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Oct 15
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I logged on to my Xbox 360 earlier today and as usual thought I’d check Marketplace first, I found Phantasy Star Universe under the Demos category so I thought I’d give it a go. At just under 1GB it took a while to download, but having heard about the Phantasy Star series before and knowing what a cult following they get I thought I’d have to try it. Whilst it was downloading I went about playing Oblivion and chatting to Private Custard over Xbox Live, once we’d both downloaded it we decided to jump in to the demo and explore the game together.
Phantasy Star Universe Dance-Off
Having never tried a MMORPG before I didn’t think the demo would last that long, 8 hours later – I realised I was wrong. The game is pretty accessible, even for a noob like me – the most similar game I’ve played is probably Final Fantasy VII on the original Playstation. The controls are easy enough to pick up and the missions I tried mainly consited of bashing-up monsters, though the combat system here is real-time rather than turn-based. Using real-time combat makes it feel a little like a hack’n'slash as well as an RPG which I prefer as there’s no time waiting around for players/monsters to make a move, I understand this might actually put some die-hard RPG fans off but I think it could also bring in some new players who don’t usually go for RPGs.
Being new to MMORPGs I was very pleased with the whole notion of interaction with others, I liked the way that you could collaborate and trade but not fight (as it would always end up in chaos). Private Custard and I went through a particularly beefy mission which would have caused us some serious gried had it not been for some other players joining our party and sharing the pain we were going through – a great demonstration of how MMOs work.
One neat feature is that the game allows players to perform certain actions to express emotion as opposed to just using keyboard (or voice if in the same party), these include Waving, Laughing, Crying, Bowing, Jumping and Dancing. The most fun part of the whole night was the dance-off that we managed to get going in the main lobby – through the night it involved at least 20 people dancing and up to a hundred or so watching. Personally I think it’s a great thing that people from all over the world can get together online and coordinate to achieve something so completely silly – no guns, no arguments, no fighting, not even any bad language – just silliness. I do however acknowledge that it’s more than a little bit sad.
Please see video above or visit page on YouTube.