The first online console RPG, PSO provides the user with hundreds upon hundreds of hours of pure gaming fun.
Phantasy Star Online, developed by Sonic Team, who you may know from their, what else, Sonic the Hedgehog titles, was released exclusively for Sega's unfortunately ill-fated Dreamcast. It truly defined what an online community was all about: it had plenty of people to chat with, befriend, and play with... and, like most online games, also had its share of cheaters that would seemingly stop at no lengths to prevent you from having one ounce of fun with this game. However, the first few weeks or so I'd say the game was actually pretty much cheat-free, allowing serious and honest gamers to enjoy themselves and the game without having to worry about other people spoiling their fun.
Phantasy Star Online provided players with plenty of people to meet, a good amount of them actually quite friendly once you talked to them and got to know them. In the first few weeks of the game, as you'd likely imagine, nearly everyone was new to the game, so there were no people saying "I'm this game's master" or "I own at this game". None of that egotistical stuff you normally associate with many other online games.
Further enhancing the community and friend aspect of the game are guild cards. You can trade guild cards with each other so you can meet up with them at a later date. Guild cards are basically online IDs or "business cards" which assign each player their own number. They are only customizable in the sense that you can write something on them, like "What's up?" or "Favorite Sports Team: Chicago Bulls".
Phantasy Star Online, since it is, you know, an RPG, has a story. It's not a very deep or overall quality one, though. The story is basically the following: Pioneer 1, a ship carrying many different people in rank and "importance" on it, crashed on a planet called Ragol, and several of those important people were almost immediately deemed missing, including a woman named Red Ring Rico, the daughter of a man named Principal Tyrell, who is essentially the man in charge. Thus, with that known, it is your responsibility to find her. Not exactly a story that will twist your brain around in the sense that it really is confusing. Not at all, honestly. It's a fairly simple storyline to follow as you can see.
Ah, but you see, finding Red Ring Rico isn't exactly going to be a walk in the park. Throughout the game you'll hunt and fight your way through four different areas, each one with either 1 or 2 "sub-areas", will battle numerous creatures that differ in variety, type and difficulty, and will find many kinds of different items, weapons, and accessories to equip yourself with as well as use.
In terms of overall gameplay, Phantasy Star Online doesn't necessarily require a whole lot from the end user. Your basic action buttons are mapped to the Dreamcast's four face buttons, as well as two triggers. The game, honestly, is really nothing more than a hack-n-slash when you break it down; in fact, many gamers compare it to the popular PC game, Diablo 2. Still, with that said, that isn't truly a bad thing for the game because it may be the most addictive and rewarding hack-n-slash game of all-time, at least on a home console.
Graphically, Phantasy Star Online is a pretty game for the most part. The levels are nicely crafted and the characters themselves look like they sport a decent amount of polygons in them. The frame-rate seems to hover around 30 frames per second most of the time, which is fine with me as most games do not achieve that impressive rate of 60. The game does feature a lot of pop-up and draw-in; for example, you may be walking down a particular path in the game and see nothing interesting ahead of you when, all of a sudden, a teleport appears. Also, items, weapons, and the like drop on the ground in the form of "boxes" to pick up, and if you aren't really that close to them, when you approach them they'll just appear out of nowhere. Now, the Dreamcast isn't exactly a graphical powerhouse, so some pop-up and draw-in is to be expected, but it does get a little annoying at times.
Phantasy Star Online's music is incredible. The score as a whole is simply phenomenal. The music is varied and fits the many areas of the game in which you will find yourself walking (and running) around in. Sonic Team did an excellent job in this particular category of the game.
Simply put, Phantasy Star Online is a game that was seemingly destined for greatness the minute it was unveiled. It has (or, rather, had) a, for the most part, solid online community, gameplay that, although it gets a bit redundant at times, still fits the type of game that it is rather nicely, graphics that, with some small, certain exceptions, are good, beautiful music, and just gives you a great overall experience while you play it.