PSU vs. PSO

Which is better? I think PSO is WAY better than PSU myself. PSU might have had a story, but it effed up the battle controls. (and strangely enough, when I get a PSP I'm getting Phantasy Star Portable, lol PSP again)

PSU is fun, but not nearly as memorable as PSO. It's rather bland and while seemingly impossible, simpler compared to its predecessor.

Then there's the linking of Techs to weapons...

At least it sort of fixes the problem of being unable to access most of your Techniques, but non-melee weaponry is major crap since only melee weapons have infinite PP.

I intended to make a short response but I ended up going on a rant...

I find that the controls for PSU are fine, locking on is kind of annoying though. There are many different types of weapons. What turns me away from PSU is the amount of reused content, I've only seen variations of the same 4-5 maps, and tons of reskinned enemies, they reskinned Dark Falz from De Rol Le FFS. I can take running forest, caves etc over and over again, but I can't get myself to run the same mission more than a few times before going batshit.

The more I play the more I get bored of it. I like playing PSU but I'm just seeing the same crap the more I play, even rares feel like that. Obtaining & using a 9* sword feels nothing different from a 15* sword. Seeing a reskinned Koltova for the 4th time is sleep inducing. In PSO, I could use a Red Sword, then use a TJS, and not feel the same way about both of them, there may be less content in PSOv2 than in PSU, but I can get attached to the only 4 areas and the unique items. Various weapons like the Lavis Cannon, Sealed J Sword, Guld Milla, Imperial Pick, look all different and stand out, I remember all the enemies, rare items and many little things about PSO, but I can only name a handful of enemies and rares about PSU, and I've played it for 100+ hours.

Tech names like Hishou Jinren-zan or Bukuu Saien-zan, just piss me off, I cant tell the difference between shit like that, and I couldn't care less for that, or PA's in general, same goes for retarded item names. Not many things pop out to keep my attention when playing PSU, and oddly enough, spamming the basic 3-hit combo in PSO is more fun to me than spamming a PA ._., but with the various PA's you can use it isn't much of a problem.

I liked this game before AOTI, when there wasn't an overload of dull content. After that, they just reskinned the shit that was in v1, then random dull-looking rares, PA's with messed up names, more reskinned areas and enemies you have already seen before were implemented and at that point I stopped giving a shit. But not all the new updates were complete BS. When AOTI was released, there was a large amount of new content, but it wasn't enough to pull me in, it felt like more of the same even though it was new.

And like What Ives said, PSU is not as memorable as PSO, especially with all the reskinned shit. I find that PSO excels quality, and PSU excels in quantity. I still like to play PSU, and the online component is fun, and I'd still be playing online more if I had the money. I have not played Phantasy Star Portable, so I don't know if it has any completely new content. In short, I just get bored of PSU easily.

The only thing that caught my eye in PSU was the online mode, which I managed to play at a friend's house. I loved that mode. That was the only thing I played.
I didn't really play much of PSU though, so I took a look at some videos- did you know that they recycled the Ruins music and kept the textures for Ruins? (I don't know what it's called in PSU, but there's a stage where it looks exactly like Ruins just with a different map layout) The boss there was Dark Falz cosplaying De Rol Le. AFTER YOU BEAT HIM, the teleporter leads to a stage that looks awfully like the garden before you fight Dark Falz in PSO, it had the flowers, the memorial/tower thing, etc. Of course it did have some things added- those two crystals that let you teleport back to the main area or to other Rest Areas, and some smaller Ruins as you walk up the steps. Creepy. They even remixed that area's music from PSO, making it faster, and to include more instruments. I felt nostalgia, but in a bad way.

PSUP is the same thing as PSUv2, it just has a few extra weapons and missions that PSUv2 doesn't have. Personally I prefer PSUv2 to the original, as Photon Whips kick ass and the semi-reintroduction of attack timing is better than nothing. Also the original PSU quest system was total fail, since each mission had hardcoded enemy levels so you could only play it once and then it would be too easy. PSUv2's introduction of mission ranks helps that problem a lot; unfortunately, S rank isn't nearly hard enough once you reach a high level.

The original quest system you talk about was offline only, online had C,B,A rank missions etc...just a very small amount of them. Offline PSU is easy either way, aside from some lv 120-130 mobs in PSUv2 offline. I could kill mobs halfway through a PA combo, but enemies like Jarba and Gaozorans, I could waste all the PP of my weapon on them and they won't fucking die. Not only that, they spam techs that deal 1k damage to me, even my newman force was taking a beating from techs, just not as badly. Sometimes its like walking into a room of gillchichs and getting bombarded by 5 lasers at once.

The attack timing made melee classes broken, but it is at least something. I find that many PA's are dps inefficient compared to ones like Renkai Buyou-zan, all you have to do is walk into the middle of a group of mobs and spam it.

Broken melee

I liked PSU when it was actually challenging and things didn't die two seconds after they spawned. I also liked it when there were actually people that played it, and I loved it before they added Crimson Beast. Before Crimson Beast, there were missions to spam, but everything sort of had a close payoff and each mission had a different quality to it. Like, the levels with machines were downright rough without a Force, and the levels with fleshy monsters were still tough even with a balanced group. Plus, they were actually brave enough to try and continue PSU as PSU, not PSO in PSU. I've said it before, I'll probably say it again. I paid for PSO content eight years ago. I want PSU content now.

Plus, they've sort of ignored everything that was promised that made PSU cool. Machines (which, admittedly, were useless, but cool)? Ignored except for one mission that was a clunky race. Firebreak missions? Nope. The only event (maybe 1Up too) they really put forth effort in, and we haven't seen anything like it again.

Oh, speaking of which, don't get me started on the events. They literally have become, "We'll take mission blocks straight from missions we already released, crank up the EXP and MP to mind numbing levels, throw in easy rares, and let's call it an event!" Whoopee.

I like the new weapons and combat changes from AotI, but they honestly broke Hunters. Rangers and Forces need some kind of boost too. Basically, I think they had it best with PSU original when it was first released, and it just went downhill from there. Low content? Yes. A Sega that cared? Yes. Now it's just reskins, no difficulty, and low population.

That being said, I regret none of my time spent on PSU.

Since I never played PSU online, I only had access to the easy offline mode in Ver.1. I refuse to pay to play for a game where I don't get to keep my characters. Server side saving FTL.

That's why I've been reluctant to play online recently. [s]That and the fact that I'm broke. ;-;[/s]

Basically, everyone's hoping for a way to convert the characters to offline when the time finally comes, but it's not looking too good to be honest. The best way I think to do it would be to have the last installment be offline only, but be able to connect to the server to retrieve the character and take it offline with you. Then maybe even have LAN play available.

But I find that unlikely. At least a transfer box wouldn't be too much to ask, would it?

Copying your character data would be easy enough with a proxy, the trouble is nobody will be able to make a PSU server since Sega actually bothered to use decent encryption for once.

People could make WoW servers, right? There's no way Sega did a better job than Blizzard when it came to servers.

Not that anyone is that PSU crazy. In Japan, maybe, but not here.

Well yes it could be done, but it would probably take a while to brute force the encryption. Nobody is that dedicated to PSU.