Hands-OnPhantasy Star Online

Phantasy Star Online was only one of the games on display at Sega's Gamers Day event this afternoon, but it was doubtlessly the most important title on display. The game - playable for the first time in this country - made a good impression on most who encountered it.

While none of the game's online functions are implemented into the current build, we were able to play through some of the game's early stages in offline mode, and got a good feel for what the game's mechanics will be like. First, all combat occurs in semi real-time. As your character, you'll wander through the game's environments and engage creatures at your leisure. When an enemy is within range of your weapon or spell, a cursor will appear over it that prompts you to attack. While you can attack to your heart's content, all attacks after your first will require a certain amount of charge time before they're able to execute. The same applies to spells, which are called techniques in the game, except that spells are also regulated by TP - technique points.

The game's interface seems particularly interesting - it allows you to map certain functions to the face buttons, including weapon attacks, techniques, and specific items. Furthermore, the R trigger toggles between two sets of item-maps, allowing you to map up to six functions to the face buttons - not eight, though, as the Y button is always reserved for communication.

We also got to experiment with the character creation system. While we have no way of knowing if the roster presented is complete, we did get a definite feel for the creation process. The characters you create are actually a series of combination race/class profiles. Humans, numans, and cyborgs make up the races, while hunters, rangers, and forces make up the classes. Hunters specialize in melee weapons, while rangers use guns. Forces, finally, are the wizards of the game, heavily utilizing techniques. The roster, at this point, seems a bit incomplete; you can't, for example, make a male numan hunter, nor can you create male human forces. Cyborgs, naturally, don't qualify for the force class, as they're non-human, and thus presumably missing the essential life-forces needed to wield the powerful techniques.

All in all, it seems as if Dreamcast owners are going to be blessed with what is quite possibly the most exciting console-RPG ever created. Stay tuned to GameSpot for continuing coverage.