Phantasy Star Illustration Festival: Artwork

Ricardo 15 Comments

The Illustration Festival celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Phantasy Star series. Participants were asked to create Phantasy Star related artwork from any game throughout the entire series. More than 180 entries were submitted but only 10 chosen artworks will be put on display in both Phantasy Star Online 2's and Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity's lobby.

Mata Meseta

Meseta, Again? by 梨子

 

nei and Lillipa

Nei and Lillipa by 猫杉☆

 

Dive

Dive by のこ

 

PSPo Memories

PSPo Memories by モミング

 

Pretty Caseal Smile

Pretty Caseal Smile by d.o.t.

 

1st two chara

First 2 Characters by 鹿丸

 

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PSO2 JP: Pre-Patch and Patch (2/13/13)

Ricardo 14 Comments

The update for February 20th, 2013 can be downloaded ahead of schedule starting today February 13th, 2013 @ 11:00 JST. The patch will be split up into parts which you can download through the PSO2 launcher.

Pre-Patch Schedule:

  • 2/13/2013  @ 11:00 JST (850 MBs)
  • 2/15/2013 @ 15:00 JST (1.2 GB)
  • 2/18/2013 @ 15:00 JST (1.4 GB)

They also have plans to release an update on February 20th, 2013.

February 13th Patch

Game Versions

Patch Notes

  • Corrected a bug where Friend Partners did not use certain technics
  • The prizes for the Valentine's Campaign -1- and Emergency Quest Campaign 3 will be delivered to your special storage box.
  • As compensation for the bugs introduced in a previous maintenance, you will receive "Add Ability Success +20%" x1 + "Grind Risk Reduction (-1)" x2 + "EXP+50%" x4  which will be delivered to your special storage box.
  • Illustration Festival Entries video will be shown on the lobby monitors.
  • Changed Block Names on each ship.

PSO2 JP: Gameplay Adjustments for February

Ricardo 34 Comments

Sakai wrote a pretty long blog post about the changes and updates coming during the month of February. Here's a recap.

Advance quests are intended for those level 45+ with enemy levels higher than other quests. When it comes out, it will release with three quests; Forest, Caves, and Desert. Unlike other quests, it requires a currency called "Advance Capsules."  It looks like they didn't explain this aspect very well, which seems to be causing a misunderstanding. So here goes…

There will be a client order to help cover the cost of your first advance quest. In addition, there are three types of Advance Capsules; a, b, and c. The capsules needed for Caves can appear in the Forest, and the capsules needed for Desert can appear in Caves. These are very likely to drop within the quest themselves, but if you don't have enough for the next quest, you can purchase the remaining capsule balance with meseta.

Before the quest starts, the party can decide whether the leader pays for everyone or everyone pays for themselves. Within the quest, expect to see high level enemies and exclusive drops. As you clear the quest, your "Advance Risk" rises which increases the enemy levels and boosted enemy appearance rates.

Furthermore, there are new pyroxene stones that can appear within this quest. You can use them with a specific weapon to trade for a new 10 star weapon at the Pyroxene Shop.

On February 20th, a new interrupt event will have you passing along messages for the Lillipans through Lobby Actions. A Lillipan will perform a gesture,  you must deliver that message to another Lillipan in a different location. There will also be enemies nearby that will frighten the Lillipans, so defeat them as quickly as possible. Sakai suggests that you try doing this event with the Lillipa Suit on.

 

Gameplay Adjustments

Adjustments to make it easier to reach level 30.

  • Some client orders will be adjusted so that they will give you higher rewards; some accepting conditions will be relaxed as well.

Input Assistance (Predictive Text) feature for My Shop Searches
Some item names will be easier to understand.

"Premium Space" added; revising the number Premium Blocks.

  • They are going to reduce the number of Premium Blocks, and add "Premium Space" to normal blocks.
  • Premium Set users will be allowed to enter into full blocks as long as there's "Premium Space" available.

Aesthetics Counter Ticket will enable Premium Users to reuse it for a certain amount of time.

  • Previously, if you used the Aesthetics Ticket, it only gave you one chance to finalize the changes for your character. If you are a premium set user, the Aesthetics Ticket will now allow you to make any number of changes over the course of an hour.

Hunter Balance changes

  • We touched upon this before, but more details about this will be coming along next week. But that's not all, other classes may see some balance adjustments as well, but this will be discussed some time in the future.

Three Block Types

  • There will now be three types of blocks.
  • PC Exclusive Blocks
  • PC/Vita shared Blocks.
  • Vita Exclusive Blocks

While playing on PC/Vita and Vita Exclusive blocks, the following changes will occur:

  • Some areas will be smaller
  • Longer PSE Bursts
  • Two Emergency Trials at the same time.
  • Decreased the max amount of enemies appearing at the same time

Sakai wasn't originally planning to do Vita exclusive blocks but he wants to accommodate as many Vita users as he can for the release date.

Chrome Dragon

  • After the Vita version launches, Vita players will first get a chance to fight the new Chrome Dragon who will appear in Emergency Trials. In fact, the Chrome Dragon is a special dragon that can appear wherever it wants. But you shouldn't come to the conclusion that this Dragon would only appear on Vita blocks. After a Vita player encounters the Chrome Dragon, that person may lead to PC players encountering him as well. Maybe eventually, the Chrome Dragon could appear on the PC exclusive blocks.

New Story Quests

  • The Vita version will first receive the story quest for chapter 9 titled, "The First Farewell." If you've already completed chapter 8 in the PC version, you should have no problem accepting this quest.
  • Even if you are playing the game from the beginning, you can expect to see Kuna appear in some event tablets.
  • As for PC players, they'll first get to play the new "Arks Battle Tourney" side story quest where you'll see NPCs who don't normally appear in the story.

 

Vita Version Adjustments

The following changes will be applied as an update when the Vita version launches. Please keep in mind that the offline character creator in the special package version does not have the skin color adjustments applied yet.

3G Support

  • 3G connections are supported but you will need Wi-Fi to perform any updates.

Sleep Deactivated

  • In the closed beta test, it would go into sleep mode after 10 minutes, but this will be deactivated.

Mini Chat log / Faster Keyboard Pop-Up / Chat while accessing Objects

  • It appears that some players didn't understand that you were supposed to hold down the chat icon to launch the keyboard. So now the keyboard will activate by double clicking on it.

Added a Character Information Screen shortcut

Corrected the character skin color / Made the breasts Jiggle

  • They applied these changes because they received lots of feedback over the character skin color and breast physics.

Camera position settings added

Vita Version Future Adjustments

These adjustments will be applied sometime in the future.

Customize any key / Switch Locked-On Targets / Right Stick Camera Operation Speed adjusmtents

  • In options, the point was to have the "Type 1" control layout to be familiar with Phantasy Star Portable players while "Type 2" was intended for PC players. However it seems these settings did not accommodate the wide variety of needs of the player-base. Give them some time and they will address this issue in the future.

Copy and Paste Chat / Symbol Shortcuts / No UI in Screenshots

  • It will take some time to address these changes.

 

You look familiar?

Emilia Outfit

Hmm is that?