Creating a Phantasy - A 10-year Retrospective of PSO2 & NGS

[@LuSiDious]

I got into PSO2 during COVID. It was my 1st MMO, and I gotta say it was hella fun and addictive. That was the right time to get into it. Now that life is back to normal, Haven't touched NGS since level 20 cap, don't even know what the cap and classes are now. Grinding for Guardian Soul pieces, 4s protection (DUDU over Monica) Community was hella cool, cosmetics took my money. Was a blast playing, glad I got into it! Ship 3, where u at?!

[@Zeomantic]

Yeah, the timing couldn't have been better as several other high-profile games (Animal Crossing, FF7 remake) were dropping around the time the beer bug popped off. The current max level in NGS is 70.

[@LuSiDious]

@@Zeomantic70?! Oh lawdy. I guess i can boot it up, i had it jerry rigged on windows store with so much patches. 2020 was a good time for gaming, albeit not good for much else.

[@kingroxas1234]

I only picked up the series after Global release but it quickly became one of my favorite games of all time. The memories I made through that year of constant updates are some I’ll hold close. Thank you for this retrospective and insight into the life and times of PSO2 and here’s hoping things turn up for the future.

[@Zeomantic]

I'm sure it will once we see what awaits us beyond the volcano area. That, plus we'll see how the PlayStation folks like the game once that comes to Global next month.

[@djhomicide4ever]

I cannot thank you enough for this beautiful video. PSO has been a huge part of my life from my teenage years to later my adult years. I loved how you touched on pretty much every aspect of the games. You even mentioned the drought us western players had to deal with. I was part of the group that said i would wait for pso2. I remember checking the website every month for almost 4 years. By the time 2017 came around i think i had given up at that point. After waiting for so long. I didnt find out about the official west release until 2020. I did something i still cannot believe i did. I hopped on for the fist time in january 2021 and somehow crammed a decade of content into 5 months. It helped alot that it was during the pandemic and I was not working much. So i put all my time into the game LITERALLY lol. I remember feeling like a kid again the first time i launched it. Once i started i couldnt stop. I soon realized how behind i was from everyone else around me so i grinded day and night leveling. I somehow still made my guardian soul units and got my klauz weaps. I cannot stress how many hours it took to somehow get all the mats needed in only 5 months. I also spent alot of money as well lol. I will always love this game. Pso2 somehow gave me that feeling PSO did. Its like something i cant describe. The deep lore accompanied with the most soothing music that just takes me to another place in my mind. Its indescribable. That feeling is what NGS still hasnt given me. Im holding out hope but I just dont feel it. Love the gameplay changes compared to PSO2. The dash glide, the graphics, climbing, and other game mechanics makes the gameplay so much better that its hard to even go back and play PSO2. But the game has no depth. Like the story in PSO2 base gave meaning to everything around you. And the amount of rare augs, rare enemies in PSO2 in comparison, makes ngs feel so hollow. And why are we are lvl 70 but have such limited PAs? I miss all the scion classes. I know the plan was to add elements to the base classes and get rid of the scion classes but the base classes still dont feel as fun as the Scion classes did. You understand PSO in ways i dont think no one else ever will and for that i am grateful. Please dont ever stop making PSO videos, ever.

[@Zeomantic]

Glad you enjoyed it! That was a really cool story. The global version came out at the perfect time, like so many other games at the time. Games like PSO2 and animal crossing really helped people stay connected.

[@chelsthegameruiner8669]

The thing that sucked is that when the game finally launched globally on PS4, base game's life cycle was long over so we didn't get to experience the magic of base game like the incredible collabs (I'd love to do the SAO collab). We got concerts back but it was only a limited time thing which again, is unfortunate because I found them genuinely amazing compared to the NGS one. Perhaps the best part of base game was the urgent quests, holy shit, the urgent quests. They felt like actual raids with neat mechanics (I loved the Yamato one because I'm big into the Second World War), whereas NGS has, to put it simply, glorified trials. To put it simply, remember the situation of Final Fantasy XIV at launch during the 1.0 years. That's NGS right now, but it's on steroids because where FFXIV was saved from failure, NGS won't be having that same luxury from the look of things

[@zanderwhitcroft]

I was there for one of the songs! It was amazing and i wish we got more...

[@Spoooooked]

Pso2 op gives me goosebumps I barely started during the first beta but it feels like it was forever ago

[@avendurree]

Honestly PSO2 is great, it sucks that they rushed through all the years of content into a single year and killed it, they definitely couldve used at least 2 - 3 years to properly pace the content updates in the west, then they also wouldve had more time for PSO2NGS development or better, they shouldve just updated PSO2 entirely. What I miss mostly is the space atmosphere and all that NGS lacks, open world is cool, but its a little bit lame that we're not visiting different planets and places.

[@ShiroCh_ID]

agreed we still have missing parts i think it will executed better with how PSU was so theres an open world instanced as a planets instead of an island

[@DimitriKatsuro]

Totally agree, i feel like they wasted a good bunch of the effort put on PSO2 global rushing everything in 1 year.

[@ChibiTheEdgehog]

They didn't rush, every PSO title has a 10 yr plan. No one but Microsoft has ever wanted to bring PSO to the west, so here we were

[@cosmosofinfinity]

I see the merits of your perspective, but at the time I was just enjoying the most insane content blitz I've ever seen an MMO do

[@valience9876]

Been a player since July 2012 for pso2 jp. It sure has been a long good time leading to today.

[@Zeomantic]

OGs represent! Ship 2 born and raised!

[@Sanjixoxo]

How far we have came... and fallen

[@DimitriKatsuro]

Thanks a lot for this Zeo, PSO2 was a fantastic experience for me and now i missing it a lot.

[@Zeomantic]

Glad you enjoyed it! I had a lot of fun putting this together!

[@flameninja_]

This video is an amazing retelling of the history of PSO2. I really like how you made it seem like a tv show with the commercial cut-ins of japanese Phantasy Star commercials and concept art. I also enjoy the way you explain the history of the game, it makes it really easy for someone who isn't familiar with the game at all or didn't know about (or forgot about) different portions of the history to be able to understand really easily. I also really enjoyed how you spoke as neutral as possible and only with the facts about the history instead of giving your own opinion. This definitely made my day and still gives me hope that SEGA may lead NGS in the correct direction and bring it up to par with how well base PSO2 went in the end of it all.

[@Zeomantic]

Thank you very much! Really glad you enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun making it too!

[@djhomicide4ever]

@@Zeomantic Yea i agree this felt like a well produced TV show. It was really beautiful.

[@Zeomantic]

@@djhomicide4ever I've got one for the entire franchise in the works. Stay tuned!

[@mattwo7]

2:16 You forgot Aoi Yuki, Rie Kugimiya and Tetsuya Kakihara and for the English dub you forgot the late and horribly miscast Billy Kametz. Guy was not meant to do complete scumbags like Luther. He definitely gave it his best shot though, no denying that.

[@Zeomantic]

I didn't "forget" them, I just picked ones that stood out to me the most. Like how Dragon Ball Super was taking off at the time Episode 4 was in production. I thought of including Billy since he died around the time I was finishing up the script for this thing.

[@tonyknighton4019]

@@Zeomantic WHAT????

[@m3tr0id86]

Honestly I lost hope for some time for PSO2, but when an ad on my Xbox popped up, I never thought I would be glad to see an ad. When hearing more or less the original sounds and music of episode 2 I felt I was home. I even was creating lore for my character E-102 Gamma that I have kept in his likeness since PSO which was a red pallet swap of Kireek from the same game. Episode 1, 2, PSU, PSO2 and now New Genesis he's in his fifth life as I said is his lore. As long as Dark Falz lives in any form of existence he is in a never ending dance of death with the entity with all the memories of people that was left behind in each reincarnation. Seriously though PSO2 has some really good characters.

[@EatMoreVitamins]

seriously. phantasy star movie / tv show / anime when?? that would probably work.

[@Applejoocebox]

this was such a nicely made and well edited video my gosh

[@Zeomantic]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@mattwo7]

8:29 Well only the two-handed weapons (wands aside). There would be some weapons and camos that took inspiration from the one-handed ones as well though. The lightsaber-inspired design of prim swords in NGS for example are based on the classic basic saber weapons, which were also based on lightsabers.

[@ProphetoftheMachines]

I wonder who HMZK has dirt on, because that's the only reason I can see why he was made director of NGS after almost killing base game in episode 5. It seriously boggles the mind at how many mistakes Sega is making with NGS that it already made and learned from in the past.

[@TheMightyNovac]

I'm pretty sure you'd have to bribe ME to work on NGS, not the other way around lol

[@rinnnnnnnnnnrinRinOnishi]

this would explain why gwizofthestars is still one of the english community heads for pso2... even though he used to be a 4chan troll and has repeatedly been outed *WITH PROOF* that hes been ignoring players asking for help after being wrongfully banned

[@shatteredsentient5321]

@@rinnnnnnnnnnrinRinOnishi Sega is pretty cringe

[@minaminotaiyo6055]

@@rinnnnnnnnnnrinRinOnishi Gwiz is a she. Proper pronouns please, no matter your opinion. Also as a community manager, I'm almost certain that is not on her. I'll defend this game as much as I want, end of story.

[@mattwo7]

It's Sega, no one needs dirt on anyone. They've been making dumb executive decisions since the 32X. First they release the 32X, f*ck up the release of the Saturn, kneekcap the development of SA2 and shut down Sonic Team USA like it wasn't their own faults, lead to Yuji Naka leaving and put Iizuka in charge followed by Iizuka and them constantly rushing sonic games out before they're done, and now PSO2 Global and NGS were rushed out too...

[@rekano]

Amazing video. As one of the many in that "Waiter" camp...that 2019 E3 had me popping OFF to anyone within earshot about the game. From its closed beta on Xbox, it was my saving grace throughout the absolute bogusness that was 2020.

[@Zeomantic]

Yeah there were a lot of games besides this one that came out just as the beer bug hit, like Animal Crossing and FF7R. Glad you enjoyed it!

[@rekano]

@@Zeomantic as someone who works retail. the bogusness I was referring to was covid. lol. in terms of games? It was a great year, for sure.

[@Zeomantic]

@@rekano covid is what I meant by "beer bug"

[@EatMoreVitamins]

what an incredible journey showcasing our amazing team of talented artists and directors!!

[@Zeomantic]

I had a lot of fun making this! Thanks for watching!

[@Kingdramana]

Thank you for the video, i have been a long time fan of the originals and certainly jumped into PSO2 around its third year of JP release. I have been playing it non stop.

[@Zeomantic]

Right on!

[@AzariusR]

Finally something that we can commemorate on. What an amazing journey. Thanks Zeo!

[@Zeomantic]

My pleasure!

[@shadowspartan110]

Watching your video was quite the nostalgia trip for me. I joined late in PSO2 compared to the other "importers" I ironically joined at the lowest PSO2 had been with Hero being the only class anyone played but in doing so I got to ride the tide of the game's QoL just going up and up and up and it was so good. I definitely do not regret my time in PSO2 but man does NGS try its best to make me forget. Maybe some day Sega can get their heads out of their asses and get Yoshioaka to fix NGS like he did PSO2, until then my time is spent elsewhere, but I can't help but look over at the game I can't bring myself to uninstall and wonder if theres ever gonna be a point where I hit play once again.

[@aerrae5608]

Oh man, I remember the damn captcha. I had to use google to translate the strokes I drew with my mouse. Worth it though. Japanese and the foreigners in the JP server all work together. That made the game truly great. In the early days you were never alone. Everyone would run around in a giant swarm and melt everything in site, exp and drops raining down to reward their cooperation. Beautiful time. It's one of two MMO experiences that I will never forget.

[@Zeomantic]

Some of us are still around, even with NGS and the geo block.

[@aerrae5608]

@@Zeomantic I just rejoined and got invited to an alliance on Ship 2 while transferring my inventories. So hopeful to relive a similar PSO2 experience.

[@alexis_evo]

those pse burst announcer clips gave me chills

[@Zeomantic]

ONE MORE!

[@alexis_evo]

CROSS BURST! the NGS announcer sounds so boring in comparison

[@Zeomantic]

It really does!

[@ShiroCh_ID]

@@alexis_evo at least the Encore sound so much like Uncle to me lol

[@ridoing9969]

Felt real emotional at the end! Memories of my journey flashing through! Great video!

[@Zeomantic]

Dude I was in tears after I finished the voiceover!

[@ridoing9969]

@@Zeomantic pain

[@milkbucket5647]

@@Zeomantic You did great, wonderful look back at all the game's been through. Thanks for putting in the effort!

[@VanArtic]

I've been an Importer who didn't jump over to global for 10 long years, thanks for acknowledging me and other people, pouring our very lives into this game. A couple addendums: -The initial alpha of PSO2 was available by two methods: a lottery for people who purchased Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity, and premium PSU users. -The exclusive EP1 final chapter's boss for PSvita was "transmittable" to PC users if they encountered the boss on cross-play servers during certain quests, allowing it to spread. also PSE bursts were 30 seconds longer on PSvita to compensate the amount of spawns. -The "es" in PSO2es stands for "Essence" -The way SEA servers would award outfits with augments in them was via a leaderboard of players who spent the most AC each month; the feature also exists in the JP server but was never implemented, thank god. -On release, Hero's power boost increase over time would reset completely to 0 if the player got hit *once*; it was eventually changed to gradually diminishing power from getting hit multiple times. -Another piece of missing content in PSO2 Global is the "event chronicle"; a timeline of all events and a way to preserve Matterboard-only cutscenes. Also reminder that PSO2 did live concerts years before fortnite did; and yet it was fortnite that got all the media attention

[@Zeomantic]

I'm one of those importers too! Ship 2 born and raised!

[@littlegloom]

awesome video! i'm a newer pso fan, starting with the global release of pso2. i certainly learned a lot from watching this! i'm a bit sad i missed out on a couple neat looking mobile pso games though

[@Zeomantic]

Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching!

[@iamrappy8791]

Awesome job, gave me chills of happiness with good memberberries, here's to hoping you make a 15th anniversary video, and that Sega provides you with more lore for videos along the way :)

[@Zeomantic]

Glad you liked it! Yeah, I hope so too!

[@larry-uq9gy]

Loved the way the video was made. Felt like a documentary. You should do more of this kind of videos for other games too. I would love to see more of this. How about a video on history of Gaming from its starting to where its going in the future or maybe the evolution of PC Gaming and how far the industry has come. Thank you.

[@Zeomantic]

Glad you enjoyed it. I think something on that scope would be like motion picture length.

[@ayaldev]

Only halfway but already hands down on awesome compilation

[@Zeomantic]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Makadeth626]

I'll never forget the beginning for me. I was playing Halo Reach and felt like there was nothing left to do. especially with some friends I made no longer playing. then my older brother showed me his games on xbox and that's when I saw it. Phantasy Star Universe. when I started to play it, I was a little off put by the graphics but as the story went on, I came to like it and the story even more. when I finished the story, PSU directed my attention to online. I already had a ton of fun playing the story, so I was mind blown when I started to play online. customization was unique and there was so many people just in the lobbies chatting or trying to sell stuff. queuing up for missions was a breeze and grinding for particular parts to make that special armor or weapon felt so worth it. of course there was the downside of people cancelling a trade and taking everything, but once you're aware of it, you never let it happen again though that drawback wasn't enough to make me stop playing. until servers were shutting down. but not without the announcement of PSO2. I was so excited, I was figuratively on the edge of my seat. after the first year waiting and japan's already enjoying it, I looked into every bit of detail I can to figure out why it hasn't arrived in the west yet. year after year of waiting, commenting on SEGA's official facebook page with others suggesting to just import it but jumping through hoops was not my strong suit. and just when I turn my back to let go and walk away, a brilliant light shined from behind me. I enjoyed every minute, every second playing PSO2 when it finally came to the west. all that waiting wasn't for nothing. and on the only console I had at the time no less. life couldn't have gotten better. then my daughter was born in 2020 and I couldn't play it as much as I wanted to. I logged back on a few weeks ago and it was sad to see how empty the game has become. I'll soon get back into it, especially with Destiny 2 in it's last 2 stale weeks before the next season. but I sure hope SEGA add elements from PSO2 into NGS like the concerts.

[@Zeomantic]

What an awesome story! I'm glad you've enjoyed your time with PSO2! I'm sure NGS will hit its stride in December when the volcano comes out. It's just been a really slow process so far.

[@abyssphantom6786]

No, THANK YOU Zeo for making this. I can tell you’ve put a LOT of time into this, and it truly feels like a labor of love. The one thing that upsets me, is that SEGA is celebrating the 10 year anniversary for Pso2, yet they basically pulled the plug on all seasonal events, LQs, and all other rotation style content. What’s more sad, is SEGA has been completely ignoring the Pso2 playerbase, for over a year, who has been asking for them to rerun old seasonal events, LQs, and old mission passes to help keep pso2 alive. This is honestly disgusting that they would celebrate a 10 year anniversary for a game that they’ve pulled 99% of the life support from, against the players wishes and requests, and then have the GALL to say “we hope for it to continue for many more years” or whatever bs it was that they said.

[@Zeomantic]

It's almost like what happened to PSU as soon as PSO2 dropped. But yeah they really made a mistake not supporting base when NGS hit. But we can only blame them for so much since we're the ones who told them things were (mostly) ok in all the surveys they put out. The Japanese haven't exactly been bashful about letting them know the game's weakest areas. Maybe it's time we did the same. Yeah it really was a labor of love!

[@AzariusR]

Them talking about continuing for years is just basic PR talk and I believe most long running games had told something like that once. But if you were to blame the game don't blame the devs, it's more of the higher ups not giving them enough time or budget to build the game better from the start.

[@Zeomantic]

The response to this has been nothing short of tremendous! Thank you guys so much! If this video is what brought you here, let me extend my warmest welcome to you! If you enjoyed this, then consider subscribing! In case you missed it in the description, here's where else you can find me! Twitter: twitter.com/zeomantic Twitch: twitch.tv/zeomantic Discord: discord.gg/5Hcsphb Merch: store.streamelements.com/zeomantic

[@youmgsandwiche]

I started playing the game in 2014 and kept playing up until 2020. I have really fond memories of the game, I played it with a friend group for the first three years and I became close enough to one of those people that she's still my best friend to this day. We had so much fun back then, it's a shame that the friend group's not together anymore because of relationship drama, but I still look back on that time we did play together warmly. Even when my friends all stopped playing (I got another friend into it later though he also quit before me because he got addicted and had to stop lmao), I still treasured the game for getting me through some tough times and giving me a lot of artistic inspiration over the years. When I eventually did quit, it was because my toaster couldn't really run the game well anymore. It was very sad to hear secondhand just how much things ended up going to shit, I was really hoping NGS would allow PSO2 to reach a new level, even if I wouldn't be around to play it for myself. All the same, the game will always have a special place in my heart for all the memories it left me with.

[@Zeomantic]

I love all the stories people have shared with me thanks to their experiences with the game.

[@LuckyCatYT]

Interesting and well presented, thanks for making this and great job.

[@Zeomantic]

Thank you! Glad you liked it.

[@Somanybeats]

I really enjoyed this video and I love all my fellow PSO2 fans and content creators. One thing tho.. How could you forget to mention NGS terrible launch. We couldn't play the game right for a week because of the atrocious lag. I won't never forget that

[@Zeomantic]

Well some things inevitably slipped through the cracks. But yeah that lag was gnarly for sure!

[@Vanessa80808]

Good video, never played any phantasy star game, but I was invested the whole video

[@Zeomantic]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!

[@mattwo7]

29:00 They also made GI Joe Sigma 6 which was made by 4kids and 4kids had its reputation... and the much maligned Transformers Cybertron, which was a stand-alone story shoved into the cybertron trilogy in the west, though the square peg, round hole continuity was the least of the problems... (at least in the case of Episode Oracle, bad implementation of 3DCG with CASTs and Darkers/Falspawn was already present in PSO2 the Animation so it wasn't a unique problem this time and may have been Sega's decision to make)

[@Zeomantic]

Yeah they have a pretty extensive catalog.

[@Dawker]

I played in 2015 i loved the game but had to quit I came back with global and "thanks" to covid I had the best ~6 months of my life, it was a blast all the time I spent with my alliance and all the content pso2 offered with ngs got dissapointed but now it has enough content to be worth playing again, PSO2 had a great impact on my life and overall im thankful lets just hope the story of NGS gets better

[@MugenLord]

This is a underrated video, had to subscribe and would love for you to do other game titles like this. PSO2 NGS seems to be hot topic recently, I just made a video asking PSO2 players if its a good time to actually jump into the game and boy most don't seemed pleased with the games current state.

[@Zeomantic]

Glad you enjoyed it! This presentation style really seemed to resonate with a lot of folks.

[@coreywarrington7035]

I might be in the minority, but I’ve not entirely been a fan of the direction PSO is going. It feels like it’s getting simpler, and at the same time… The art style is conflicting. Science-fantasy with magi tech, futuristic sword and sorcery? I love it. The fact that they seem to be heavily pushing into the anime/‘waifu’ aesthetic? Not so much. I kinda hate the art direction they’re going with.. I wish they would go back to the original PSO1 sort of aesthetic.

[@Zeomantic]

Fair point.

[@zanderwhitcroft]

OH man In 2013 I first played PSO2, all in Korean. I was so happy to have it on steam in english!

[@scrubscrub4492]

I'm currently about 5 minutes in and currently loving the amount of effort put into this. I've been with the series since around 2003 and fell in love with the style and ambiance the moment I saw it, with PSO2 taking the goofiness, anime and intensity up a few notches while still keeping the same spirit. Sadly, NGS just doesn't really seem to have the same spirit to me; it seems to only have the additions that PSO2 made but with none of the series' actual identity or structure in it that made said additions good to begin with.

[@Zeomantic]

Yeah NGS seems like the drop off point for a lot of folks.

[@scrubscrub4492]

@@Zeomantic On the bright side, community servers for the original PSO are online, so I can still get my fix that way. P.S.: Ironically enough, my negativity started when they threw away the logo style for NGS over anything else. Maybe NGS was intended to be a new IP they didn't think they could trust to get off the ground on its own, so they slapped "Phantasy Star Online 2" below the logo?

[@powerflood9424]

Man, didn't think so many others had the experience I had with PSO2 global. I had known about it since its launch because I have been a massive Phantasy Star fan since childhood. I played Phantasy Star Zero religiously and as a kid I dreamed of playing PSO2. The global announcement was some of the best news I had heard in a long time, although, the censorship and some of the content we didn't get (still salty about not getting Viva Las Vegas and Beach Wars 2017) was a let down but the time I spent with my Alliance (shout-out to Midnight Maraud) was fantastic and unforgettable. Come NGS though and how underwhelming it is, slowly my Alliance drifted apart and I lost all motivation to play. I hope one days those days will return but admittedly, I have low hope. Still, I'm thankful for what base PSO2 brought to my life. I feel that it has helped me become better man.

[@Zeomantic]

My expectations for NGS were tempered thanks to having been around for the early years of base PSO2. That didn't really hit its stride until about mid-way through Episode 3 IMO. NGS probably won't hit its stride until the volcano in December if you ask me. I think if I'd come in with global like the majority of folks and started NGS, I probably would have pivoted to covering a different game on here ages ago.

[@KudaGeatsune3821]

Looking foward to this video

[@chuganoga1908]

I still remember going back and buying PSO 1 on gamecube again around the time PSO 2 got announced but if only I’d known it would be 10 years until I could play it on the PS4 in the US (since I didn’t have an XBOX ONE or Pc that could run it). PSO 2 classic is my preferred build of the game though New Genesis is just not for me.

[@RamuneRabbit]

Nice retrospective and I could tell you borrowed from GTV Japan (which is an excellent channel to borrow from might I add ^_-). It's been a long journey (9 years for me personally) and who knows where this ride will take us...

[@Zeomantic]

Yeah I sure did! "Good artists copy, great artists steal!"

[@micahmurphy4546]

18:50 the screen darkened and i panicked thinking my phone was dying

[@mattwo7]

12:21 I was a waiter up until late into Episode 3 when I gave up then went to being an importer (didn't buy a single AC though, I'm neurodivergent and prone to habit-forming (although I have childhood trauma from losing my voice to second-hand smoking and I have childhood trauma involving mistaking a water bottle full of my uncle's beer for Martinelli's sparkling soft apple cider so I could never get hooked on drugs or alcohol due to my psychological aversion to even _trying_ them (I have tried weed, which isn't addictive and hate being high though, mostly use it as a sleep aid lol)), exactly the kind of person gachas prey on) and now I play on the global servers anyway (going from using the fan tools on the Microsoft Store release to using Steam normally), in spite of the rough launch and terrible localization.

[@johnsonbravership1896]

I waited 7 years to play PSO2, I started on PSU. And since the first day of the closed beta on xbox one in 2020. And the launch of NGS, I keep myself active in the game. and always updating my character with each new progression XD.

[@Zeomantic]

I hope it was everything you wanted it to be, but it would seem so if you're still here.

[@mattwo7]

39:06 Oh, please, the supergame is doomed to tank faster than you can say "New World" "Horozon Worlds" or "Google Stadia", especially "Horizon Worlds" though. Even if a company could make it work, it's sure as f*ck not the constant screwup known as "Sega"

[@Zeomantic]

We shall see. You're probably right though, given their track record.

[@Hellnolongerawaits]

I made a Japanese PSN account just to play new genesis and I was so damn happy when I’d finally got released in the states

[@LongTran-kp3kz]

The Phantasy Star Universe subseries is still my favorite one overall, especially PSP2I.

[@Zeomantic]

I know a lot of people enjoyed Infinity. Too bad it never came out over here

[@LongTran-kp3kz]

@@Zeomantic It has a fully translated English patch tho. I've been playing the crap out of it for about a week now. Plus, all that sweet, sweet Japanese audio that adds life to the characters. So yeah, it sucks that it never got a proper English release, but I'll take what I can get so long as it's handled with love.

[@darklordkuro7953]

for those interested, a global ps4 version was announced a few days ago

[@Zeomantic]

Yeah that wasn't announced just as I finished putting this thing together.

[@Homedogx5x]

Fantastic video! As someone who played PSU to death I was super excited for PSO2 back in the day. I graduated High School in 2013 shortly after the PSU servers shut down, and decided to wait for the english release of PSO2. Around the release of Episode 2 I started to lose hope and hopped on the Japanese servers, but that didn’t last long. At the time the story was still mostly untranslated and that was one of my main motivations. I stopped playing the on Japanese servers after a few months, but never truly gave up hope until episode 4’s release. At that point I stopped paying attention to Phantasy Star as I had a full time job, as well as college to attend to. Imagine my surprise and hype when I was washing dishes one day while watching the live E3 Xbox conference and hearing the first few notes of PSO2’s main theme and seeing SEGA on my screen. Suffice to say I lost it, and I have put over thousands of hours into PSO2 already, rekindling my love for the series. Thank you so much for making this video and celebrating this amazing game that we all finally got to play.

[@Zeomantic]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@GlacierFox523]

I still want to have someone make a review about base pso2's story as all you hear is ngs' story complaints.

[@Tquintv]

MY BODY IS READY.

[@starryskies113]

Smp

[@spacewindu3824]

I love PSO. Im playing right now. SHIP 2 all day LuL

[@TheKsenpai]

i got in only at global release, been playing it ever since pc launch, hell i even participated in the ngs closed beta.(which is like the only cbt i've applied to, let alone participated) Base pso2 was the golden age of pso2, that built a lot of goodwill, which ngs seems to be deadset on destroying. Pso2 fans are now coping hard, hoping that sega will open their eyes and start making ngs great again. Or at least closer to the greatness that pso2 was. We still have hope, but how long will that last with current state of the game? E: thank you for the trip down memory lane.

[@shatteredsentient5321]

I remember seeing pso2 revealed. I wanted to play it so bad but Tweaker didn't exist right away XD.

[@Zeomantic]

I wasn't gonna even go near it at first. I did warm up to it after they showed us more of what they were planning.

[@shinkai9kami162]

18:55 Hamzaki was a mistake

[@Zeomantic]

Maybe so, but it makes us appreciate the good ones. It's not 100% his fault though, since someone higher up on the totem pole had to promote the guy. He was lead planner for episode 3.

[@shinkai9kami162]

@@Zeomantic Fair enough but I’m betting 90 percent of it was on him. No less than 70. The episode 6 director comes in, and everything is magically better? If the higher ups had any negative effect on him than clearly it didn’t stop him from saving game based on what you said in the video.Then HMZK comes back and knocks the tower down to square one, so I understand what you’re saying but this is were I am coming from but thanks for the info anyways🙏

[@henrytalley3739]

As a director or a person?

[@shinkai9kami162]

@@henrytalley3739 director

[@henrytalley3739]

@@shinkai9kami162 I agree. On the contrary, calling him a a mistake of a person is cruel, even for someone like him.

[@leafdragoon8551]

NGS added color variants of weapons as rare drops but we're still not able to infuse them into non-CV weapons or change colors like SEGA promised we would. This just one those QoL features SEGA had in base PSO2 but is taking their sweet time to deliver on, and from a programming perspective it shouldn't be all that difficult to implement.

[@Zeomantic]

I imagine the foot dragging on that is because it's pretty low on there priority list.

[@ultris07]

Cam Clark shows up, and no mention of Liquid XD

[@Zeomantic]

"Not yet, Snake! IT'S NOT OVER YET!"

[@AfriKenJedi]

Good job on this video

[@Zeomantic]

I'm glad you like it!

[@hypersleep9336]

really wish i could have played pso2 from the start, personally i hate everything about ngs and i wish it would have just been pso3. the year i spent with pso2 vanilla was my favorite ever and i dont think anything will ever replace it :(

[@Zeomantic]

NGS seems to be hit or miss with a lot of folks, which is 100% understandable. I guess they wanted a "PSO3" but couldn't be bothered to re-negotiate all those licenses among other reasons. Thanks for watching!

[@silo1991]

nice video from development POV, i been playing PSO2 since 2013 , i originally wanted to wait but my friends were like : Dood we got the tweaker for menu translation :O. also add i been a huge starwars and final fantasy fan and i been in love with the series since PSO1 on the gamecube. EP1 to EP3 were my favorite era . EP4 from gameplay POV was the best but from artistic and marketing POV i still think something shady happen back then specially since EP5 and EP6 story had many screw EP4 moments. (devs are ashamed of that season) EP5 was the worst from gamplay POV not because of the Hero it self but was more because of the content up to the dragon EQ was made to be completed properly with the Hero and only the Hero.(main reason of why the JP fandom was paranoid when we heard Hamasaki was back for NGS). EP6 main focus was definitely update old content to actual standards and it was the best aesthetically , shame ended to soon , Lummingmechs were awesome enemies and i hope we see them again as formers (and with new stuff of course).

[@tonyknighton4019]

The question is why does Sega hate the Phantasy Star Ip so much now?

[@Zeomantic]

I don't know about "hating" it, but I do feel like they don't really know what they want NGS to be and how to even get it there.

[@tonyknighton4019]

@@Zeomantic They are definitely knowing what they are doing.

[@Durakken]

So... here's the problem with the idea that "there are cultural issues" that SEGA used to not port PSO2. One of the biggest elements and focuses of PSO2, the fashion, came, quite a bit, from me and I ported the idea of "Fashion shows" from City of Heroes where people often did fashion and character design contests. Also, as part of these shows I also had people do races to get to certain places and reward people for being first. All this in PSU which I am pretty sure inspired quite a bit of PSO2's design given that they are built into the game in some format... As far as the translation effort... I'm sorta the one that pushed that one too, pointing out that it should be able to just as easily, if not more so easily translate the game if we could translate the menus which people could at that point, but that team denied it and were fairly douchey, so I took a different tact and started recording every tablet (story scene) that I could find and posting them in an organized way to a place where people who could translate JP to English could post the translations. This eventually led to one of the biggest English community's creation and eventual collaboration between the storyline translators and the fan translators to collaborate leading to essentially the full translation of PSO2... and the Sega decided to port it to the global community about a year later v.v

[@Zeomantic]

Oh wow that's pretty wild! I remember CoH fashion contests and even took part in a couple back in the day.

[@Durakken]

@@Zeomantic I will always continue to say that PSO should follow a lot of the economic model of CoH. The Gacha thing is annoying, turns people off, and end up just making it feel like a waste while CoH's Freemium model was such an elegant solution and you didn't feel like you were constantly being ripped off cuz you got what you paid for plus a little extra without having to be hyper greedy. CoH wasn't shut down due to inability to support itself or further advancements btw, but because Korean business strategy which shut it down to invest resources from CoH into GW2 because that's just how they work I guess... But yeah... if they did that we'd have a ton more options, they'd make more money, and we'd all be a lot happier. And I still want CoH back...I was hoping the fan server/remake would work out and those Fashion contests back in the day were fun... unlike now in NGS and PSO2 where it has been corporatized and there aren't quite enough options and almost every "good" option breaks the piece that it looks best with for almost every costume piece. It's so frustrating.

[@Zeomantic]

Not sure why I stopped playing CoH/CoV back in the day. It was certainly one of the most unique MMO experiences, even by today's standards. Too bad their character creation system was a little TOO good to where it drew heat from Marvel. You have some interesting insights here. Thanks for sharing!

[@tommyakira4201]

It's gonna brake my heart if base PSO2 will shut down, even know it's inevitable, 10 years of irreplaceable memory .

[@Zeomantic]

True story!

[@HMNNO]

I was the waiter. I did play on the JP to test it out but I couldn't stand not reading all the story and side quests. Yes they translate a lot, I respect that but it wasn't as much as what everyone said.

[@shatteredsentient5321]

Yea

[@matt2centerback]

SEGA needs to fire whoever's writing the absolutely mid snorefest that is NGS and bring back whoever wrote PSO2, because when I came back to PSO2 for the first time since the disaster that was the NA launch I still remembered most of the cast and the general sequence of events of the base game from back when I was playing on JP, but after putting dozens of hours into NGS over the last two months I would still be _very_ hard pressed to name more than 7 of the characters because of how uninteresting all of them except Manon and Nadareh are (exception being Crawford, because his being as exciting as a wet saltine cracker _makes_ me take offense at his existence)

[@mattwo7]

23:17 And yet it _still_ barely fit on my switch. (only even downloaded it for the Zelda stuff, it notoriously ran like garbage in the US)

[@Zeomantic]

It sure did! I remember it didn't have the geo block initially when ngs came out.

[@rinnnnnnnnnnrinRinOnishi]

"ALL THE CONTENT" except for alot of collaborations including the ffxiv and evangelion collabs, also ngs still has a severe lack in actual content to do, oh but we sure can grind for relic weapon equivelants that are the most powerful weapons butttttt again, hardly any challenging content to use them on unless you like doing the same 3 things every day, ngs overall just feels like a massive waste of effort when helmed by the dude that almost killed off classic pso2 :V fantastic video! :D

[@Zeomantic]

I feel like they did their best to bring out what they could. While the collabs would've been cool, I imagine there were some extra hoops involved with licensing, especially Evangelion. If I had a guess as to why the FFXIV one never happened, it would be because of XBox. Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Zoeila]

Diablo 4 has me in the mood to revisit PSO but I'm worried about something. My US psn account is connected to my JP pso 2 account due to the vita version of pso2. I wonder if that's gonna be a problem if I try to play pso2 ng global ver on my PS5.

[@Zeomantic]

I don't think it should matter though I'm not really in a position to try it myself.

[@xiv2758]

Hello, whats the song title at 37:00? I unbelivably watched the entire video, saddened with just how bad NGS gameplay and just everything going in there right. I only ever cate about their fashion, then go back to Base to play more there, even if a loy of things were strippex off for whatever reason. But i still wish for the best of this game...thank you for making this video

[@Zeomantic]

It plays during a few cutscenes in-game - like the central cannon firing after the Falz fight. Not sure about its official title though.

[@Omeganightmare123]

this was a really good history lesson, but made me feel pretty old thanks I guess.....

[@Zeomantic]

How do you think I feel? I have a nephew that was 4 years old when the game first came out, and he used to watch me play it. Now said nephew starts high School in a few weeks!

[@RenoKyrie]

I still hate the community, mostly towards Ranger Class Community They basically managed to not only outnumbered the genuine good Rangers, they also managed to convince people the current situation of Ranger class is good, when its like no, its still very bad Doesnt help these same people also encourage bad gameplay like holding Blaze Shot and rushing Blight Purple or just ignoring Blight Round in general is good damage God someone need to stop this man

[@shatteredsentient5321]

Who is saying it's good? I dropped ra since bouncer dropped. Lol probably normal spammers XD

[@RenoKyrie]

@@shatteredsentient5321 Thats what im trying to say Ranger in NGS was never good but somehow the stupid Normals and Blaze Shot Players managed to fool SEGA thinking the class is doing good when its not

[@shatteredsentient5321]

@@RenoKyrie Sad

[@ayy4979]

old pos2 is just sooo much better than ngs in every way...i really wish they go back to make more content for old pso2,an ep7 would be great :/

[@Zeomantic]

I like NGS, but killing off base like they did was kind of a weird move. The game was doing just fine. I guess it was just their way of giving both regions a fresh start of sorts.

[@mattwo7]

@@Zeomantic The story was over. The dark legacy of the photoners was concluded and buried. Where would they even go from there? They'd already jumped the shark hard enough as it was by that point.

[@jaidoncastaneda8640]

I kinda miss idola anyone else

[@Zeomantic]

I only played it for about an hour or so.

[@chlorosokita596]

TL;DW: Was a fan of PSO on DC and NGC, the game was grindy but the community allowed me to grow and debate. When PSU got released, I was flowing throught the missions with very little care and nobody to speak to. Also I went from Windows to MacOS, so of course this didn't help. Later I switched to Ubuntu, so when PSO2 released in Japan I was hyped and sad because no European port in view. Today, even if I were given PSO2 on Linux, I wouldn't play. There's just too many things I must have missed.

[@Zeomantic]

Yes Mac and Linux folks tend to get hosed when it comes to games.

[@DABUNGINATOR]

I never got to play the Japanese version of PSO2, but was Episode 5 really as bad as people say? It's just really hard to grasp how frustrating PSO2 could've been back then.

[@Zeomantic]

I was away for most of it plus the first half of episode 6. FF14 Stormblood and Shadowbringers held my attention. It was pretty rough by all accounts.

[@shutup1037]

My entire PSO2 experience until Primordial Darkness is wow. Cant stomach ngs and how they killed pso2 with cradle

[@Zeomantic]

Fair enough.

[@Danjovisagat]

I absolutely love pso2. When new genesis released it rubbed me the wrong way. Thank you arks layer team prior to the western release.

[@Zeomantic]

Yeah it did that for a lot of folks. Thanks for watching and have a blessed day! :)

[@shira_yone]

I would love to be able to download PSO2 without NGS

[@Zeomantic]

That would be nice for presentation sake.

[@shira_yone]

@@Zeomantic indeed, would be neat if they could give that option. I went so far as trying out PSOBB, just to experience a nice co-op hub mmo(lite)rpg again without the bloated game size. Wish NGS good luck, but it's definitely not my cup of chamomile tea.

[@Zeomantic]

@@shira_yone Fair enough.

[@Cathy5614]

I feel like EP5 was a bit over hated. Don't get me wrong, it had a lot of issues, BQ in their original form were absolutely awful (and for some reason required for Story) and the rather frequent random disconnects would actively kick you out of BQ Grade 3+ which was... yeah... But they improved over time and by the end i actually enjoyed farming buster medals with the 3 people who still cared about that Quest. Hero being just so easy to play finally made the developers take long lasting class design issues seriously. Techters got a PA that complimented their move set nicely and photonic furies finally charged the compound meter. We really shouldn't have had to wait nearly 7 years for that. Every Skill tree saw a massive reduction of fat and many problematic skills like Rare Mastery , Break Stance & Element conversion would finally be less punishing. On top of improving every class's mobility and overhauling the EP1-3 story to be less about grinding and more about experiencing the story, even if we lost quite a bit of that story in the process. Like, I get that it sucked how big of a discrepancy there was between Hero and regular classes, that was intentional. The original plan for Successor classes, or Advanced Classes as they were originally called, was to just replace the previous ones and release 2 per episode. Phantom being originally planned for late-EP5 but was delayed to add subclass-ability. But because the devs having to rapidly improve the OG classes to not suck, EP5 was a very exciting time to play for me. There were balance patches seemingly every other month! There was always something to get excited about! DF Persona was definitely a highlight for me. Farming that fight for Lightstream/Trailblazer was super fun, and people who saw the 4D chess game Sega was playing already had everything assembled that was needed for Austere-NT from the Ultimate Quests, which EP5 also spend a lot of time revamping! EP6 was great from a UQ and DQ standpoint but I really couldn't care less about UH Exploration sectors. There were way too many of them and all the weapons dropped in seasonal UQ anyway so there was really no point for me to engage with that content. I actually watched that E3 conference live back then and I was fucking screaming in VC when they re-announced the game for the West. I even bought an Xbox One just to not miss out on the first few months of GL's life and it ended up becoming my favorite console due to features like Quick Resume. Playing NGS on the Series X now as my PC is just too old to handle it, despite handling PSO2 tier 6 graphics just fine. Tis a pity.

[@Zeomantic]

I wasn't around for the majority of ep5 and the first half of ep6 since they came out around the time of Stormblood and Shadowbringers. Oddly enough I was led back to PSO2 thanks to Twitch and KZbin.

[@Cathy5614]

@@Zeomantic i played FF14 around ShB too but honestly that game gets boring for me really fast without story content to experience so it can never truly become my main MMO. Also, i saw you ♥️'d my response but I edited my post after it. For some reason it removed that.

[@Zeomantic]

Yeah a lot of folks just play FF14 for the story and bounce until the next big patch.

[@Chelaxim]

The way the NGS gameplay feels is such a letdown. The gameplay is great but the content isn't there. NGS has the potential for greatness. I wish they weren't obesseing over the cosmetics. Also I'm not a fan of how they try to get you into paying for the cosmetics by having the free options so limited. The way Sega has added extra content into PSO,PSU and PSO2 is kinda baffling. Especially Phantasy Star Portable being an expansion kinda on a whole different system.

[@Zeomantic]

After playing Diablo 4 these past few days (and even the betas in March), I'm constantly finding myself saying "man I wish NGS had this!" I think that a lot of what's wrong with NGS are symptoms of issues within the company like corporate meddling and poor communication. I still enjoy the game for what it is so I'm not ready to pivot away from it yet.

[@screweduptx512]

PSO2 is on the Switch????

[@Zeomantic]

Yeah it was cloud-based, which meant there was no big download, but it's just for the Japanese version.

[@starryskies113]

Hi

[@Zeomantic]

Hello.

[@tonyknighton4019]

18:22: *Facepalm*

[@Zeomantic]

I trust you didn't like The Animation? I didn't really mind the show personally.

[@tonyknighton4019]

@@Zeomantic Hell no

[@tonyknighton4019]

@@Zeomantic Ofc not you guys sadly eat up whatever slop Sega feeds you.

[@tanamisalt.4415]

And remember! If you want to experience base game as a new player, don't be in Ship 4

[@Zeomantic]

LOL I dunno; some people enjoy that quiet atmosphere!

[@tanamisalt.4415]

@@Zeomantic yeah but progressing in S4 brings you back almost a thousand hours due to.... prices *slightly* higher than most ships

[@Zeomantic]

Yeah I know what that's like having played on smaller servers for other games. Did that on Final Fantasy XI for a while.

[@tanamisalt.4415]

@@Zeomantic Yeah! but game is still fun atleast, Phantom main with a side gig of Braver and Ranger. plus the few people always playing base in S4 have a tight knit community

[@Sanjixoxo]

Base was godlike new genesis ruined the franchise.

[@Zeomantic]

Geez melodramatic much? :p Fair enough though. NGS probably had too many cooks in the kitchen, then we had the beer bug happening during its development. Thanks for watching.

[@theresnothinghere59]

One of the worst PSO ever made. Infact it is still alive.

[@Zeomantic]

The name checks out in terms of what's between your ears. Thanks for watching none-the-less.

[@theresnothinghere59]

@@Zeomantic I hope you played PSO in the Dreamcast era, so you know how BAD PSO2 is compared to it.

[@theresnothinghere59]

People from japan even fled to private servers after reaching Level cap in like a week lol. I was hoping for NGS but a lot of them said it was even worse. Finally i got the chance to play it. Left PSO2 two times, tried NGS, left it after 30 hours. It is so bad compared to the original it's impossible to stick with it. The lack of character design, the total mess with classes and weapons, nothing works. NGS it is kinda fun to fight with, but the fun is not even comparable to the old days of PSO / PSOBB / Ep.4.. sometimes i STILL go back to that on Ephinea because it is just better.

[@Zeomantic]

OG from vanilla DC here. Even imported Japanese version 2 back in the day. I have certainly been around the block. There's plenty that I liked and didn't like about every iteration. NGS is certainly not without its issues, but I still enjoy it for what it is.

[@theresnothinghere59]

@@Zeomantic understood. At this point i wonder what the next iteration will be like, if there will ever be one.