Well, if you are a hardcore MMORPG gamer, this may be your game.
If you're looking for a short and sweet game with little to no storyline, then look no further than Phantasy Star Universe. Although it may seem to have an appealing storyline in the description, the outcome is a less-than anticipated plot. There are maybe four cutscenes with actual dialect in the whole game, and each lasts roughly a minute. The rest of the storyline is told through word bubbles and events that happen while you are playing. Most of the time, you are wandering around the GUARDIAN's space station, trying to figure out where to go next. Although there are plenty of shops at the station, few of them sell anything more than just items and weapons. Along with that, you will find that you have limited access to different places, and people.
As far as the in-game action goes, you can expect a lot of button-mashing and combo attacks that are all the same and unoriginal. Each time you attack, you have about three original attacks, and every attack after that is just the same attack, except for your special ability, which always ends up being something like spinning your sword around. You can target enemies, and choose to run up to them and slash away at them, or just keep on walking. Nothing is forced unless you need to defeat them in order to get a key to open the locked gates. Much of the scenery in the different areas looks the same, and you would be hard-pressed to find the entrance in a crisis. There are different terrains to fight in, but they do not effect how much damage or what kind of damage is dealt. This is pretty much a strictly battle-based game.
On top of that, all of the enemies in the game seem to be unoriginal and repetitive. Your allies in the single-player mode are very useless and brain-dead. For instance, if you walk up to an enemy and the enemy attacks you, 70% of the time, your allies may just stand there and watch on. When they finally do decide to attack, they often get pummelled or left behind. There is no real need for the ressurrection items, because once an ally falls dead, within twenty seconds they will be automatically revived at full health. Leveling up on PSU is quite steep and often the enemies do not drop enough EXP to level you up unless you defeat hundreds of them.
Of course, the game isn't entirely a waste. You can feed and train your robot sidekick until it is a fully grown ally to assist you in combat. You can change clothes and customize a lot of attributes and weapons for Ethan. There are also four different planets or worlds to travel to, each with their own different sidequests and challenges.
The game starts off with our main character, Ethan Waber, who is a teenaged boy who strongly dislikes GUARDIANs. It is the hundred years of peace celebration, and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. [SPOILERS AHEAD] That is, until the mysterious SEED strikes, and destroys an entire section of the GUARDIANs Colony. Now, Ethan is forced to make a choice: Wield the weapons of a GUARDIAN, in order to save his sister's life. After saving another person using his skills with the sword, Ethan decides that being a GUARDIAN might not be so bad after all. This is when you end up going through a lot of boring storyline without much sense, until we get to the point, which is the mysterious ancient technology that is somehow related to the SEED. Along the way, you encounter the android soldier Magus, who you have obvious resentments towards. Friends become foes, and foes allies in this confusing tale of how Ethan Waber saves his star cluster from imminent peril. [END OF SPOILERS]
Here's the Break Down:
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Storyline: 3 out of 10
Battle System: 7 out of 10
Character Development (Through the story): 5 out of 10
Gameplay: 4 out of 10
Audio: 5 out of 10
Graphics: 7 out of 10
Cutscene Graphics: 7 out of 10
Sidequests and Side Missions: 7.5 out of 10
Overall Score: 6.5 out of 10
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Phantasy Star Universe is one of those games that you may be able to play through once and think of it as a good game, but probably not a second time. Overall, this game takes about 15 to 20 hours to beat, and it poses a reasonable difficulty. I would recommend this game to all fans of the Phantasy Star series or franchise, all MMORPG players or fans, any hardcore-RPG gamer, and even some action adventure fans may find this game entertaining.