Given the massive cult following that cropped up around Phantasy Star Online and, to some extent, put up with Phantasy Star Universe, I'm surprised that the latest Phantasy Star multiplayer installment, Phantasy Star Zero, hasn't gotten much press despite having been out since early November.



As the game's name implies, Phantasy Star Zero, or PS0, takes a great deal more from the original Phantasy Star Online games than it does Phantasy Star Universe. Gone are PSU's Beast race, the helper machines, the personal room space that exists solely for filling with tchotchkies, and the party size maximum has been knocked back down to four.

Character creation returns to the old race/class system, with Humans having access to every class, while the android CASTs and pointy-eared Newmans losing access to one class tier each, but gaining health and magic regeneration, respectively. The visual style of the classic classes has been revamped, with humans taking on a more Wild West flair, while Newmans are a little less fashion-victim and a little more sci-fi than their Dreamcast/Gamecube/PC counterparts. CASTs haven't changed that much, but there's only so much you can do with robots. Another nice thing is finding right off the bat that MAGs have returned to their former role as support equipment rather than weapon option, as you have to choose the color of your basic MAG before you can begin play. The various customization settings seem quite a bit more limited than previous PS iterations, but there's still a decent selection considering this is a handheld game.

Once you've created your character, Phantasy Star Online veterans will find a great deal more familiar. For starters, the original action pallette system is back. Your choices for actions are limited to two three-slot pallettes, swappable with the R button, but any abilities, magic techniques, or items can be assigned to those slots, as opposed to binding them to your weapons a la Universe.

Weapons for Force classes have melee options, rather than leaving you up a creek when out of points to power spells, and to keep things simple, there are only learning items for the most basic forms of all the classic spells. Rather than the multiple effect types for each element's spells, a second, more powerful form of a given spell can be accessed by holding down that spell's assigned button to charge it until the its icon changes. Photon arts also made their way back in a similar fashion, one of the few things adopted from Phantasy Star Universe; each weapon in the game has a photon art built in, which is accessible by charging your melee attack. There are several arts for each class of weapon, too, so it's not like you're getting the same attack in every single pistol you might pick up.

The weapon spread itself will be familiar to the PSOnline crowd as well; sabres, swords, daggers, double sabers, claws, pistols, mechguns, beam cannons, rifles, bazookas, wands, and rods all make a comeback, with spears sneaking in from PSU. Gunblades are new to the party, functioning as a sabre normally, but firing projectiles when targets are locked on with the L button. Slicers return as well, but have taken on a new form. Rather than being the photonic equivalent to a jai alai scoop, PS0's slicers function more like the ones in the original Phantasy Star games, as boomerangs you can send flying through several enemies before they return.

As for the game's story, Sega seems to have stepped up a bit when it comes to character involvement this time around. Whereas it wasn't uncommon in past titles to see players with alts from several classes in order to be able to use all the rare equipment they found, Phantasy Star 0 actually provides a good reason to play as all three races. The storyline starts and plays out differently at certain key points depending upon what race you choose to play as. The story itself is told mostly through character portrait/typed dialogue sequences, but the occasional still-frame or animated cutscene is thrown in here and there to break up the monotony. The storage and character stat-tracking counter in-game actually tracks all of the characters on your cartridge (up to three) and makes sharing items easy through a second "joint" storage option, which makes managing three at once more rewarding and easier to handle.

The data tracking is one of the best new additions to the series; not only does it keep track of kill counts, damage dealt, and the missions you've completed, but there's a bestiary section where you can view the renders of all the things you've killed, and an item history that shows you what every weapon you've picked up between all of your characters would look like when equipped. The game also rewards you with money and items via this counter for reaching different listed goals, such as killing X number of enemies, getting a certain percentage of a given type of weapon, or getting some of the rare and gimmick items, which adds a nice new goal set beyond just getting more levels.

Gameplay-wise, the return to many of Phantasy Star Online's old standards doesn't engender much in the way of innovation, but Sega made sure to polish the good silver before setting it out. My only complaint was that aiming can sometimes be a little tetchy; auto-targetting on projectile attacks will shift your character towards the nearest enemy in your charater's line of sight, but making small adjustments where you stand usually requires a short loop around, as just tapping the d-pad tends to overshoot the mark. Touch screen gimmicks are mostly absent, and the only regular uses the bottom screen gets are going through menus (accessed by Start rather than a touch command), and expanding the map screen from your current section to all visited sections.

This game's take on mapping is a vast improvement, I should add. The maps themselves are generated semi-randomly from differently-shaped "rooms" that vary based on what field you're playing, rather than choosing from two or three set paths like previous multiplayer Phantasy Stars. The single-cell map normally shown gives you a decent view of the highlights in your current room, but the expanded version shows all the exits that are open across the board, and conveniently indicates exactly which section your allies are in, should you get separated. Both the expand and minimize options are on the right side of the touch screen, within easy reach of most thumbs rather than requiring a stylus.

Multiplayer handles well, and they've brought back the visual chat from PSOnline, but thanks to the touch screen, it works like a smaller, saveable pictochat. Saved messages can be re-accessed via a touch button next to the map, as well as several pre-set "strategy" options that have typed-out suggestions like "All photon blasts on me." I believe it took me less than ten minutes to set all my visual chat options to renditions of male genitalia. Friend codes are a requirement, given the game is on the DS, and I've occasionally run into some difficulty actually getting connected to friends, but once the connection's established, I've never been disconnected while playing.

The best part of the multiplayer experience has to be how they've handled loot this time around. Before now, enemies would drop items right where they were killed, leading to a mad scramble for the good stuff and arguments amongst teammates. In Zero, nothing gets dropped (except from on-screen containers) until every hostile in the area is killed, at which point a large chest appears that spews forth a pile of goodies when attacked. In multiplayer games, the chest (and any other container) spews separate piles of said goodies for each player, so that no one is stepping on anyone's toes in the collection process, and everyone is happy. On the off chance you end up with something someone else wants and have a way to know as much, there's an item trading option back at that wonderful storage counter back in town.

Presentation-wise, the game does pretty well for the DS. The music is just as ambient, unoffensive, and mostly forgettable as Online's or Universe's, and the visuals don't really stretch the system's capabilities, but don't hurt to look at, either. The 3D movement handles pretty well even with a d-pad, save for that targeting issue I mentioned earlier. Stylistically, the character designs are typical, anime-inspired JRPG staples, which actually look a great deal like the designs for Lunar: Dragon Song, a much more terrible game. I'm beginning to wonder just how deep the connections run, seeing as how this game's set on Earth rather than Ragol, and a great deal of the trouble happens to do with the moon.

The story mode is finishable in twelve to fifteen hours, including some leveling, but there are plenty of side quests and two harder difficulty levels to unlock to keep things replayable, both in single and multi-player modes. And the best part of the whole package? There's no Sonic Team logo to be found anywhere on the packaging or in the intro or credits! Sega finally seems to have realized what they do to good things!

All in all, I'd say this is the best treatment a multiplayer Phantasy Star game has recieved in a long time, and does a great job of taking everything that's been done right to date and adding just enough to keep it from being a mere rehash. While I consider it more of a draw for fans of the older games who're just out for more, this wouldn't be a bad Phantasy Star with which to rope in some new players. I give it an 8.2 out of 10, and hope some people will check it out, perhaps once they're done with Spirit Tracks.