Phantasy Star Online at E3

Sega E3 showing of Phantasy Star Online was only a short video, but it did show how the game is going to play. The video booth was setup as four different screens, each of which represented a different character's point of view, or how you would see the game at your house. Then each of the four characters interacted with each other in real time. It was amazing to look between the four monitors and watch the same action from four different perspectives. The booth even had one Japanese version of the game, with the character's text instantly converted to Japanese. This effect was really cool and made me wonder how the game plans on accomplishing that instant translation. Perhaps instead of being able to say whatever you want you'll have to pick from a list of phrases. Still, it was cool to see a game overcoming the language barrier.

The graphics shown in the demo looked very nice. All of the characters and monsters are chock full of polygons, and look really detailed. The game seems to want you to team up with other people, as there were a few points in the demo where you needed teamwork to progress through a certain area. A boulder needed two party members to move it, a puzzle needed two members to complete it - stuff like that.

The video left me wanting to know more about Phantasy Star Online, and hopefully we'll see a playable version soon.