I have recently been playing Phantasy Star Online Episode 1&2 again, and it has truly been a wonderful experience. My history with Phantasy Star Online at this point is quite rich and deep. I have played the game on Dreamcast, Gamecube, Xbox and PC through Blue Burst and Emulation on Dolphin. I have probably sunk thousands of hours into the game over the course of my life. I love this game and am absolutely adoring my return to the game in my favorite way, split-screen couch coop. I am playing with my younger brother and an old childhood friend, who was an original member of our Gamecube and Xbox PSO crew. We are veterans, we know what were doing and we understand the game. It is a beautiful thing to see.
Phantasy Star Online is my favorite dungeon crawler loot-fest, period. Diablo can eat a dick, Borderlands can fuck off, and other candidates can sit the fuck down. Nothing tops PSO for me. It is so hard to tell where nostalgia ends and engaging gameplay begins, they are entwined. I find PSO absolutely perfectly paced for a dungeon crawler, loot upgrades come but not at an annoying frequency. Mag feeding breaks up the combat, a Tamagotchi and stat-stick in one. Enemies are incredibly stupid, but highly aggressive and determined. I cant wait to reach Very-Hard mode, when enemies start cruising and become more threatening. We stepped into Hard mode just last night and I boldly proclaimed, Not a damn thing is stopping us till we hit Dark Falz. Hell we played till 1:30 in the morning and you know what not a damn thing was going to stop us till Falz. If we played more we could have hit the Falz wall easily, he would have destroyed us no question ahaha.
Its funny playing with my brother, a loot crazed HUcast named Big Snake. He is very greedy and being an android inherently means he will make more money anyway, which is kinda hilarious. Being a HUcast and having hand-me downs from Michael's other characters makes him incredibly powerful. He's our meat shield, when he isn't running towards items . . .
My character is a FOnewm, Sauron. I rely on my techniques and fluids to an absurd degree. However, I am a bare-handed casting force of destruction. A nuker, a damage dealer, but hey I do my share of support with Resta, J/Z and S/D. But as soon as I run dry on fluids, Ill be the first one to lay down the Ryuker and say, I need fluids. Hahaha
Our host Michael is a very gracious host indeed. Anyone familiar with me by now, knows that I enjoy the marijuana, but our pal Michael has graduated to full on weed enthusiast. Hes on a new level, smoking dabs, concentrated cannabis oil or wax. Taking a victory dab after destroying a boss is definitely an experience. He alternates between a FOmar, Soloman that he considers Bitch-Made, and a RAcast, McDavid who is a twinked out monster.
His knowledge of the game is easily on par with my brother and me. Hell he had PSO-World open on this laptop ready to go, so I knew his ass was serious. We were having a hilarious debate last night on who should be player one, because of the Section IDs. We settled on a Skly ID Character who had everything unlocked in Episode 1 hard-mode. We saw quite a few Red Boxes, but of course . . .
When Michaels girlfriend joins the fun, she marvels at our esoteric knowledge of the game. She finds the way we play, down-right hilarious, but thats the marijuana most likely. My experience with this game is simply on another level. I know what techniques to use on which enemies. I know to cast barehanded as male Force for a quicker animation. I know how picky my fucking Mag is. I know which attacks will probably kill me instantly haha. I cant think of another game that I probably understand as well as PSO.
So to sum things up, I am having more fun with a videogame than I have had in years. PSO is still my favorite cooperative loot-piñata game, and that couch Coop really puts it over the top. Through a combination of raw nostalgia, compelling gameplay mechanics and a little marijuana, I am having the time of my life with this fucking game. I really can't wait to demolish Episode 1 Hard mode next time I'm over there. Bah who am i kidding, Dark Falz's third form is going to bitch-slap me dead
Now if you'll excuse me, time to play some PSO on Dolphin. I need to scratch that itch . . .
