NewNews - Phantasy Star Online 2 Free-to-Play

Source: Youtube Channel VideoGameFrontAgain

You read the heading right: Phantasy Star Online 2 will be released as a Free-to-Play online game!  It seems that the PS Vita version will also be free to download and play to cross-platform play with the PC version.  Since its first announcement of PSO2, I feared that they would follow their old archaic monthly fee model (which failed for Phantasy Star Universe) and so I hoped that they would follow the same model that Guild Wars did by having the player buy the game and play online for free.  So when a friend told me last night about the news that it would be free-to-play, I nearly fainted from the excitement and screaming I did.  Now a new fear has fallen upon all Phantasy Star faithfuls as the community has seen the industry take hold of the free-to-play model by having insane amounts of micro-transactions alter a game's balance or withholding tons of content from the player until they pay for it (but retail games do that too with DLCs).  I have the same fears too as I am very familiar with free-to-play games (played over 50 of them but never spent a cent) and have seen many companies become greedy if they're successful or fail and inevitably shut down their servers which is not fair for those who actually did pay money for the items (which is also why I don't pay for any of them, never know when I will stop playing or when the servers will shut down).  The only other thing we have to fear now (at least in the western market) is that it doesn't get a release for the western audience (like Phantasy Star Portable 2 infinity did).  Still, I am now more excited about Phantasy Star Online 2 than ever before.

For those who have never played played or heard of the Phantasy Star Online series, it is a spin-off series from its original turn-based Phantasy Star games and played as an Action-RPG with other players online.  It is heavily Sci-Fi based and has a futuristic, space-themed feel to the environment.  Players are called "hunters" and are like hired mercenaries to perform various tasks for companies, officials, and individuals.  Rather than a huge open world map, everything is instanced in their own area.  PSO is not to be confused as an MMORPG as players will be grouped up in a party of 4-players and adventure on their own from other players waiting in the lobby.  Some notable aspects that has captured the hearts of many players in the past are: an incredible library of weapons, the addicting nature of feeding a mag (kind of like a robotic pet) and seeing the effects of them in battle, the excitement of looting strong and very rare items, large scale boss battles that tower 10-30x taller than the player, and the unique colorful environment with its atmospheric music.  Phantasy Star Online is a difficult game to find or in some cases very rare for the Sega Dreamcast and Nintendo Gamecube (no one cares about the X-box version and it is unplayable now).  PSO's spin-off "Phantasy Star Universe" was met with mixed reviews from critics and players and deviates a bit from the mechanics of PSO.  The portable versions were met with better reception but did not sell as well in the western market.  That is why a lot of Phantasy Star Online faithfuls are so excited about this upcoming sequel.  Here's hoping that it reaches the western market.

Source:
-MMOhut: New details about Phantasy Star Online 2