchas, too.

Joined Ship 02! Uhmmm yeah...Japanese games!

So... how much 'extra content' stuff does the Japanese version have? If I'm only looking to casually play co op with my girlfriend does it really matter whether i get the SEA or JP one? I had been avoiding playing the Japanese version up to this point because I didn't want to deal with applying translation patches and stuff.

@ajamafalous The biggest thing you're going to be missing out on is the bouncer class, outside of that there is a years worth of extra dungeons on JP PSO2 that aren't available yet on SEA:

EDIT: The patcher program I linked earlier will install all the English translations for you, the only tricky part is registering your account and getting passed the Japanese captcha.

And for anyone worried about having people to play with, the population on ship 02 is about 60-75% western players.

Seems like the English install process for the Japanese version is more streamlined than it was last time I checked.

Eh. I'll bite. It's not like I don't install hundreds of mods for Bethesda RPGs or haven't played the PC version of Deadly Premonition.

More gaming l33t h4x0r skillz by following simple instructions galore.

@mb: Only just finished downloading the 25gigs, installing it before I head to bed. Sounds like I'm in for some tinkering with the Tweaker tomorrow. And hopefully my old account will still work.

Yum!

Been trying to get past this hiragana captcha for half an hour now. I feel like an idiot.

Oh I'm not at all worried about having to mess with configs or anything; I just remember the last time Jeff mentioning a year or two ago that the trannslation auto-patcher was bricking people's computers to the point where they had to revert to a backup to get back into Windows. I want to play the game, but not that badly.

@thesilenttruth: i just got this up and running last night. Did everything through tweaker, so i can confirm it's not too bad to do. But that captcha was a PAIN!

Yeah, pretty much came down to watching a number of green bars fill up for several hours.

Kinda funny to think that my six-hour-old SEA character is in purgatory for the foreseeable future. May the flight of angels sing thee to thy rest.

@madman356647: How's the translation for you? I'd say I'm at about 30 percent translated content through the tutorial/early story stuff.

@chapelzero: Haven't had a shot to try it yet, but the char select screen is pretty much translated. Appears to be focused on the essentials.

@chapelzero There's a technical reason a lot of the tutorial stuff couldn't be translated, it should get quite a bit better as you go on. If anyone needs help feel free to add me, my username is the same as it is here.

@justinklein: Seems like a ton of stuff is in Japanese, even some stuff I remember being translated the first time I played months ago. I heard something about a game patch possibly breaking the translation, do you know if that's true?