Phantasy Star Online Made a Generation of Gamers Insane - And It Was Amazing

[@UncleBurn]

Blue Rappy I played PSO on the DC for about 200 hours back in 2001. When suddenly a blue Rappy appeared. I was so excited! I defeated it and waited until it got up again. When it ran away I shot at it but all the shots missed and the blue Rappy was gone! I never saw a blue one again. To this day I think about what item I would have got from it.😢

[@thedarkflowkiller]

This was my teenage game for sure. I could never ever stop playing it no matter what. But.... After 1200h I lost my save by turning off my GC whilst saving (I was late for an event). That almost made me cry and stop playing, but I made a new character and started from scatch as a Ramarl yellow. I progressed super quickly, got so many insane items, made two new characters that were both super OP, I played another 3 years with those until lvl 170ish with my main and 130s with my two other. Then....Memory card started getting corrupted. Lost everything again. I don't think I ever got over it, losing so much, so many memories. I had items only because they reminded me of people and friends and situations. About 7 years later I started playing BBurst on PC for a single day....but instantly got hooked again...Farmed so many good items, excalibur as one of them. But yeah, nothing beats the vibe this game has, so unique, the music was insane....The heart pounding on every red drop you saw on the floor.....And the horrible reality that when you were playing online as a Ranger, you would get all your red loot stolen by melee classes as soon as it dropped. I miss this game so much....

[@BLACKPHILANTHROPY]

Another awesome thing about PSO's itemization is that the rare items aren't just the "unique" ones (Lavis Cannon, Psycho Wand, etc.). If you find a basic weapon with high hit% and the right special attack, that can be like an amazing DIY ultra-rare weapon right there. Something like a Spirit/Charge Ripper/Calibur, a Fill/Geist/Chaos Diska/Arms...these weapons with 50+ hit% or higher stand toe to toe with 11 and 12 star weapons

[@Saltyoven]

Gush is better than fill, but I get you.

[@enshk79]

My bro found a shotgun that had a percent chance to insta-kill an enemy no matter how much higher level the enemies were. My character was always a lot higher so that weapon let him come with me and hold his own hahahaha

[@moosecat00]

I miss Phantasy Star as a whole. I don't even recognize what it has become.

[@jesfest]

It turned into Phantasy May Star

[@moosecat00]

@@jesfest If only. NGS is pure countering, feels closer to a Platinum game with how counter focused it is. If a game is all about countering, and there a class dedicated to countering, WHY WOULD I PLAY ANYTHING ELSE?

[@andrewschoepfer9175]

Even like a old school genesis style rpg game but more modern would be appreciated over pso2 etc. I want a remaster of pso with bb content on switch or all modern consoles.

[@cartoonvideos5]

PSO2 and NGS is still enjoyable, I’m just glad North America is getting PS content of some kind, back in the day my friend and I played PSP2 and we were so hoping that pso2 would eventually come to global.

[@rinnnnnnnnnnrinRinOnishi]

​@@andrewschoepfer9175 please god, no remake, just remaster

[@bazzam86]

I played PSO at launch on dreamcast. I remember it only took a month or two before EVERYONE had an action replay and ruined the game. With instant spawned weapons. And even without one it was easy to dupe them. Even after that you had PKers and people even had spells that they could cast on you in the shop area that would freeze your game and corrupt your save file so your 999hr character is gone forever. It really was the wild west. But I still remember the great two or so first months, it changed my whole perspective on online games and I meet great people that I still miss today. My name was bazzam, if anyone remembers me.

[@indevidualbeing6488]

Yeah, I had it at launch too. Very soon after launch, everyone was duping. When the guy in the video talked about how for the first couple of years rare items stayed rare, I doubted he played it back in the day, because it was never really the case.

[@butternutter8106]

Getting turned into NOL after joining a lobby T_T

[@XBebop89X]

i remember some players giving me the heaven punisher and the spread needle and it was amazing. Then had someone PK and corrupt my save and i was just traumatized as a 11 year old. Felt so helpless, although i shouldn't of had those weapons and 99,999 meseta.

[@PeacefulPauseProductions]

I've always been curious how it was playing on the original Dreamcast servers because of all the stories I've heard. Unfortunately one of them having to do with what you said about cheating and hackers. Is it true they would make the dragon boss appear in lobby?

[@indevidualbeing6488]

@@PeacefulPauseProductions Never have experienced, nor heard of a dragon spawning in the lobby. Turning your character in to a low level character named NOL (which was an NPC) is true, though.

[@Asin24]

It felt so cool, I remember finding my first double saber and loving it. Having not just special drops you can find but ones with their own animation or effects made them feel so much cooler to find something rare.

[@BatFan_Attic]

double saber is a rare? **got one first playthrough but deleted the save as it was replaced with a gunner.

[@ShaimingLong]

@@BatFan_Attic Yes, it's a rare weapon. Just because you got *one* with your first character doesn't mean that some people have to spend hours hunting for one for themselves. Of course, Double Saber is the bottomversion of the weapon type, there's a good selection of better and rarer versions. Personally I am a big fan of the Demolition Comet, which is a collapsible dire mace with purple photon spikes. It takes me around 12 hours to find one, on average and it's really not the best of the weapon type, it's probably around the middle. On the GC version, my Dad put in thousands of hours and still only got a modest selection of the rarer rares, and next to none of the top end gear. The rarest weapon he found was a single Lavis Cannon while hunting for a Yasminkov 7000V, which he never managed to get.

[@SageRyock]

I'm happy to say I grew up with games like this and Ragnarok Online, where rares were rare. It built us different, and those of us who experienced it don't even bat an eye when we hear "Oh that's a really rare item! You're going to be there a while." Rare items were unique in PSO, and many had their own unique movesets, specials, and hidden bonuses. It was all about the grind.

[@RickCentauro]

Here I am in 2024, still playing both Ephinea PSO and TalonRO. 2000 ~ 2008 was the best era for online games IMO.

[@ThisOldBlog]

My mate and I were into Hard mode when we found our first red box. The confusion, taking it to the Tekker, the realisation - not many games replicate that feeling, they all skip the foreplay!

[@iantaran2843]

Facts

[@darcy7257]

I hunted for my frozen shooter in 2018, 566 hildelts down through forest of sorrow, one hideltorr and got my frozen shooter, I cannot stress enough how much easier that made ultimate for my Ramar.

[@Geminosity]

PSO had a lot of things I'm really surprised more games don't copy. The chat bubbles being dynamic and coming from the characters should be a MUST in any game that has characters talking purely in text. It always bothers me when you 'hear' something in text and are supposed to somehow know where it's coming from without these magical bubbles helping :o

[@Amiculi]

This is my biggest contention with the game. It was a complete one-off and I don't know why. Nothing even attempts the pacing and gameplay.

[@Unchainedful]

Please god no, I do not want to see any other character’s expression nor do I care who and where the person who sent the text is. Thank god no other mmo does this. PSO2 made doing stuff in a public lobby annoying. You know it’s bad when you come back from a mission and you have to immediately run to a empty server so you’re not bombarded with annoying popups.

[@Gillian_FFXIV]

I understand what you mean, but not everyone likes to see that type of thing due to visual clutter on the screen. Some people may find it incredibly annoying and actually don't care to see what other players have to say, so at the very least it should be a toggle option to see chat bubbles.

[@Geminosity]

@@Unchainedful Well, yeah, but that's PSU and PSO2. I thought it was obnoxious too. PSO's was considerably better despite being older.

[@omegamanGXE]

@@GeminosityPenn State University..?

[@TheNightmareItachi]

I spent an entire 18 hours doing the telepipe trick to find one of the rare flower enemies in the episode 2 temple area just to get the double cannon. That was peak pso

[@Tzill]

I'll never forgive myself for the time i did the same trick trying to grind out the hildeblue spawn just to accidentally take the telepipe back to the ship when it finally spawned 🤣 guess i went on autopilot after so many hours lmao

[@drlca6601]

removing TPs from PSO was a mistake... on a mountain of mistakes that have culminated in NGS, a nearly dead game after two years of attempts at fun.

[@TheNightmareItachi]

i hate ngs so muchj, controls are bad, completely took away the aspect of the game that felt good like getting rare drops. everything seems like a cash grab now. ugh dont even get me started, uninstalled and will never reinstall. i want pso back not that weird shit game @@drlca6601

[@screweduptx512]

Explain. I'm playing it right now.

[@DyLavis5]

@@screweduptx512 For the enemies that have rare variants that usually drop rare items, you can go into a room with a bunch of them and use a telepipe to leave and reenter the zone to reload the enemies. every time you reload, it rerolls the 1/512 or something chance of them being the rare variant. so people started to find the optimal rooms in the optimal quest that have the most spawns of certain monsters to get as many chances as possible every teleport

[@DObscura-yi5es]

This is so true. My friend and I (rest his soul) would play for hours upon hours, my parents would routinely barge into my room and turn my console off because I would go for days at a time not moving from the screen. I was in Jr. High at the time. Only time in my life I ever started to gain weight. The red box and rare drops hysteria was oh so real. I miss the days of learning about rare items through the community and people you'd meet inside the game and not off some youtube video spamming farming locations before the game is even in the hands of non-reviewrs. Yo the Yasminkovs were so dope when we first saw them. We spent MONTHS on Episode 1...when we chose to do Episode 2 and got to the jungle and that bit overlooking the ocean...blown away...

[@friedlemon4660]

it's crazy for the first-generation online game to look like this, the graphic is really awesome when this game is released on 2000s

[@TheDeFiler316]

What I loved about PSO was you never kept track of leveling when hunting gear. I farmed a Red Sword once running the first floor of Addicting Food nonstop. Next thing I knew I was pushing 140 when I started hunting for it at level 115. Plus certain weapons only being equitable my certain classes and genders was such a great touch. GC version is always my go to and is my favorite game of all time. Watching what the series has become has been brutal.

[@NestorLedon]

Still one of the best games ever. It'll never get old.

[@johnofbrabant]

Started play this game on the GameCube since the beginning of this month on the GameCube. Such a cool game! I always like to see the pop-up when a player finds something rare.

[@collin2401]

I remember grinding Ultimate Forest 2 for the Orotiagito for years. It had a 1 in 28,807 drop rate. I remember that number off the top of my head over a decade later because that's how much time I spent failing to get one lmao

[@LifeofPalos]

Great video dude!

[@RonTheTryhard]

As someone who grew up playing PSOGC online as a kid when it was still new, I can definitely attest to that, where anybody who came along with some unique rare was a celebrity lol. Most people had yellow or red photon weapons at best, but once in a while you'd have a guy with some crazy weapon and everybody wanted him in their party. That lasted very shortly though on GC cause then action replay cheats were discovered and everybody and their dog had rares...but yeah I'll never forget the very first time I was in a party and a guy gave me a rare since I was a new player and it blew my mind lol. It was something minor like Blade Dance or Bloody Roar or something that's pretty common in Hard difficulty. But at the time it was like the dude was giving me solid gold. After having played extensively through PSOBB and knowing how to farm EPII mags, rares, and beating ultimate and everything, I revisited PSOGC again in 2020 and set out to finally play through all the offline singleplayer difficulties (previously I had only gotten through Hard difficulty legitimately) and it took me 3 months to find Yasminkov 9000M from a Crimson Assassin. It became a ritual almost where every day I'd get up and do an ult VR temple run, then go about my day and do other stuff lol. 3 months of that. I also farmed a Frozen Shooter and it took me about a week of using the pipe trick where you can just leave and come back and it has a chance of spawning a hildetorr. A week, even with a trick like that. And then I go to complete EP I on ultimate and find a Spread Needle with 25 hit on one of my first Del-D's in Ruins 1...I was flabbergasted and honestly for a moment I felt like one of those people who just stumbles upon some amazing god-tier weapon by sheer coincidence. Here I spent 3 months for something not even as rare and then I go and find this without even trying AND it's even rarer than normal with the 25 hit...That's my luck haha I tend to only find the best things when I'm not looking for them. Also going along with this revisit, I had never seen the EP I/II ult solo endings before. I don't think many have firsthand, since it was exclusive to singleplayer, but revisiting it after all those years and beating it to see the special endings was indescribable. It's like despite me having known everything else about the game pretty much by that point...The game still had a couple tricks up its sleeve to give me one final sendoff for beating it fully. PSO1 is definitely a gem and easily has had one of the biggest impacts on my life as a video game, since it was such a huge part of my childhood. I wish I could say the same about PSO2, but it just didn't have as big of an impression on me what with the shoes PSO1 left to fill.

[@ShadowArtist]

Truth. took weeks... months re-doing a certain quest in Cave 2 to find a red slime (rare enemy) and have it drop a Lavis Cannon for Redria HUmar... as most of the time it dropped meseta or some common junk

[@ParadoxPerspective]

My brother and I have been playing offline on the gamecube for about 20 years now. Some interesting drops/items: Like you, we have the spread needle and the yasminkov, and the frozen shooter. We also have an angel harp but don't use it. We have a luminous field, two DF fields, GOD-[stat] everything, though these are duped using the version 1 glitch. We also have the Rico's glasses. We have virtually all the special mags save the Rati. My hunter gear includes: Stanstill shield Kasami bracer Chain sawed Orochiagito Meteor cudgel Demolition commet And we have a bunch of other goofy stuff like the Delsaber's buster, etc.

[@chuganoga1908]

I still till this day go back and play PSO on my game cube just to enjoy the grind and reminisce the old hunts me friends and family used to do every week night. I have forest 1&2 along with the music forever ingrained in my head. They should really port this game

[@MidnightMagpie73]

that feel when you see that red box spinning there. it could be ANYTHING. Also grats on the Yasminkov my friend and happy hunting from this old FOmar

[@Sharkstuffs]

My favorite - least favorite hunt story is how I found 4 hildetorrs and failed the 1/2 frozen shooter drop on every single one of them 😭, but just a couple months ago I finally got it. Still actively playing the game and I’m glad to see others are too, great video

[@SplayBook-95]

Your video is very accurate, ive been playing over a decade (across multiple characters) and ive never seen a 12 star item. I have plenty of 9 star, some 10 star, and a few 11 star items, but the few 12 star items in game are incredibly difficult to obtain. Once you do get them, you're so OP that it doesnt even matter!

[@ChibiTheEdgehog]

Not to mention he hidden logic built into the insignias like Whitil. That determined what class of weapon had the highest drop rates for you. I remember feeling sorry for a class that had an insignia that didnt have good drop rates for their weapon type, then dropping them a redbox i didnt need to clear my storage lol.The system was clever, i still have the logic it used written in my jewel case. There were so many clever mechanics in that game. I booted up my old Dreamcast save last year.I miss those days, i miss the Banther tail Mag it was so cool. Good times

[@ShaimingLong]

Yeah, nothing like rocking a Greenil Hunter, Bluefull Ranger and a Purplenum Force back in the day, and having to trust people online to let you transfer your gear between characters due to the lack of splitscreen or shared bank 😅

[@SplayBook-95]

It was perfect for online collaboration honestly. Even if you were a a skyly ranger, you could get good hunter weapons and then trade those for what you needed, all while making friends along the way.

[@protoman111]

I remember hunting for Psycho Wand for 3+ months and never found it. I then took a break from the private server was on. I then came back to it with a different character just going through a normal run on Ultimate for something completely different and it drops out of the blue. Yeah PSO be that way lol.

[@MrElpizo1982]

PSO Version 1. Dreamcast. Everyone I knew & played with had a Spread Needle, that seemed the gun everyone wanted and needed.

[@KIREEKPSO]

Well, i have some really bad news. Back in PSO v2 for PC and dreamcast, rare enemy spawns were locked at 1/1024, while you could reload areas over and over with a telepipe to force a rare spawn, you could never do it from a quest, as all rare items in quests are disabled (9 star items and above), so you couldn't load certain quests in hopes you could find a rare item drop from a rare rappy. Drop rates were also far worse than on GC, making the items pretty much unobtainable Now, you must be wondering, if it drops, it must be a really good weapon right? Well, here's the thing, % on weapons were locked at 60% maximum, being 55% the max you could achieve on ultimate difficulty, having a chance at a really rare weapon meant very litle, because if the % was negative or just low, then the weapon couldn't be used to kill enemies all that well. % in v2 affect the entire ATP, yours and the weapon, so 55% extra attack meant alot, especially in buffed HUcasts and self buffing HUmars. So, frozzen shooter huh? Imagine the rare enemy spawn being 1/1024 from the GC 1/512, the farm being done in regular gameplay with no increased spawn quests, having a drop rate of 1/86 (unlike the 1/2 from GC) and in the end, after all that effort, you get a weapon with 15% Native and -30% hit. Yes it sucks, but here comes the worst part, even if you had a decent weapon, you can't have % in all areas to fight all enemy types, so your weapon would be nearly useless in atleast 1 area of the game. So you need more than 1, gl farming multiple nearly unobtainable weapons. So, what do i use while playing PSO v2 you might wonder, what insane weaponry i use to counter the ultimate difficulty (which btw, is more difficult than the GC or BB version), well, i use nearly comparable weapons that are much easier to find, namely 4 red handguns and 4 imperial picks for the 4 areas of the game, carefully sorted correctly so the one i pick has the % necessary to boost my attack to kill the enemies. While i have found a few rare items here and there, some suffer from the lack of upgradability, like rare armors only having 0 or 1 slot and items that require online quests to be used in combination with several nearly unobtainable items, making them worthless.

[@AyeeSkippy]

Reminds me of what I believe is the most rare weapon in pso episode 1/2. Sealed-J sword. The drop rate is 1/12603 only for Skyly section ID on a single spawn 'Gi Gue' (only one in the entire game) in ultimate episode 2. Then in can be transformed in Tsumikiri J sword only after defeating 23,000 enemies with that Sealed-J

[@puppy14]

Yep, I remember getting the plus version cause the West Tower quest (I think) had about 5 of them spawn. I played that quest for days, if not weeks. Never got it to drop. Now I’m contemplating buying an emulator to start up the hunt again.

[@crustyhotdog7940]

@@puppy14Ephenia is a great server. Episode 4 has some real gems with the new weapons.

[@Bubbles_L]

Psycho Wand was way worse

[@RickCentauro]

@@Bubbles_L at least you don't need a Pwand with hit%, you just hunt 1 and you're done. Some weapons like frozen shooter or heaven striker pretty much need to have hit% for it to be good, otherwise you have to hunt the same weapon over and over until you get a good one.

[@rex_melynas]

PSO2 still has the tradition, the drops aren't as rare, but you can't realistically get them unless you are extremely lucky.

[@YubuuCH]

or wait a few weeks and youll get them for free.. lmao well, in NGS at least

[@kallum39]

@@YubuuCH I mean thats where fixas come in tbh but yeah would be sorta cool if more exclusive stuff existed

[@Paul-nl3oy]

I haven't been as motivated at all in NGS. Why spend all that time farming just to have the weapon be phased out in a couple months

[@ZXUmi]

yea, the extremely rare drops are now weapon camos like concert master & sorcerer morus as examples. personally, i prefer it that way since you aren't being gated from having more power by pure rng

[@Sypaka]

I grinded one quest for 8 hours to get a PSO2 Classic Weapon, which basically enables Luster to cast Techs... Sadly, the power creep makes it basically useless, because Klauz easily outperforms it. It's a good room decoration though.

[@Fade2BlackSS]

I had PSO on Dreamcast and the Gamecube back in the day. I remember hunting for the Agito because the thought of having a katana-type weapon was really cool to me. Me and my sis stayed up countless nights looking for it. It was one random late night when I was playing solo that I FINALLY found one. It was the fake one but I was still happy to get it. I can't even tell you how many hours we spent looking for that damn thing. lol

[@gamathecast]

my first rare was RED HANDGUN and it had the glowing name thing, and i almost lost my mind, several months later i think i got METEOR CUDGEL and i remember getting up and doing a lil dance.

[@marksterslysz]

Currently playing on my Wii online and just finished my Oran Hildetorr Syncesta hunt the other day! Nothing seriously beats the feeling of finally seeing that red rare box drop from the enemy you're farming... Was such an awesome moment since i was finally able to finish my Double Cannon from a Lavis Cannon i found like 16 years ago when I was 8 LOL

[@nagekun]

i played pso2 global when it came out and got the form scythe pretty early on. i had no idea it was so rare until i found out it was the most expensive item in the game at the time. i didnt sell it but instead changed my class to techter and never looked back. it was a very special moment for me to say the least.

[@WailinRaknar]

What I miss most is how unique many of the rare drops were. Spread needle was a shotgun in a game that didn't have a shotgun, Lavis Cannon was a sword that could shoot beams same with the original Agito which was also a non photon weapon and so on. My biggest complaint about PSO2/NGS is how plain all the rare weapons are and (though spread needle kept it's uniqueness) and that these "rare" weapons fall into and out of a meta game due to power creep. Farming was also a little different. Some of the drops only dropped of rare variants as said in the video, but a big part was also that some variants only showed up in certain tile sets, or had a better chance in those tile sets. So you began to recognize within the first couple of rooms if you need to tp back and restart your run.

[@Sypaka]

NGS has the problem of creep. If you get one super rare weapon, like the Relik Series back then, they come back as common drop and easily outclassed. Even the weakest weapon of Kvaris could outperform a Relik. The best weapon of Kvaris was outperformed on Stia drops. They even gave them away for free. For example the Obsidian Series can still pack a punch on DFA, unless you want min/max DPS, which a Neo is good for. to sum it up, rares in NGS make no sense, but they made sense in pso2 classic/base, until Global had to catch and rush content, which gave everything GOOD for free. Compared to PSO1, PSO2, doesnt have the hard grindiness, but is still grindy for other stuff... the value of weapons is different.

[@Fade2BlackSS]

This is what I miss the most about the original PSO. I hunted for that Agito as well. I found one but it was the fake one. Even still, the drop rate for even the fake was insanely rare. I was happy to have it either way honestly. But yeah, NGS is a little better than base-PSO2 (to me) when it comes to power creep though. A lot of the 7-8* weapons are still pretty useful when completely grinded out. I'm still using the Obsidia-style weapons because I like the potential. And with the addition of the lv6 potentials that make them even stronger, it does introduce some kind of horizontal progression to the game. I think what makes "rares" so rare in NGS is finding either the color variant version and one with a strong preset skill. You'll find numerous copies of the weapon itself but finding one with a decent preset (and one with the preset that you actual want) is pretty damn difficult sometimes.

[@ryderthehedgehog]

It's also the only money-making way since there isn't anymore money-making way

[@ShaimingLong]

Also the lack of weapon variety and that there's no 'secret' weapon types, in classic PSO a Hunter had a dozen weapon options and if you were lucky you'd find a weapon that had different animations and timings to the types you're always finding. Every class had great versatility without having to compromise them like you do now. It was fun getting to use a Double Saber to restore your Force's TP, or getting to abuse a Slicer's elemental attacks with MST a Hunter could only dream of, Or being able to reliably fight with melee weapons as a Ranger knowing your high ATA will keep you from missing and getting clobbered as many Hunters have to endure. Having to specifically build a niche character with at most 5 weapon options really kills a lot of the adaptable ways you could play, NGS just gets so old so fast. I fight every enemy the same way because my options are so limited, back on PSO there were always certain enemies and room layouts that had you switching up your weapons and tactics.

[@ReflexVE]

Someone gave me a spread needle after we'd played together for a few weeks on Dreamcast and I didn't grasp how difficult that weapon was to find. Lost that save by accident and I've never seen the weapon again. Sigh. Really wanted to find it for the Xbox version but no dice.

[@gunbladelad7772]

Let's not forget that a lot of the gear was locked behind section IDs - which were in turn determined by the name you gave your character upon character creation. As for my own legendary hunt? I've been hunting for a Twin Chakram with hit for 18+ years now. It's literally the ONLY rare daggers I have yet to obtain with hit which CAN have hit. (I play on Gamecube, so enemy part weapons can't get hit there)

[@Gravesyte]

Man I miss my VARISTA Musashis Yamatos sealed J sword frozen shooter I remember I printed out those pages from game FAQs to study the drops

[@Gillian_FFXIV]

That's what me and my brother did, too!! We had soooo many pages printed out from Game FAQs because, like you, we were hard-pressed trying to get those drops, lol... such wonderful times. I remember sneaking into my school library back then to get those pages even when I was told by teachers that it was prohibited 🤣🤣

[@Sentay0]

Me and my friend played the game up and down like a zillion times and while we never got everything we had a character who we just used as a banker and his vault is 100% full of super weapons, it was so satisfying but I'm not sure I'd want to go back.

[@Made_in_Japan_Brazilian]

i played PSO too when i was young, i can't remember precisely but i think my total play time of all my characters were around 5k hours... and i couldn't get a single Heaven Punisher.... and i think my most used weapon was a ordinary launcher with a modifier that uses 200meseta per hit to double the damage and had 60HIT on elements... it devoured my meseta savings but it was satisfying to demolish bosses with the crazy dps 😛

[@RedLegend1988]

I am still searching for a Sealed J sword on my Hucast on GC... 20 years... we are still going. However, I DID find a Lavis Cannon but sadly....no syncesta and it has been like... 8 years lol. I feel the Lavis was a cruel joke, because yes it is amazing to find it... you can't do much with it without the two syncestas

[@Telorath]

I've been playing on Ephinea and my friends and I were target farming a v801 for me and three times I had the worst luck. The first time was when with Pinkal as the leader(Our purplenum friend wasn't available) we found a Pazuzu. Then, after our Purplenum friend jumped on we found a smartlink off a regular Zu(Would've been that v801 if it was my game), and THEN we had someone who wasn't the host freak out and kill the Pazuzu who was desynced off the map so we lost three rolls at the 1 in 2 v801. He felt so bad he just went and bought me one after that, but I felt like I lost a winning lottery ticket three times in one weekend. For context, I'm the type of guy that I REALLY don't like trading for items, I like that feeling of "I went in there and I hunted this rare thing myself"- at least for the first few major items that I need to make my build. There's a lot of people who don't remember what it was like to play without any of the important items because they get to ultimate and just buy them for the PDs they saved up in normal-vhard. All of my buddies had heavenly battles before vhard for example since it's only 1 or 2 PDs. I like the authentic experience of having to hunt the stuff you need for your build without having the stuff you need for your build like the first bunch of players had to back in the day.

[@dimiocto]

We used to have this thick printed notes book with all the drop rates from each mob and each sectionID. It was a blast to never get anything to drop. Great video!

[@andrewschoepfer9175]

First comment was half way thru the vid. Glad you play pso still. Got super lucky hunting milla, killed about 20k tollaws. I pray I keep that luck for guld, 1/28k From gran sorcerer wish me luck

[@evanlong2726]

Let’s also not forget DCv1/v2 also had an insane exp requirement as well. Enough that they lowered it in all the other ports/versions

[@dorien_rose]

I love your phantasy star videos please make more!!!

[@Dmoney8720]

Yesterday I finally ran into a mil lily on ultimate in the caves. Dropped the demolition comet and I love this weapon

[@DyLavis5]

All I ever wanted was a Lavis Cannon and to eventually make it into a Double Cannon. It’s a 1/22 drop from the rare red slimes in ultimate caves and the item to evolve it was a 1/22 drop from a Hildetorr. I killed dozens of red slimes as a kid and never got it. Now I get on Ephinea every once in a while and hope to get it one day

[@christhedicemaniac4318]

My best friend literally killed his Gamecube piping in and out to get a red slime to spawn... The damn console overheated and died...

[@StarEclipseMD]

I remember a buddy of mine wanted the Elysion sooo badly then eventually finding one for him. He offered up a Delsaber shield for it since I had the Delsaber Buster so I traded it for the shield. Good memories.

[@ShaimingLong]

As a little bit of sort of lore as it connects to the original games, The Elysion is a Laconium sword (I'm sure you found more Club of Laconiums than you cared for) and was the final sword Alyssa had in the first game and it contains the souls of three generations of heroes. So, cool find! 👍

[@feywinterfox9630]

OH geez this brings back memories and makes me wanna play again! I think in all the years of me playing this game in my offline game I THINK I got two rare weapons and even THEN they where on a class that couldn't even use them!

[@drakologarnus7248]

always looking for friends to play with on ephinea or psu clementine! if your interested

[@Gridia444]

I’ve still got my game and selection of memory cards holding my collection of about every rare in the game. I played way too much PSO in the early 2000s.

[@CommunistJugular]

The thing miss most about BB after switching to Dreamcast is the red box jingle

[@0Ishukone0]

Imagine being the first person to get a Sealed J Sword to drop. A God amongst men

[@dragonmangames2523]

I remember running a RAmar with a Justy-23ST (1/4 HP per hit on special attack), a Meteor Crush (? It was a shot weapon), a Double Saber, and a Photon Launcher.

[@synchrofanatic510]

I remember looking at all the drop rates for PSO for the first time. I had my first character on GC and was a kid so didnt really consider much about drop rates or anything then including the colour code making drops different. It was only when I went back to PSO BB many years later and made a new character I decided to look what the drop rates actually were and just being gobsmacked at the lunacy of some of them. Like some items were just never going to drop except for 1-2 specific colour IDS, (Yasminkovs 9000m comes to mind as I did farm that and Spread Needle) because the rates for the other colours would be like 1/1000000 or something daft. Worked to get players together and when you DO get that drop its an amazing feeling.... Until you realise it doesnt have hit% and then its more pain lmao.

[@TheBeholder333]

back in the days i was figuring out how rare drops worked playing offline and it took me some time to know that rare mobs drop them in general and the best ways to farm some of them, but in the end i was getting quite a handful of the same rare shit, it took me a while and some internet digging to get to know that the drop was actually fkn COLOR CODED FOR EACH CHARACTER. so getting all the rares i've wanted in offline mode was nigh impossible due to the amount of different characters i would have to create and grind levels with them....

[@SectionSkyly]

I found a Yasha way back on the official Sega Blue Burst servers (was around a 1/33,000 drop, and that was during a double drops event!). What PSO had was a great balance of easily attainable gear (even stuff like the RA staples of Frozen Shooter and Spread Needle weren't that hard to get in the later versions), combined with a few stupidly hard drops that you never really expected to find, which made it all the more fun if one ever did drop. Even though the gameplay loop was super simple, it drove you to keep playing because you wanted the rare stuff so badly. ...There is a special place in hell for whoever decided Photon Drops should be red boxes though. I can say this as someone who killed thousands of Gi Gues and never got a SJS 😂

[@ShaimingLong]

At least on PSO:BB you could use Photon Drops. Imagine the pain all those people on Game Cube without a network adapter! I actually have a crystal clear memory of playing with a friend, killing Gi-Gue as a Skyly and it dropping a red box, and my friend got up, ran around cheering all excited that we finally found one of the 'ultimate' rares. Then I walked up to it and had to call it being a Photon Drop. I swear I have never seen somebody go from elation to blind rage faster!

[@EQOAnostalgia]

I must have fought Rathalos in MH1 100's of times, never once got a plate... got a gravious head though, and made the really rare poison lance that my guild leader hated me for lol. Oldschool drop rates were great. They gave a game more life and more to chase after.

[@pbsaffran]

So many memories. On the Dreamcast I had almost no rares at all. I didn't have it on GC. Then Blue Burst came around in 2004 and I started farming with friends. We got pretty much everything, but we had to put in the hours...

[@EQOAnostalgia]

Yeah man, EQOA was like that. I remember farming for a rare green alchemist bottle for your offhand... stats were meh, but it looked really, really good on the alchemist class, which already had one in the main hand as their main weapon. Really cool and unique class btw, they mixed their own potions and threw them as spells, mostly AoE's and made pills as buffs lol. But i digress, i farmed that blasted bottle for days... never got it to drop. Likewise my wife, who was just an in game friend at the time, got me the most rare shield in the game called the Crystaline Orb, it pulsated with a beautiful flowing light. It was basically a shield made of light particles, i farmed it for DAYS with no luck. It spawned off a rare that would appear in one of 4 igloos, you just had to be the one lucky person to have him spawn in YOUR igloo and WITH the item, he wore it, so as soon as he spawned you knew his ass had it lol. She strolls in while i'm off camping for my 21st birthday, scores the shield, no lie, in mere minutes. Came out wearing it and pissed off the entire zone lol. Causally strolls in, kills the placeholder spawn, get the rare spawn, gets the orb. Best birthday gift ever! You bet your ass i married that woman 🤣 19 years this fall.

[@Midori_Hoshi]

It took me 6 months of playing a few hours a day to find the Psycho Wand back on the official Japanese server for PSOBB. I started a quest, checked the first few rooms and then reset. It was boring, so I watched anime while I played. I only saw one other player with Psycho Wand on that game, and we ended up becoming friends and duoing some of the harder quests together. Good times.

[@THIZZAVELI]

I remember hunting for the heven punisher. PSO wasn't very kind to rangers back then. It was all about hunter class and they kinda focused on force. Add on to the fact that we discovered that only a bluefall/human can get the drop. Getting the blufall title was rare too. Then you had to kill the ultra rare version of the hildibear called hildiblue(now known as "rock bear" in pso2/ngs). Which only appeared on a rare map that barely showed up in the rotation. Wasn't that many cool/unique powerful guns in the game. So to compensate for that. Sega made the few they had the most powerful weapons in the game. But made them the most difficult to get. Making them ultra rare. It was a bit easier to get them online than offline(more map variations). But you know how online gaming was back then lol. So basically most of the grinding was done offline. Man I restarted the maps and killed a million hildiblues lol. One day I went online with my friend to farm. Killed a hildiblue, and it dropped. When I was just about to pick it up. Somebody called my house and my dad picked the phone up. 😠 😡 👿 got disconnected, I was ready to kill him lol. Luckily, when I got back online. My friend picked it up and gave it to me. Fun times!!!

[@fragula7414]

The Rampant hacking of this game back then made all these rares the normal meta for the game. Jswords and Black king bars etc... everywhere.

[@logear]

There's something oddly satisfying with just mindlessly rare hunting in pso on my off time that I can't quite describe I've spent a good 100ish hours over the last three months trying to get an s parts 2.01 to drop on ephinea and it's taken so long I might be sad when it's over

[@logear]

7 months later I finally got it!

[@Gillian_FFXIV]

@@logearCongrats!!!🎉🎉🎉

[@andrewwales8827]

I remember trying to do the strat to grind out the one raid enemy encounter that dropped SJS with friends back in the day. We spent hours in one room targeting the one specific enemy that was supposed to drop it, endlessly killing it, leaving and restarting the raid for another shot. Never did get that sword.

[@m3tr0id86]

That's saying I try remember when I used to duplicate items on the OG xbox side however the trick was finding me to start with, because I am very secretive by nature and when people did find me I usually had items up for grabs that I'm willing to give. At the end of the day, though, most of the time you're better off farming said item than actively looking for me because I was usually never in same place twice. In fact that's pretty much where the inspiration for gemini the duplicate came from funny enough 😂

[@BMiller627]

It took years of playing off and on to find a sorcerer's arm to make that weapon. I seriously only got it in 2017 or so (I played offline before then or with friends that have since went different directions in life, so 2010-2017 was solo when I had time). Now I have to find the time to make the climb to 152 to use the Aura Field (with 4 slots) that I've been holding on to for a couple decades

[@aschraub9897]

My favorite game of all time! In high school I would have a 3 ring binder with my drop charts and stats and map out what I wanted too hunt that's how nerdy I was. I played offline for like a year and a half and by chance happened to get a broadband adapter and my family had just gotten Cable internet so the stars aligned and I got too play online on Gamecube and it was one of the best times of my life! There will never be a better online community as well everyone is so united and non toxic

[@Zeomantic]

I remember getting a Lavis Cannon on Blue Burst after farming several red slimes. Good times!

[@Literallyjustpowerchords64]

I feel this! I played almost exclusively offline around 2004-05 on the GameCube and maybe one of my group of friends found the Photon Claw on hard, like that was the peak. Only once I got my GC the broadband adapter that I got online and found the cookie jar. I remember thinking the Guilty Light I got from V.hard Vol Opt was rare? Nope, guy I played with after about two weeks told me about his 3 year Nei’s Claw hunt. Nearly knocked me off my chair!

[@ezioblazesit9017]

I remember tweaking so hard farming on my Purple character not realizing the items had different rates or wouldn't even drop at all with certain colors

[@DJhero5001]

On the original DC (a friend gave us his copy of the game), I found the monster parts that allowed the creation of the S-Beat blades. Problem was, it was with my Racast... Which worked out due to his already high attack power.

[@Bristecom]

It was indeed very exciting finding rares originally. The whole game was always feeling new and exciting, even with only 4 levels. But I feel like these days I'd rather just trade for what I want and spend my time raising mags and character levels. But there are a few items that are still so rare that I'm considering going well out of my way for. Even now, almost 25 years later, this game still keeps me interested and absolutely insane! LOL

[@TheSinisterTerror]

I didn't get PSO until long after the official servers shut down, and when I did finally get up to higher difficulties, I obsessed hard over trying to get rare gear, even if I only got so far with it. Only ever did solo play until a few years back when I downloaded Ultima, though I still just play alone. Rarest drop I think I ever got was a Red Sword, which immediately replaced my Chain Sawd as my main weapon.

[@Courier_Seven]

God/battle is hands down my favorite item in game. And i spent tons of hours lvling up specific color ids to farm certain items for my skyly hucaseal with twin sabers. It speeds up all attacks by %30. Chain sawd is a close second.

[@LinkageAX]

The feel when you had the wrong guild card colour or whatever it was, making your grind even harder/not obtainable

[@EQOAnostalgia]

EQOA had insane drop rates as well... and i do mean insane. Some items were less than 1% drop rate. It has its pros and cons. I tend to prefer extremely rare items, as it adds that extra carrot on a stick effect, monster flavored skinner boxes for the win!

[@TheDougWay]

1% is not a low drop rate. PSO has uber weapons with drop rates that are between 1/12000 and 1/300000 and are much harder to get. And yes, even these are from enemies you can get at most like 20 of per quest, they're not super common or anything.

[@ModificationAlpha]

When Ephinea had a rare enemy rate boost, I was running Episide 4 with my Pinkal FOnewm nonstop to get Mother Garb+, and I got it after the second rare encounter Now the really painful hunt: Psycho Wand

[@Davesoft]

Bringer Rifle was my gun, ripped the arm off an angry horse monster. Not the bestest weapon, but I love it's particle effect, and I suspect it passed through enemies sometimes.

[@ItsJakeAyee]

I play on Ephinea a lot, Lately I've been doing Fake in Yellow over and over again to get a Red Handgun for my HUmar while raising a new mag at the same time.

[@josephfreeman5289]

i had all the rare weapons, the rocket launcher, the uzi. i remember dupers would come in the lobby and drop 20-30 red rare items

[@HezrouDhiaga]

I miss PSO. PSO2 is hot garbage to me compared to the original. I loved interacting with other players to get those rare items cuz the drop rates were fucking abyssmal xD but it was a good drive to grind through those deep dungeons.

[@Jonaythan]

I remember having the rare weapons and mags. I used to play the xbox version, and many people gifted me these items and I'd dupe them on my AR somehow. Seems like I remember someone told me many were from the DC version, and many werent obtainable in xbox version. I just remember having most all of them, duping them, handing them out. I cant remember hardly any of the names, but most everyone wanted Tsumikiri J sword or Sange and Yasha.

[@asai_24]

We need a new MMO that has a real fucking grind to it. Like it takes you a year of leveling to hit cap, and that's just on one class. Then add in the PSO rare drop system but maybe dial it up to 11. Have hundreds of unique incredibly strong and rare/unique weapons/gear/items that kinda "define" that player. I want it to be 3 years into the game, first expansion coming up, and people STILL haven't found every rare.

[@indalecio539]

But does your Yasminkov 9000M have hit%? That's the real rare hunting.

[@Karma20XX]

Right?! 😂

[@Sypaka]

oof. Yeah Hit% was a completely new world.

[@timothyartz1573]

I found a 45 hit spread needle once. I still have it too.

[@gkagara]

Elder pain memories, the way to make your character immortal and face tank literally anything. But I am kinda unhappy how recently NGS goes with duel quest being techter I feel left out because how impotent techter is wand is shiet and you're denied using multi weapon.

[@InternetGravedigger]

I still have my Dreamcast and PSO (though I was only able to play offline) but I haven't even hooked it up in 15+ years.

[@davidlane1248]

I remember when i first started chatting on gamefaqs about Phantasy Star Zero for the DS years ago and i had no idea my psycho wand was arguably the most rare item in the game and everyone was clambering to get chummy with me hoping i would trade it to them- i didn't even have a force character that could use the thing I don't remember what i traded it for or to whom, but i do know i never found anything in that rare category to this day. The closest i got was a 4 slot Rika Suit

[@customtoggle7938]

You can buy a charge gatling/vulcan with decent hit % from the shop after level 100 and it outclasses most rares in terms of raw damage output, plus any class can use it

[@graptakular]

I remember when people started to discover the Sealed J-Sword and tried to figure out the process to unseal it to make the Tsumikiri J Sword. There were literally less than a handful of people who had even obtained it through legit means at that point too.

[@nad613]

I had the Frozen Shooter on the Gamecube version of the game and it was sick.

[@EdWuncler3rd]

Finally got the Yasha to accompany my 35hit Sange last night! This game is legendary !

[@evanlong2726]

The biggest pain in v1 though was dropping your awesome rare weapon when you died and a rando party member steals it…

[@soltymc1616]

My luckyest find was a syncesta when i was grinding for something in the caves. 😆 and i miss my buddies from MIA Team 😉

[@HoDKenji]

Only the players who played Ep1&2 and/or BlueBurst play NGS today and stay tuned. Even if they know that SEGA brings weak content and in the endgame content (purple trigger) since stia release the loot have shit. Until Giga Stat 3, you could farm it properly, because it was the endgame loot in the purpel) With Giga Stat 4, SEGA has organized the biggest snot. Predominantly Stat 1-2 what no one need

[@zackarywest8096]

on pso bb ephenea server i got a yasminkov 9000 after a few houndred kills with 50 hit and 50 dark and then got a psycho wand drop from a delbiter in the same week. went from like 200 pds over the course of 6 months to 2000 pds in a week. it was crazy

[@MaximillianGreil]

I had a chainsawd.... my friends lost their shit when I'd whip that thing out.

[@screweduptx512]

Dude I just started a playthrough the other day. Been playing it on my phone thru an emulator. Game is insane

[@DemoniteBL]

Realm of the Mad God used to be just like that. Used to be.

[@FoxyPercival714]

The only rare weapon I wanted was a spread needle... Man this game is awesome and I should know, I played it.

[@zeroenth7743]

I have hope that one day we'll get a remastered version for modern consoles. I don't even want that much to change, beyond the enemy resistances in ultimate to make forces more viable. I loved that certain rares were restricted to certain section id. Back on dreamcast, the one character per vmu restriction also only added to the rarity of the items. We dropped our weapons when we died. Imagine. You've grinded the legitimate lavis cannon, get too sure of yourself while showing off the wave attack special move, and die while holding it. Except it falls from your limp hands and on to the floor. It's bad enough to die alone and better hope you still have a capable weapon in your stash to clean up with and reclaim your prize because online There's that other player who instead of resurrecting you with a moon atomizer, proceeds to pick the ultimate weapon up and claim it as their own. Leaving the game the heading back to lobby There wasn't even voice chat for you to scream into back then. Truly some of the most beautiful times to be a gamer.

[@ninjaxd9050]

I used to have like all the hacked shit even hacked characters with like 9999 stats on the dream cast. But I would mostly play with regular characters I leveled up my self, regular weapons and stuff as just zapping the entire room constantly gets boring pretty quick.