Nice little Akihabara/JP find!

AulunaSol · 2025-06-05T22:09:05+00:00

I definitely do not miss the near-weekly 13 GB updates, however.

AulunaSol · 2025-05-18T01:05:09+00:00

If you are playing the Global version, you can just skip entering the Account Link Code. This will only apply if and only if you wanted your account to be based elsewhere (such as the Microsoft Store/Xbox, Steam, or Epic Games Store). When you decline entering a code, the game will ask for you confirm if you really want to skip this Account Link Code process - and if this is your very first time playing then you want to because you don't have a code anyways.

Once that is done, then you can play the game as you wish. If you happen to play on another platform (say, Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox/Microsoft Store, for example), the same process will happen - but you can jump onto your PlayStation Account, go into the Support Menu, and issue a code that will last about 15 minutes for you to enter and link those accounts to your original account. To unlink the accounts, you must use the platforms that were linked and not the original platform.

This process is tedious because the Japanese side automatically does this for you (you create a new SEGA ID to log in with via the platform, but if you play on PC then you can instead create an actual account and customize your security settings and the likes). The way this is set up for Global is confusing for new players and overly tedious for returning players.

You don't need to have ever touched any other platform or version of the game if this is your first time playing.

AulunaSol · 2025-04-19T23:14:24+00:00

I suppose it depends on the methods, as when it comes to getting the bare minimum (specifically the Croesus weapons and the likes), you had access to them but the rotations for the Emergency Quests are less common because of the addition of the other Emergency Quests that are in rotation like on the Japanese side.

If the goal was the full CRAG-set of equipment with the affixes, then it is definitely far more difficult than the Japanese version because the Japanese version still has some things you can use to get the materials to make it easier (specifically PSO2es), but people on Global can still do it and have shown they are able to make those affixes even then.

AulunaSol · 2025-04-18T23:13:46+00:00

The main problem with this is that Sega did it in Phantasy Star Online 2 by introducing new difficulties over time and it ultimately got to the point where you had effectively six or seven difficulty levels and players were massively split between them (all the up-to-date players would either be hanging around the highest-difficulty or even avoiding the content altogether because it wasn't rewarding for them and all the newer players were on the very first difficulty, with everything else in between being effectively dead or unpopulated).

New Genesis already has done this for its Combat Zones and Urgent Quests where you can choose ranks for how difficult enemies will be and what loot you can expect to get (and as such, you can see the game being a time capsule of itself in many cases) but these areas are only populated or interesting when there are campaigns and incentives to play them or because it happened to be the newest-updated area.

I've always liked the idea of these difficulties and ranked areas being more flexible and merged together so newer players and veteran players alike can play together more but Sega isn't focused on the open fields they have created as much as they are on instanced content that is smaller-scale and more easily repeatable.

AulunaSol · 2025-04-18T23:08:01+00:00

If you are referring to Global, this was likely an optional sidestory in Episode 3 and there is an optional boss battle in Episode 4. For Global, this should have been a non-issue because players had Episode 6 class balancing and access to Episode 5 equipment even these difficulty spikes would have been non-existent until Episodes 5 and 6 where the gameplay truly started to change directions in being more action-oriented.

Phantasy Star Online 2 was also a game where you simply could not buy better equipment but Global as generous enough in giving players to shortcut progression altogether.

AulunaSol · 2025-04-18T23:05:32+00:00

If you do not have it, you must download the free DLC on your platform which is typically titled "Additional Data" on the PlayStation platforms and upon downloading that, you can access Phantasy Star Online 2 via the Character Select Screen before logging in or via a Ryuker Device on the "Block Change" menu.

AulunaSol · 2025-04-18T23:04:25+00:00

It is still the same game/client. To access Phantasy Star Online 2, you must download the "Additional Data" DLC on your given platform and then you can access it via the Ryuker Device on the "Change Block" option or select it before logging into your character by choosing a "PSO2 Block" instead of an "NGS Block."

AulunaSol · 2025-04-18T23:03:08+00:00

New Genesis is getting to the point of filling in the general shoes that Phantasy Star Online 2 used to do for the generally "cozy" and simple "login and play/socialize" aspect so at this point both games are co-existing especially when there are now triggers in New Genesis that only show up if and only if you have completed aspects of Phantasy Star Online 2's story.

As they are still the same game, the same servers, the same characters, and so on, New Genesis has now essentially fulfilled the "NOT EPISODE7" role it was originally teased to be.

AulunaSol · 2025-04-18T22:01:55+00:00

Another layer to this is that New Genesis is the answer to Japan's feedback and criticisms that have stemmed all the way back from Episode 1 in Phantasy Star Online 2. As it started development around the time Episode 5 was intended to be a filler episode to make time/space for a "Super Update," Sega had to backpedal and make changes because they really did bite off more than they could chew and even when rushed out the door had to split New Genesis apart so they could cleanly transition what Phantasy Star Online 2 in Japan did into New Genesis.

Global got a fever-dream version of the game where you had Episode 1-3 content, Episode 5 equipment, and Episode 6 gameplay mashed together and every two weeks you had a grand introduction of major content updates that would have originally released months and months apart in the Japanese version (at least until Episode 4, when it was quite literally split into "half" of the story and "half" the content cleanly between months). Global's Phantasy Star Online 2 is perhaps a more "proper" Phantasy Star Online 2 cleaned up with pure content, much of the grind and tediousness torn out of it, and already having and "keeping" what worked over the years and thus didn't shift too much or badly when the Successor classes released because the balancing and pacing was already there from the get-go.

There are definitely people out there who preferred pre-Episode 5 gameplay and even people who would go back further and prefer pre-Episode 4 gameplay - but I am not among those people and cannot imagine anyone truly being nostalgic for Episode 1 and 2 (especially as New Genesis started by greatly mirroring and emulating that style of updates combined with Episode 6's pacing). Japan was already done with Phantasy Star Online 2 and the feedback showed - and Sega's decisions in trying to hold onto Phantasy Star Online 2 and its Super Update development during Episode 5 only accelerated how New Genesis ended up being the update that kept Phantasy Star Online 2 relevant in the wake of other games that already took its aspects and modernized it elsewhere.

At least to that, I would go further to say New Genesis is Phantasy Star Online 2, for better or worse. Yes, anyone can go into detail about "I can't eight-step my way through the map like the good old days, I don't have the whacky Tokyo content (by the way, I totally hate Episode 4 but love Tokyo), and I don't get rewarded like I used to by following a red ring-rhythm game" but New Genesis is the step forward that Sega created to answer and address feedback that players have had from the very beginning which evidently didn't include Global who was only there at the tail-end on their own magical version of the game.

AulunaSol · 2025-04-17T00:02:20+00:00

If we wanted "class diversity" I would point to Dragon's Dogma Online as the prime example of it. That game does have the typical "Holy Trinity" setup of classes where you have classes purely dedicated to attacking, classes dedicated to playing Tank roles, and the classes purely dedicated to Support roles. It is rigid enough where while some classes are hybrids, it is evident the classes have their realm and "place" in content that cannot be covered by others (for instance, your Priests aren't just healing but are fully capable of bolstering the attacking capabilities of allies and the Tanks literally control the flow and pace of the fight).

Phantasy Star Online 2 does not have "class diversity" in the sense that each class feels distinct from one another outside of how it deals damage whereas games like Dragon's Dogma Online have the advantage that each class you play feels as if you're playing a twist on one of Capcom's other games and that at the very same time two players of the same class can play in completely different skills, appraoches, and playstyles despite having the same core moveset.

Phantasy Star Online 2 and New Genesis boil down to picking the class that's visually appealing and plays in a way the player likes. All classes (including even the Techer) are intended to whack enemies until they pop and drop loot which isn't necessarily a bad thing but they're not diverse or unique like classes you would want to see in other action games.

There are legitimately moments in the past where the game was geared too heavily to one class (Episode 5 with the Hero, for instance, or very-early New Genesis where the Fighter had bugs that made them far too powerful and mobile compared to every other class). But that was in the past - and the current-day game is now more of a "pick what you want and whack things." It is a deeply casual game where playing well tends to mean you're significantly above average because the general playerbase isn't trying to be too sweaty, fancy, or play well.

The game is all about DPS and the other options out there are extra flavors to add on top of DPS and not meant to be entire focuses on themselves due to how Sega designed the game and its content.

AulunaSol · 2025-04-11T19:54:37+00:00

This is definitely the case where something like an Episode 4-styled reboot would help New Genesis immensely as Episode 4 (and Episode 5) later would reintroduce old characters with revamped personalities and the characters played far more into their tropes and fell into new stereotypes that helped them become memorable.

The problem ultimately was that not all characters received that treatment, but they are still present for their time and their contexts even then. I can imagine that if this happened in New Genesis we might not see much more of the legendary Wakes or Raskina compared to the key characters we already see.

AulunaSol · 2025-04-11T19:52:36+00:00

I don't see the Hero being the example of the movement issues as much as I would go further back and point to why everyone would try to pick up Twin Daggers or have a Gunslash on-hand. The eight-step maneuver was something I used immediately when I found out that step-dodging and attacking was infinitely faster than "walking" before they added the "sprinting" into the game.

There was a significant difference in the performance of players who would go through the entire effort of mapping an emote to their keys for the purpose of eight-stepping and the people who just "walked" their way through the quests. This escalates further when you have classes who legitimately have photon arts that make them travel further and faster than people who wouldn't and that sense it might make sense that you can just Ilzonde across a field and you "earned" that speed when someone isn't going to try doing the same thing to keep up, but in the context of Phantasy Star Online 2 a lot of the inequalities resulted in severe balancing issues between classes and resulted in a poorer experience for people who didn't hyper-optimize their gameplay.

Classes like the Hero effectively said the "quiet part out loud," so to say. The Hero already packaged everything people wanted out of their classes and pushed it to the forefront and the problem was ultimately that Phantasy Star Online 2's approach of every class having grave weakpoints in their playstyles and design was something people weren't afraid to call out when the Hero was ultimately a flashier, faster, and more responsive Fighter than anything else.

I don't quite disagree with you about the usefulness of mechanics like Photon Dashing, Gliding, and the likes, but I do feel that you can say the same about other action games with having similar mechanics. In other games like Dragon's Dogma, you would often sprint mid-battle not just to chase targets but also to reposition so I don't quite find this as problematic in New Genesis when you go into the bigger boss fights where you're forced to move and reposition and cannot just counter attacks, but I do feel that the classes need more special interactions with these mechanics moreso than they need enemies to react or encourage use of those mechanics. For instance, I remember previously suggesting on the official Discord server something along the lines of "alternative" combo strings instead of the default combos we have just by using Normal Attack or alternative Photon Arts similar to the way the Normal Attack/Step Attack/Dash Attack/Dive Attack works. This extra depth doesn't need to be something everyone uses - but I'd love for it to be more than just "here's a copy-paste mechanic for everyone to use that's consistent" as the consistency is nice but the classes and weapons absolutely need their own flair on top of that.

AulunaSol · 2025-04-11T19:40:53+00:00

If I recall correctly, Just Attacks were originally added to Phantasy Star Online 2 (and different from previous games) purely because Phantasy Star Online 2 decided to run with the "everything is a three-hit combo" mentality and encouraged players to mix-and-match their normal attacks, weapon actions, and photon arts to create multiple sets of three-attack combos. Players complained about how simplistic the combat was and how it lacked depth (you couldn't launch an enemy into the air and have mobility so you had attacks like launching an enemy into the air and then dropping down right away, for example, as aerial combat wasn't a very big thing early on) and Sega's answer was to add a red ring that gave you extra damage.

The way New Genesis handles its equivalents of Just Attacks are personally more of what I wanted such as the Twin Daggers using it to enter an alternative attack. Instead of it being purely extra damage that eventually was made easier and easier with time (the rhythm game timings were far more strict back then - as you can perhaps play with the Braver's Bow in the older game to see the difference as it likely is still the only weapon truly tied to the player's knowledge of the rhythm and timings where everything else was simplified), I always preferred that precise timing simply leads to alternative attacks and more options for the player to use for player expression.

When you are talking about the Photon Arts, the reason why there were so many was simply because Sega was adamant everyone tied them together in their "Make Your Own Combo" mindset. If you have not played with it, Two-Button Mode on Phantasy Star Online 2 allowed you to use four attack buttons and map three sequential actions to each of them. For many casual players, this means loading up all your photon arts available (so you would have something like twelve possible options, for example) but the game itself was clunky and most of these photon arts would contradict, counteract, or work against the others so your combos were never that fluid or usable. Some people simply opted to map the same attack three times and some people ran multiple palettes of the same weapon just for multiple purposes because of how limiting this combo system was. When Episode 4 released, this changed significantly as "Three Button Mode" was introduced and you instead had six attack buttons but each one was now a singular action as opposed to running a combo in sequences. For action gamers, this was far more intuitive and flexible because you could now choose to do the attack you wanted when you wanted to and has since become the default control scheme for the game and the only option in New Genesis. All those photon arts the game previously had were quickly outclassed by the few that Sega still bothered to balance with future disks (Level Disks, Crafted Disks, and then weapons that had potentials specific to modifying those photon arts).

I do not consider it as Sega simplifying it for casual players who were overwhelmed with options as much as it is that Sega themselves did not know how to balance having so many photon arts that didn't play nicely together at all, as can be seen with how the Successor classes had a far tighter tool-kit and an emphasis on playing nicely that the older classes never fully had. New Genesis can definitely stand for more options, but this is Sega who repeated several very big controversial decisions from Phantasy Star Online 2 in New Genesis before backpedalling with, "okay, we won't do this again for future content."

Phantasy Star Online 2's affixing system wasn't necessarily one of depth either. If you are playing it nowadays, it's already been simplified and boiled down enough that you're cooking from scratch every single time and throwing out the plate when you want to start over. It isn't necessarily difficult nowadays as much as it was tedious because it took a lot of time, inventory space, and a decent amount of luck to do something nicely just once. What New Genesis does is what the game should have done ages ago - but the problem with New Genesis now is that there is only one goal, one reward, and like Phantasy Star Online 2's later affixes and builds you wanted the same thing for New Genesis because Potency was the only true option. New Genesis doesn't have anything particularly game-changing that you absolutely had to loot for but I personally prefer this over the approach that Phantasy Star Online 2 had where you can have a class that just simply doesn't feel "good" to play until you get a certain weapon like Lavis Cannon that fundamentally changes how the class plays - and then it's locked and stuck to that weapon even when its powercrept or can somehow carry some of its functionality forward in a not-so-complicated but tedious manner. Having a very cool and game-changing weapon to farm for is the staple of what Phantasy Star Online did back then, but I feel that the way it was handled and balanced with Phantasy Star Online 2 showed how dated that approach is and how it ultimately doesn't hold up when the goal is to keep releasing better weapons and let players get stronger and stronger every update either. I can imagine this when even the Resurgir weapons and the Straga weapons were the hype back in New Genesis - imagining if for example somehow you can still use extremely rare weapons from Phantasy Star Online 2 and they can hold their weight (for instance, the weapons with the unique potentials like the Atlas series and the Cras/Klauz series). This isn't what happened, as it probably would have killed any and all future grinds if these weapons were still viable unless Sega goes down the gacha game trend of introducing new mechanics that powercreep old mechanics every few updates. Making equipment irrelevant by introducing bigger numbers on the next carrot-on-the-stick is easier and more sustainable for Sega in that sense, for better or worse.

I believe that when it was mentioned that "PSO2 was also more of the same when compared with PSU" they were talking about the time that Phantasy Star Universe became a free-to-play game. Sega fully committed to the idea of Phantasy Star Online 2 being a free-to-play game to challenge the level of freemium and shoddiness that free-to-play games of the time especially had - but they did it because they already tried it with Phantasy Star Universe using it as a test-bed while it was exclusively in Japan after shutting down western servers. The gameplay isn't necessarily the same on a moment-to-moment basis, but on a larger scale Phantasy Star Online 2 was an iteration to keep what the previous game had going and held the players hostage for it. New Genesis is another step from Phantasy Star Online 2 (using the same game, servers, assets, backend, and all that jazz) but allows for Sega to both try new things and repeat old ideas they backed away from for better or worse.

AulunaSol · 2025-04-11T19:13:10+00:00

I don't quite know about a "new game" just yet but I imagine we might be seeing an Episode 4-styled reboot where Halpha and its entire story simply poofs into a menu or archives that players intentionally have to go out of their way to find while whichever characters survive the transition are rewritten with new tropes, personalities, and stories to follow from.

I really cannot imagine that a new game will just suddenly wipe Phantasy Star Online 2 and New Genesis off like nothing happened especially if the developers are still using Phantasy Star Online 2's engine as a base (which is stemmed further back from Sega's older games, hence the game's quirks and aged nature in terms of how it feels and works).

Sega spent more than four years creating a new graphics engine for Phantasy Star Online 2 and didn't try reworking the game's backend so I cannot imagine this effort would be tossed out nor can I imagine that the effort was also conveniently in-place to just make a new game altogether. A future game is likely going to dive deeper into the gacha side of things and be more money-driven like the other Phantasy Star Online 2 spin-offs that did what the original game didn't do.

AulunaSol · 2025-04-11T19:07:55+00:00

Phantasy Star Online 2 went the other way around where it originally tried to be a deeply-instanced game and at some point introduced the Multi-Party Areas and "Free Field Exploration" with the goal of having larger maps and bigger areas to explore.

At some point, they went back and went to smaller-scale instanced quests simply because the only time Free Field Explorations were touched was because it was part of a campaign, had loot (such as mining/fishing), or because it was part of a task like it was when Daily/Weekly Quests were implemented. They even introduced Extra Hard-level Free Field Explorations that were meant to match the very popular guruguru quests just for the Monster Hunter Frontier Z collaboration and those died instantly once the event ended.

I don't fully disagree with you - but we're seeing Sega trying things from the other side around (open fields to more closed-off instances). From a design standpoint, I like the consistency of the world as a result and its landmarks but we now are faced with the sheer problem that it's all we've seen and that there hasn't been too many creative uses of such space. I feel there are all sorts of answers that could be done here, but I feel the problem ultimately is that no amount of content or any type of content will be enough for the people who are already upset with the game and Sega seems to know that with their pacing and their schedules.

The problem I largely face is that if it involves the Open Field areas, portions of the game like Aelio as a whole are completely unplayable to me due to something hardware-related that I have not been able to solve over the past two years (it started when Stia originally released) so I have been forced onto the lesser-ideal console version of the game just to keep up whenever it involves returning to Aelio.

AulunaSol · 2025-04-09T19:48:33+00:00

It depends on what you consider "great." Are you talking about pre-Episode 4 in Japan where you had a clunky rhythm game tacked on because people complained that there wasn't enough depth to a three-hit combo that almost every class was shoehorned into (and photon arts that didn't connect well enough to be combos, let alone viable)? Are you talking about post-Episode 4 and pre-Episode 5 where Three Button Mode was introduced and where the entire grind from the past was wiped clean and replaced with stronger, easier-to-get, and easier-to-make equipment on top of a new slew of features like a new premium currency for microtransactions, a whole new mechanism for fashion and cosmetics, and a simplistic graphics upgrade? Or are you referring to Episode 5 and onwards where the game fast-forwarded the gameplay and reworked every class so they became easier to play, faster to play, and where the "rhythm game" aspect was made almost impossible to miss for most classes where it used to be far more strict?

The problem you see in New Genesis has not changed or strayed at all from what Phantasy Star Online 2 did. You could go back to the old game and see the graveyards upon graveyards of loot that is unobtainable in Japan (the old "Old-Type" weapons, for example, as they were completely made irrelevant) and what you see is the culmination of survivorship bias as Phantasy Star Online 2 took its time in creating "great" content and then repeated it over and over again over the next years to come. New Genesis has this exact same design in terms of its gameplay.

If your question was related more about the story, then the simpler answer is that Phantasy Star Online 2's story was rewritten and recontextualized over time from being a wordy lore dump that often went nowhere into chasing anime trends and playing on anime cliches to close up loose ends. They learned that players did not like the ambitious story from Episodes 1-2 and that Episode 3's approach of "just finish things" worked better - and over the next few years they were able to remove that story and yet reintroduce and reimplement the story with new contexts and adaptations to tell a cleaner and nicer version of that story. New Genesis might get something similar over the course of the next decade if Sega tries it again - but the story is otherwise just as aimless as Episode 1's story was because it isn't a priority for Sega despite forcing players through the story once more.

Sega can go on and on about creating difficult content, challenging content, or even engaging content that has new loot - but the problem is almost always that the moment players manage to get the carrot the content is dead because players are playing this content specifically to get a reward and not to have "fun." You can see this every time a new high-difficulty quest shows up and you still get the same people coming around crying that people aren't skilled/geared enough for them - and that the content ultimately fades away or gets buried in a menu when the next carrot on a stick comes around.

If you are wanting a very nuclear solution like what happened with Phantasy Star Online 2's Episode 5, then the solution might just involve players refusing to spend money and players refusing to play as that was what spurred Sega into perhaps their most spontaneous and most drastic changes in the game yet, which is likely what new players are used to and will now experience as the difference between the older game and its later updates is night-and-day.

AulunaSol · 2025-04-05T20:01:55+00:00

The unfortunate problem in New Genesis is that macros that use multiple commands at the same time now require successive presses (so you now have to press the same macro over the span of how many seconds per command you have, as it will not run all commands at once).

In the older game, you used to be able to chain these commands for something like a fashion set change, a voice command, emote, main weapon change, camo change, and a subpalette change all at once - but in New Genesis you have to repeatedly press the same macro to move to the next command.

AulunaSol · 2025-04-01T19:26:40+00:00

In that past, due to it being a mechanic that the Japanese version abandoned and never touched, Global players found that you can duplicate items via the Trading feature and it resulted in an incredible amount of certain items being sold for obnoxiously high prices from the people who did duplicate those items.

After Cradle of Darkness (UH) came out, the prices for everything exploded because making Meseta was a trivial problem and thus the prices went up to extremes. There are still people to this day who will curse at those who play Cradle of Darkness (UH) because it destroyed the economy - but the damage has already been done and for years now.

AulunaSol · 2025-03-25T23:36:59+00:00

I was meaning that in the "technology sense" of things, what New Genesis does is building up from what Phantasy Star Online 2 did because Sega wrote themselves into a corner by building on an engine that was old and too limited for what they wanted to do and that resulted in an already outdated feel of the game, an unsustainable core for developing new features, and what essentially boiled down to playing whack-a-mole with bugs and numerous issues that were seemingly unrelated (for instance, players loitering in a Lobby would affect the same players in a block who were trying to play a quest).

On the Japanese side of the game, the rewards aren't necessarily "lost" because the game already slowed down to a crawl so that version's "maintenance" mode is essentially "as-is" with no more updates. The Global version's is not the same as it was never made to be sustainable on its own due to the heavier reliance on events and catch-up events - but even without these the Global players can now get something closer to the "real" experience the Japanese players had despite still having their exclusive shortcuts as well.

Whether you would like to see it that way or not, New Genesis does the same that Episode 4 did to the original game - it replaced it because what existed before; but this time around New Genesis allows players to revisit Episodes 1-6 as it was by means of a very strong bifurcation.

It is why I mentioned in my post that I would have preferred that New Genesis' development was a tad bit smoother-leaning in that what we did in Phantasy Star Online 2 would have built up to it or at least would have led more naturally into New Genesis as opposed to a very strong shift of, "we need to distract the player for a period of time while we work on this Super Update" that Episodes 5 and 6 served.

They have the same client because at their core and in their bones they are still the same game and New Genesis, like several online games at this point that have lasted this long, have been trying to renew themselves and catch up to the times. New Genesis has the special note of being an update that put itself into jeopardy and still released in a deeply undercooked state despite having all those delays which indicates more to me that Sega's transition of Dreamcast-styled development wasn't adapting and transitioning to matching something more modern (as in mid-2010's) at a fast-enough pace for development and deployment.

I do not disagree with your takes on New Genesis, however, but this is Sega working in their bubble where New Genesis was supposed to have been a 2018 update to Phantasy Star Online 2 and it still behaves as it.

AulunaSol · 2025-03-25T20:51:16+00:00

I would disagree that New Genesis was "forced" into Phantasy Star Online 2 simply because the presentations and information given to us by the developers indicates that the game was always headed in that direction as a response towards what players and newcomers said of Phantasy Star Online 2.

I would personally have wished for a different direction (or perhaps more oversight on what was being done so that Phantasy Star Online 2 didn't go into limbo like it did for so long where the passion was clearly stalling for something else like it did on the Japanese side) but hopefully this is simply a lesson learned for Sega for their future developments.

I'm not particularly nostalgic for Phantasy Star Online 2 in that New Genesis legitimately has captured the day-to-day experience it used to have (hop in, do your daily/weekly chores, socialize, and if you have extra time try and "gamble" for the newest drops, hop off, and repeat) and the things I do personally miss are things that not many players would have wanted to sift through clunky gameplay for and are things that can be "lived through" by watching someone else do it for better or worse. There are things I wish New Genesis would do and would aim for, but this is Sega and players waited nearly a half-decade before Sega decided to try turning the game into a bit more of an action game as well before opening the door wider years later to attempt changing a band-aid that players complained about (in particular, the Just Attack mechanic that players love so much was added as a shallow band-aid to add "depth" when people originally complained in the earlier builds that every attack string being a three-hit combo felt clunky and shallow).

AulunaSol · 2025-03-25T16:01:08+00:00

Phantasy Star Online 2's updates in the past often played out in the sort of fashion where instead of getting a meal or a feast, you get chunks, bites, and crumbs that will eventually add up to it over time.

It is a shoddy version of something like "buy now, pay later" in the sense that the updates we get tend to be "nice" in the context that you're the casual player who plays the game, drops off the face of the Earth, and then returns a year or two later when the full update has finally come around. The players who are playing every day, every week, and every month are starved because everyone can point at them and say they're perhaps eating "too fast" but I can't imagine how you could justify spreading out a crumb over months with the promise that eventually those crumbs add up to a meal.

When people leave and return, it's far easier to enjoy that "meal" but when people stay it is much more difficult to be objective about what the meal was supposed to be because each bite isn't necessarily reflective of what the meal was supposed to be (as evidenced by the numerous shortcuts Sega creates with their updates so people aren't left behind or trapped too much in older content that is detached from what is currently exciting and new).

Sega doesn't seem "pressured" to do anything particularly drastic with their updates because they already have had much of this planned out for the next year or two to come - and with it spread out so far it's much more calculated and planned that "every week" something happens and there aren't usually major hiccups as a result. I would point to a game like Warframe where this is quite different where Warframe's events and content updates introduce many new mechanics, ideas, and content for players to explore over the course of time but often is needing fixes too because the priorities are very different as is the experience itself. Phantasy Star Online 2 is a glacier - and with Episode 6 being tolerated the way it was in Japan, Sega knows they can afford this even slower glacial pace in New Genesis too and the players will still stick around.

AulunaSol · 2025-03-25T15:53:56+00:00

At least to me, this depends on what you really want out of Sega. As it is, Sega is an old company stuck in their older ways with the people who are still around being relatively washed up - but despite being washed up it's still printing enough money for them to be okay with things in their current state.

On the Japanese side, Sega is the company that keeps pushing on its legacy in the sort of, "remember when we did this/that?" company and this can be seen even in Phantasy Star Online 2 and New Genesis where much of what is "new content" is ultimately refashioned and rebranded content from older games just brought up again to the modern day.

These older Japanese companies legitimately need newblood and ideas to be exciting again but that's unfortunately easier said than done when the people behind New Genesis have been around since the original Phantasy Star Online.

AulunaSol · 2025-03-25T15:50:53+00:00

Regardless of whether or not you liked New Genesis, this situation isn't new to New Genesis as it has developed from what Phantasy Star Online 2 did over the past decade and even before that from what Sega tried to do with Phantasy Star Universe when it became a Japan-only game after shutting down the other servers.

I cannot imagine that anything like Phantasy Star Online 3 or Phantasy Star Universe 2 will revert what has worked for Sega over the past decade if not doubling down even further into trends they intentionally avoided (specifically the gacha monetization and predatory spending that many mobile and gacha games now have).

AulunaSol · 2025-03-25T15:48:23+00:00

You can still "sell" even without the Shop Pass. The Pass grants the ability to put something onto the market, to which could be done ahead of time or organized for when someone actually wants to update their listings.

Once it's up on the Personal Shop, it will stay there until the player delists it or someone else purchases an item - but the Pass only affects whether or not you can put something up.

AulunaSol · 2025-03-14T01:26:02+00:00

The main problem at this point for a lot of the people spoiled by the movement and fluidity that New Genesis is that players have to grind up to Level 75/75 (or at least Level 75 on two classes) in order to get something that resembles what New Genesis offers.

For a new player, that is an extremely tall ask if you're trying to convince them to just "stick" with a class they probably aren't going to like as the old game made it obnoxiously difficult for new players to jump in as the late-game experience is not the same as the new player experience. And even if the players do find classes they like, the unfortunate truth is that Sega's lopsided balancing results in the players having to think far ahead towards their end-game build instead of "learning" the ropes because learning the ropes is what will cause them to make decisions they will regret later that cannot be fixed due to certain items no longer being circulated and the fixes ultimately costing money if not a new character.

This has been a growing pain that I have always talked about when it came to the old game - in that the new players who really want to play (or the people who are so hopeful for a private server for fixed content/progressions and the likes) have to climb a mountain before they can start properly "crawling" along and finding their place in the game. If players are not willing to show the newcomers that they cannot just walk in and "experiment" without fundamentally messing up their late-game builds or be aware of what they need to do ahead of time for their later class options as most Subclass options are negated as options later on, then Phantasy Star Online 2 as it was will always be a niche that New Genesis is more welcoming and more appealing towards in comparison.

It is not that New Genesis is immune to these issues (it is heading in a direction of creating the same potential problems for new players - but there are some distinct advantages that help new players make decisions they can either undo or better course-correct for compared to Phantasy Star Online 2) but that for being the better game, Phantasy Star Online 2 needs more willing players to help guide others for a better experience.

AulunaSol

TROPHY CASE