There are a lot of Mixed reviews out there, but I'm going to review this game for what it is! A SEQUEL TO PSO!!
PSO was a large part of my life back in the day. I had PSO on DC, PSO version 2.0 on DC, and PSO E1&2 on GC. Since then, I've been wanting more. More of what PSO has to offer! And PSU gives me that! There have been a lot of negative reviews. My advise, don't listen to them!
This game takes everything that was PSO and improves upon it. Everyone’s big problem seems to be with content! The content is there, people just need to be patient. That's why we're getting updates. We got our first one recently which opened up the 3rd planet (Moatoob) which had 3 more missions, then adding 2 more missions to Parum and Neudaiz!
Basics... Types and Races.
Types
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Hunter - specializes in striking/melee weapons
Ranger - specializes in ranged weapons
Force - specializes in techniques or spells.
Expert types - after meeting the requirements, you can change to an expert type, which combines 2 of these types or even all 3. For more info on this, check out psupedia.org
Races
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Humans - All around. Can thrive in any type
Newmans - Great Forces, bad Hunters
Casts - Great Rangers, bad Forces. Can use SUVs
Beasts - Great Hunters, bad Rangers. Can use Nanoblasts
Basic Gameplay
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The gameplay has been improved upon since PSO, but it doesn't go without a few little annoyances. The attacks are easier to control in PSU. It is possible to easily switch targets in the middle of a combo, as long as the creature you are switching to is near by. The weak and strong attack has been done away with, but Photon Arts have been added. Photon arts are skills that take different forms for each type of weapon. They also level up and become more powerful the more you use them. For striking weapons (mostly used by Hunters) these photon arts display themselves as powerful "super" combos that can be performed as long as you have enough photon points. Each weapon has a different Photon Art, and more will be available in upcoming updates. When a striking photon art gets to level 11, you get an extra hit in this combo. Some photon arts also get an extra hit at level 21. Here are some great videos of photon arts and what they look like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQMoAawHwmU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWMrj_MG1gI
For ranged weapons, they add an element to the weapon. The elements are fire, ice, lightning, earth, light and dark. Right now in online mode, light and dark are not available yet. Adding an element to a ranged weapon does 2 things. Increases the damage to that element's opposite (fire/ice, lightning/earth, light/dark) and it also causes status effects. Fire/burn. Ice/freeze. Lightning/shock. Earth/silence. As "bullets" increase in level, accuracy, power and chance of one of these effects to hit increase.
For Tech weapons, Photon arts are spells or techniques. Similarly to bullets, they are more powerful against opposite elements and cause status effects.
There are a few little annoyances, but they aren't enough to damper my rating of the gameplay.
For instance... if you use an attack, and you are being attacked, it's possible you will block that attack, but it will also knock you out of your attack. This can get very annoying when you are using photon points up and you block only to see your photon points gone and your attack not go off.
Also, on the PC when using a keyboard (which I don't do anymore), if you try to use your SUV or Nanoblast as a Cast or Beast respectively, in some cases, you end up just attacking the air or using up photon points since you have to hit both of the attack buttons at the same time. I'm not sure if it's the PCs or the Keyboards, but I've had the problem, and after searching around, others have as well. However, using a controller solves this problem.
Finally, whereas this doesn't really bother me at all, I have to mention it. The gameplay has been refined to the point it is less challenging. It's nice that my gun shoots more than only 3 times like it did in PSO, but the ability to just button mash and get your combo to go off every time gets to me for some reason. I like it when I'm soloing in a huge mob, but overall, it takes some of the challenge out of the game. I liked the timing attacks that PSO used.
One thing I really miss... My mag. :(
However the PM is nice. I like the ability to open up a store, and synth items. The fact that you can get your PM to fight with you once she gets to a certain level is nice too. I haven't gotten mine there yet (level 50 right now, need level 80), but I hope to be there soon.
Graphics
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Straight up... not bad, but not great either. The PC graphics are nice, but there is still quite a bit of popup. They could be better. Honestly I'm not sure why this game requires 64MB of video ram. Causes me not to have the ability to run the game on my current laptop, while I COULD run Guild Wars on it, and it is graphicly more impressive. The PS2 graphics are decent, but nothing to drool over. It's probably a bad thing that this game came out at the same time as one of the most graphically impressive games on the PS2, Final Fantasy XII. But overall, the game looks good.
There is some slowdown in parts, especially on the PS2. But for the most part, on the PC, my little 6600GT holds up pretty well. Have the graphics turned almost all the way up while playing in a 1024x768 window.
One thing I thought was odd, if I have the game in full screen mode, and I focus on another running application in Windows, PSU shuts down. That's why I run in Windowed mode now.
Communication
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This is probably the most impressive part for me. There are 3 things that really stood out.
1) The PS2 and the PC version work VERY well together. You would really have to know what to look for to see that someone was on the PS2 and not the PC. Not only that, but the fact that the PS2 only really shows it's longer load time is at the start of the mission when there will be some times when you see your party fighting air b/c the creatures haven't loaded yet. But that only happens at the very beginning of the mission. Even if you aren't satisfied with the graphics on the PS2 version, you can appreciate how well they did putting the 2 games together on one server. Even between blocks the PS2 loads almost as fast as the PC. I was impressed.
2) My PS2 is connected to the net wirelessly via a wireless ethernet bridge... and I saw little to no lag.
3) There were 5 of us online at my house at the same time, 2 on PCs, 2 on laptops and one on PS2... again ... no lag! If there was a score for something like this, it would be a 10 for this review.
Sound
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Honestly, nothing special, but it sounds good. The music is pretty good, but I usually just tune it out anyway. Sound effects are good too, but again, nothing special. I hear that the voice acting in the story mode sucks, but as I said before, I haven't gotten there yet.
Value
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Well, my main character is level 30 and I have 2 alts, one at 15 and one at 13. Not even close to bored yet. Especially since they opened up more content now. The Value is defiantly there, and people that are complaining that there isn't enough content are just being impatient for the most part. Sega is unlocking everything over time, and I can appreciate that. Makes it easier to find someone to party with. That was sometimes frustrating on PSO. I have a life and a Job; I can't get to level 100 in a month. This way it keeps everyone more level. Sure there is a $10 a month fee where PSO was free to start out with, but these are different times. I bought the $50 for 7 months plan. And I'm fine with that.
Tilt
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There is no game I have ever played that took up more of my time than PSO. PSU is a worthy successor to an already great formula. And the people I'm playing with are not just PSO fans. I have a number of friends, 4 that I play with on a regular basis, that just picked it up and started playing for the first time without PSO experience, and they are loving it. The game is very approachable and simple to pick up and play. After you take the first hour or 2 to look around and get your bearings (hence my learning curve selection), you're off to the hunt. Just make sure you go through the tutorial as it is very much worth the time. Especially since you get a free photon art during it. That's a 1000 mst value. (Hey look, I'm a salesman).
Most of the critics wanted something revolutionary like PSO was. They wanted something new brought to the table. Me... I just wanted a sequel to a great game. And I defiantly got that! Is it as good as PSO was at the time? Well, no, but that's a tough order to fill. As it stands now, whether you're a PSO fan or not, great game!