E3 2005: Phantasy Star Universe Hands-On

We tried out Sega's latest entry in the Phantasy Star series, Phantasy Star Universe, which is currently being shown off for the PC and PlayStation 2 on the E3 show floor. The game is an original installment in the series, with few direct ties to the previous Phantasy Star games. Though the game has a dedicated online mode that lets you play with a group of friends, PSU also features a proper single-player role-playing-game component. We tried out a demo of the game for the PC and PlayStation 2 to see what they have to offer.

The demos showed off the single-player experience, which sticks with the look and feel of the Phantasy Star Online games that started on the Dreamcast and have since appeared on the GameCube and Xbox. You'll play as main character Ethan Waber, who sets out to rescue his sister following a catastrophe. Your adventure will send you off to explore the three planets in the Gurhal Solar System, where you'll meet an assortment of colorful characters, some of whom will join your party.

The gameplay mechanics in PSU will draw from the systems introduced in the online games rather than the offline RPGs that first introduced players to the series. The game has a distinct action RPG feel that gives you two attacks, heavy and light, that you'll be able to combine for more-powerful attacks. You'll now have a couple of artificially intelligent characters that can come along, although you are limited to just two AI buddies, which is considerably less than the turn-based Phantasy Star game of old. And you can direct your cohorts to help you out during battles. You'll once again find the familiar Phantasy Star classes, such as hunters, rangers, and forces, in PSU. The races will see some additions, as the game adds to the PS canon of humans, newmans, and androids.

The single-player demo let us try out two areas in game: a moody cave interior, which ended in a boss fight, and an outdoor area, which had its own boss fight. The game handled a lot like Phantasy Star Online in terms of moving and camera adjustment, which should be a comfortable fit for fans of the online games. The combat works fairly well with your AI-controlled buddies, with the same deliberate pace needed to pull off the more powerful combos in Ethan's repertoire.

The visuals in the two demo versions of the game presented what you'd expect from their respective platforms. The PC game offered a high level of detail thanks its higher resolution. The PlayStation 2 game wasn't quite as sharp as its PC cousin, but it still looked quite good. The art style is on par with the previous PSOs, and it offers stylized character designs and rich environments.

While we didn't see it in action, PSU will also feature a rich online game that's set shortly after the events at the end of the single-player game. Specifics on what the game will offer are still being kept under wraps, but PSU is expected to let you take a custom-created character online (just as the previous online games did), as well as let you take on a new adventure with friends. Exactly how many friends is still being determined, but we expect the game will let you adventure with as many people as we saw in the previous entries in the series. (PSO let up to four players party it up.)

All told, PSU is shaping up to be a solid game on both the PC and PS2. While Sega is keeping a fair amount of details quiet at the moment, what we've seen and heard of the game makes for a solid base. Phantasy Star Universe should hit all the right notes for fans of the series when it's released early next year. Look for more on PSU in the coming months.