IGN posted the first Phantasy Star Portable review outside of Japan, and gave it a score of 7.0. Comparing this score to Phantasy Star Universe, it is slightly higher from 6.6 for PS2 and 5.5 for PC. IGN reviewer Ryan Clements summed up his review as:

Despite its problems, including a terribly lackluster story.
poor AI and imperfect lock-ons, Phantasy Star Portable
is really satisfying, especially if you enjoy collecting loot and
seeing your deliciously fashionable robo-wizard level up.

He pointed out that “the game’s entire presentation feels extremely cheap” noting shops and cities have been reduced to a 2D representation of themselves. He also felt the AI was atrocious, stating,  “Never have I seen such incompetent, incapable party members like the AI-controlled riffraff of Phantasy Star Portable.“

We can assume the AI for Phantasy Star Portable acts the same as it does in Phantasy Star Universe. Most players use them for meat shields and healing support, they don’t tend to be useful in any other fashion.

He did point out excellent parts of the game, praising the wide assortment of cool looking weapons and the game’s multi player modes. He seemed to like the action pallete system describing it as, “…extremely handy, as attempting to navigate the game’s full set of menus with monsters leaping all over you is excruciatingly difficult (as it should be).” 

So in all, this is a very surprising review score coming from IGN after the horrendous scores of Sonic and the Black Knight and Sonic Unleashed. Maybe IGN isn’t so IGNorant after all?

[via IGN]

Phantasy Star Portable Launch Event On Friday March 6th

Phantasy Star Portable releases today, March 3rd, 2009. Phantasy Star Universe will be having a cross promotion launch event. It consists of Vivienne,  in search of her nemesis, Helga Neumann. There will be clues given out and tickertape messages. During the event a secret phrase will be revealed to the participating players. They will automatically receive these two prizes if they type it.

• Holy Ray /D
• Pumpkin Trick
• Real Handgun+
• Moatoob Collectible

On Thursday March 5th, the prizes have been changed to Real Handgun+ and Moatoob Collectible. In order to receive Moatoob Collectible you must say “Phantasy Star Portable Day” without quotes. In order to obtain Real Handgun+ you must participate in the event at the specific times, and say the secret phrase depending on which server it’s on.

Whats the significance of these prizes? Holy Ray /D was supposed to be given during Mission Carnival’s quiz mission. Unfortunately this mission was not released outside of Japan. Unfortunately this item will not be released at this time.

If you remember a while back, Pumpkin Trick was an item which was supposed to be given out during Halloween. There was a bug with the item and the GMs decided not to release it until later.

The event occurs at specific times throughout the day, we’ll cover the specific times for each major time zones for United States and France.

France Time Zones

C’est l’heure exacte.

• 19h00 - 20h00 (PC/PS2)
• 20h00 - 21h00 (Xbox 360)
• 22h00 – 23h00 (PC/PS2)
• 23h00 – 24h00 (Xbox 360)
• 1h00 – 2h00 (PC/PS2)
• 2h00 - 3h00 (Xbox 360)
• 3h15 - 4h00 (pc/ps2)
• 4h00 - 4h45 (xbox360)

United States Time Zones

Hope to see you all there!

Phantasy Star Portable, is now available for pre-ordering. The price is $39.99 and will be released on March 3, 2009. Amazon.com has revealed the official US box art.

Phantasy Star Portable US Box Art

[via Amazon.com]

Current Information

1up.com reports Phantasy Star Portable will be released in March 3rd, 2009. The bad news, multiplayer gameplay will still use Ad-Hoc mode which is a bummer for the majority of players in the US. We have also added the European release date below.  Phantasy Star Zero will release in Winter 2009.

If your planning to pick up this game, I still recommend using XLink Kai for PSP. This will allow you to play online with other players around the globe.  We do hope Sega changes this before release, but for now no announcement has been made.

Future AdHoc Plans

Sony has announced a new feature currently in open beta in Japan. This “AdHoc Party for PSP” will allow PSP owners to play AdHoc games over the internet using Playstation 3’s network connection. Unfortunately those without a Playstation 3 will be unable to utilize such feature. This feature will allow players to meet up in a lobby and chat using text or voice.

Release and Information

Game: Phantasy Star Portable
Release Date: March 3, 2009
Europe Release Date: Spring 2009
Platform: Playstation Portable
Network: Ad-Hoc

[via pso-w]

Read about the Newest Phantasy Star Zero for Nintendo DS

For the past few months, the words “maybe” and “unconfirmed” have caused quite a stir, but it seems Sega may be considering Phantasy Star Portable for an international release. There are no details yet on the changes that may take place including if the game will support Wi-Fi play for US and EU players.

“I think the crossover of the PSP ownership will work quite nicely, so we’re fairly hopeful we can make something out of it. It’s not going to be huge, but hopefully it’ll be interesting”

via Gamasutra Interview with Simon Jeffery

Only time will tell if we’ll truly get an official release. For now, Phantasy Star Portable has not been announced for international release. In other news, Phantasy Star Portable has reached #1 on Japanese Game Sales charts for August 3rd 2008. Beating Rhythm Heaven Gold in second place, which I highly recommend importing.