You'll want to cast Nazan (bonus points if you remember that spell!) on your PlayStation Portable to blow the dust off, as there's a hot game on the PlayStation Network that you'll probably want to play.
Phantasy Star Portable awaits your download on the PlayStation Store, along with lots of other goodies. Finally, with this 272MB demo you can get a taste of what you've been missing all this time. I personally cannot wait to download and play it, but today has been totally hectic around here. In my stead, I've asked Destructoid contributor Adam (BlindsideDork) to give me a rundown of his impressions of the demo, and those follow below.
While I'm at it, let me take the time to say how absolutely awesome BlindsideDork is. He does a lot behind the scenes here at Destructoid with very little thanks or compensation. Hats off to you, sir.
Adam's impressions after the jump.
- Except for the characters you make, everyone talks, which is refreshing coming from the GameCube version. Some people might not like the stationary picture for story scenes but I have to say it beats reading the text the whole time like I remember from the previous.
- It does look pretty from the opening cutscene to the open fields in multiplayer.
- It actually seems like quite a large demo. The main story missions and multiplayer seem quire robust.
- No one appears to be online but if you leave the WLAN switch on you can play the online stages by yourself. They say you should be at least 5 and with a friend.
- The overall presentation is very well done and seems polished.
- As a ranger, I do find it a little hard to aim. And they say to hold L button to lock on but either my weapons don't lock on or it pretty much allows you to strafe. That is probably my biggest beef with it.
- As well as not being familiar with the series I am not sure what Discs are (unless i completely missed it). There is an instruction manual on the demo, but it just tells you what the controls are. But I suppose you don't need the discs for the demo.
- You make a partner machine and I wish there were more options to choose from. Maybe it is just the demo but I wanted to pick a different class or gender but didn't seem to be an option.
- I wish there was a way to keep the camera behind you and have more control over the camera style. Maybe a 3rd person camera?
- ...and i like how there is a relatively quick way to heal yourself or switch weapons with that Action Palette they created.
- But besides these negative concerns, I was definitely impressed with the demo. Definitely am interested in picking this game up now that I've played it.
Dale North is Destructoid's Editor-In-Chief, a founding editor, and specialist in Japanese gaming. An accomplished musician, Dale was reporting from Japan during the earthquakes of 2011. Luckily, he got the fuck out alive and is home in America now with his wife and beloved corgi, Einstein. Dale is also a co-founder of Destructoid's sister anime site
Japanator. Likes Corgis, Sega Saturn, PSP, iPhone, Photographic tools.
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Contest:
11:00 AM on 02.07.2009 | 
Good times... good times.
Strong wind attack. Hits all enemies.
Loved PSO on the Dreamcast, not sure it'll translate well to the PSP though.
But what I really want is a brand new RPG.
I just got finished playing the demo inside and out and I am very excited about it. The demo is massive spanning across four missions with many stages. Although the single player may be short, you can continue leveling up your character to 20 and job class to 5, and even allowing you to save your character to your Memory Stick which gets me thinking that you can resume playing with that character when the full game hits shores.
There were a lot of items to find and buy. I found a lot of rare items I never saw included in Ambitions of the Illuminus. Using them was a blast, and as many enemies were on screen, with all the particle effects and explosions going on, I never experienced any frame-rate loss.
Also, for those who don't know. Discs are bought and linked to your weapon in order to use and learn new special abilities for your weapon. As you continue to use your special attacks, the experience on your disc levels up, and when a certain level is reached on your disc, a new special attack is learned. Just like your three-stage combo you can do with any weapon, you can level up your disc to learn a three-stage special attack combo that does quite a bit of damage and may send enemies flying in the air.
The camera may be a nuisance at times and only points in the direction you tell it to by tapping on the left trigger. You will be doing that a lot, but concerning what Adam said about his wish to have it stay behind you, it would be nice for CASTs in a way, but as another race, you will be turning your character mid-attack to hit enemies in all directions. Having the camera following you in that instance would make you really dizzy or disoriented. Maybe if the PSP had ANOTHER ANALOG STICK it would help. It sure did playing PSU on the computer.
Couldn't find a release date for the game, any of you hear the word on the street about this?
I want to pick up the EN version but there are two things that are stopping me:
1: I'm not sure if my JP character data would load on the EN version (I really hope it does, because I've maxed her out to LV 100 already).
2: SEGA is notorious for dropping online support for the EN versions of their games very quickly. They favor the JP markets (mainly because the EN markets don't buy their games as frequently), so JP games tend to get more DLC and better online support.
At any rate, I'm glad to see it's finally coming to the US. Right now the PSP is doing HORRIBLY in the US, so a popular title coming to the platform is going to be a great thing (and whenever Dissidia: Final Fantasy is released in the US, those two titles combined might be enough to save the PSP here in the states).
If this does well, hopefully Sega considers making another PSO title for the PS3 and Xbox 360. I absolutely adored the original PSO on Dreamcast and Gamecube, and I really want to see it make a solid return!
I use Hewn.