Category: Phantasy Star Portable 2

Phantasy Star Online 2 Camp Ship and Project CUTE

Ricardo 18 Comments

Sakai explains why it is called Phantasy Star Online 2.

  • To commemorate the 10th anniversary of Phantasy Star Online
  • Because it's a completely new game.
  • Because it's a fully online game
  • Because it's a title that carries on the idea of an Online RPG that's spread to even more people from those Phantasy Star Online had already captured.

You should view "PSO2" as not a direct sequel to PSO, but rather the successor to Phantasy Star Online.

 

And here's an area most people who played the Alpha test are familiar with already. This is the camp ship area where after you receive a quest, players enter this small Arcs space ship that travels to the planet that corresponds with the quest.

It is the point between the lobby and the field where players can make preparations before diving in.

This camp ship area is shown in that TGS promo movie you saw earlier.

 

Did you ever notice there's a small aircraft stored beneath the Camp Ship? Yes, though it may look small, the camp ship is actually quite large. It is covered in camouflage paint since it's not only used for space travel (warping), but can enter within range of the atmosphere.

 

Mystery Weapon Category?

In Famitsu Connect-On, Sakai dropped some hints on what that weapon was in the Tokyo Game Show Trailer. The hints said since PSO, it's not the first time this weapon category has appeared, and out of the 3 classes, Forces can not equip it.

Given these clues, we know generally Partisans can only be equipped by Hunters (except if it's a rare partisan, then even forces could equip it.). But what other weapon category could it be?

Also for Alpha Test 2, Sakai thinks he could have 10,000 simultaneous connections. The first Alpha test managed to get 6,000 people simultaneously connected. (So I guess that's a hint as to how many more people would be added?) Also the second alpha test you don't have to buy something to participate like last time.

[via shougai]

Oracle Mother Ship

In the same interview, Sakai dropped some hints about that ship tailing behind the Oracle fleet as you saw in the TGS trailer. It is the Oracle's "Mother Ship", though the existance of this ship is a mystery, we know this isn't a place where there are people. This place is described as a "sacred area." 

 (So is this ship used for sealing dark falz? This sounds like a final area to me.)

[via shougai]

Project Cute

Project Cute is actually for Phantasy Star Universe, the concept behind it is to make original clothing with a "CUTE" theme. So Marie Wind マリー ウィンド is coming up next on October 27, 2011 within the GC Gachan.

 

Various colors are available too!

[via psblog]

November Wallpaper

 A Message from Bonko

Bonkohara wrote a little message to the Facebook page, we've cleaned up her English translation to make it more coherent. 

Good evening everyone. Here in Japan it is around 11:00PM. 😀 I am at my desk and working hard even though I'm feeling cold. Producer Sakai has a long meeting today. All of the PHANTASY STAR staff are doing thier best for PHANTASY STAR ONLINE 2! 🙂 We would like to see our fans smile. ♥ We sent a email newsletter yesterday. Please check it out .

Sakai Talks with 4Gamer about PSO2 Alpha Test, PSU Update 3rd, And Infinity

Ricardo 9 Comments

4gamer was recently interviewed Sakai, and Terada, mainly about Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity. Sakai briefly talks about what the purpose about the PSO2 Alpha Test and a few tidbits about PSU Update 3rd.

This post is a copy paste of information added from the previous post, but I felt this  interview should have its own post instead.

 

Sakai Interview

Sakai and Terada did a 3 page interview with 4gamer, so lets summarize the major points. This interview didn't reveal any major aspects about the PSO2 though. (My personal comments are italicized and in this color)

  • PSU Update 3rd
    • Dewmans will not appear as a 5th race. They didn't want to split up the resources of the Phantasy Star team so greatly… since they are doing PC and non-PC games.
    • There was too much of a difference in service with the PS2 and PC versions. They decided that it was already practical to continue service on the PC version. (Most likely referencing the PS2 limitations..)
  • The purpose behind PSO2's Alpha Test
    • For aspects surrounding the game portion, they are seeking player opinions. "Which parts about the game are heading in a good direction?" "What parts fail to meet player expectations?" These are some of the questions they are seeking to answer within the alpha test.
    • Although, not everything is going to change, players' opinions help push the team to aim for something better. They want to remind everyone that this is just an Alpha Test and not a Beta Test.
    • The test is a bit behind schedule.
  • Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity
    • Dewmans were created during the planning stages but didn't make it since the workload was too great at the time. Now they're in Infinity.
    • "In development Dewmans were extremely strong at first, but then we quickly decreased that. Though their attack and technic power made for a very strong race, it made them overshadow the other races. So instead we weakened their defenses. This race is meant for advanced players who must rely on evading attacks." (Now it makes a bit more sense as to why their description said they would overpower the other races..)
    • 4gamer asked if it was difficult to make 10 character slots instead of 8 since the Dewmans were added.  They answered that it was impossible.  Making 10 character slots puts too much pressure on the memory. (Most likely not referring to storage space but PSP memory) An allegorical example would be the SUV attacks disappearing, something like that. It was a necessity to give up that feature.
    • Another feature they wanted to implement but couldn't due to memory limitations were to add different steps to the Install Data. When you install the game data, it consists of character and weapon data. So another step would add field data based on the capacity of your memory stick. (Obviously the PSN version doesn't have this problem but UMD players will hear loading sounds for every "sector/block" they visit. )
    • Though Episode 2, based on chapter size, is half of Episode 1, the dialogue is about 60% of Episode 1. You could think of it as Episode 1 is like a TV series, and Episode 2 is a movie
    • During development, they planned that you could not start Episode 2 until you finished Episode 1. Instead they placed a warning sentence for those who really wanted to start with Episode 1 first. Even Sakai himself objected to being unable to play Episode 2 without completing episode 1. 
    • Heathcliff Flowen and Rapico's partner cards aren't obtainable within the base game. Instead you can get their cards in the future. Perhaps you should check out event related information…
    • It was Terada's idea to implement passive communications while actively playing the game. He thought he was the first to implement it through Story Mode, however another game beat him to it. (Usually Passive Communications is done in sleep mode.)
    • They plan to have the PSU + PSP2i event sometime around Golden Week, a Japanese Holiday. This means the event could start at the end of April or very early May. (Keep in mind the earthquake may have impacted this date.)
    • They plan to distribute all hidden bosses/areas mission codes by May.  (Earthquake has impacted schedule)
    • Once a month, they plan to do a collaboration related mission. (Recall Fanta Epic Battle and Calorie Mate.)
    • They reduced the amount of collaboration content in the base game to increase the amount of original outfits. (This is apparent very much so by comparing the amount of visiphone passwords of unique collaboration content in PSP2 and PSP2i.  The point was to release collaboration projects as DLC instead. This doesn't mean he is stopping collabs, just that more original content should be readily available in the game at least…)
    • Even if PSP2i was your first game within the series, you can download older Phantasy Star Portable 2 DLC clothing and weapons and use them within your game. The team acknowledges they had a problem with the way Phantasy Star Portable 2 loads DLC. They fixed this problem in Infinity, and now you can load DLC easily without having to wait for the game to load it.
    • As for sales of paid DLC, it's not considerably that great. They're making a loss. The amount of people who download Free DLC is much different compared to Pay DLC.
    • Sega themselves have to cover the cost of the online servers. (But it makes you wonder how can they make a profit with the international servers without having Pay DLC.)
    • During development they had a hard time with the visual lobby handling communication for 12 players. They were told it couldn't be done. After some tuning here and there they were able to get it implemented. 
    • Forces were hardly used in Online Multiplayer in Portable 2. (So you can see why they implemented new technics and drastically changed PP usage. Foverse especially makes chaining very easy)

[via 4gamer]

Phantasy Star Portable 2 JP: Year End Statistic Report

Ricardo 3 Comments

Phantasy Star Portable 2 Statistics

Sakai outlines the player population statistics from December of 2009 to December of 2010. We note some stability in the player makeup but some aspects saw a decrease in players.

The above chart shows the amount of players per level for Phantasy Star Portable 2. Sakai notes, eventually the level 60 ~ 100 players eventually quit the game. 

 

 

In the Infinity demo, most players hit the level 100 cap. Players above level 100 didn't play it that much. Sakai ponders if those players started a new character.

 

 

For PSP2 sexes, the first column represents male to female ratio. Female characters always had more players through out the year, but slowly the male characters were catching up.  The third column represents the battle types for each player. About a year ago we noticed forces were dropping off in numbers, the trend continues in the chart above.

The Force battle types started at 10% and dropped to 8%. Rangers dropped from 17% to 14%. The Bravers (Vanguards) increased from 20% to 26%. Sakai sees it as a problem to have very few forces.

Human then Casts were the most popular race. Beast always remained the least popular. The race makeup changed in Infinity.

 

Dewmans gained considerable popularity in the Demo, second place to Humans. Forces increased to 15% while vanguards decreased to 22%. Sakai thinks the Force increase may be attributed to the way the new technics work. But I really think it's because of the increase damage output and the huge decrease in PP consumption.  Rangers are still the least popular battle type.

Gemaga and PSP2i is having yet another collaboration. This time an item is called, "Castkochan Grenade" and has the appearance of a Dreamcast.  Based on their twitter page, Gemaga is releasing a password for an item in the 2/26/11 Gemaga magazine. It's likely to be the password for this weapon.

 

Infinity Curry

Another food based collaboration, this time with Space Create. If you show your PSP2i screen when you enter the store you can get a Calorie Mate Strap. But of particular note is the 3rd campaign which has curry along with the infinity symbol.