Playtime 1 - What 'cha Playin'?

Welcome! This is my first time doing this kind of post. This is a new segment I want to write for my blog every week. A segment about Video games I have been playing!

This week starting from Monday the 11th, I have been playing PSO2. One of the games I mentioned on my likes list, Phantasy Star Online 2 (PSO2) is a free-to-play online action role-playing game. Based on and in Sega's Phantasy Star series and created as a successor to Phantasy Star Online and Phantasy Star Universe, you the player explores the universe as a member of ARKS and defend it from evil in this space fantasy. While I have never played an MMO for an extended amount of time, my experience playing this game probably comes closest to it. I have been playing this game for the better part of a year, almost everyday. I like the game quite if I say so, it fills a space in my hallow heart Monster Hunter usually fills, so the timing of its NA release was perfect for me because I just got bored of Monster Hunter World: Iceborne at the time.

I was attracted to this game for three reasons: the surprisingly decent action gameplay, the ability to play as a Mech by being a Male CAST, and the MUSIC! Originally, PSO2 was released in japan in 2012, but was never brought over to the west and translated until 2020. While I only started playing the game in May last year, I have known about it and wanted to play it for years, mainly because the music. I LOVE the music in this game, if there is anything that would attract me to a game, its great music. My favorite pieces are of course, the boss themes, with a particular one being ESCA Falz Mother Rideroid. God, the guitar is amazing in that song. Sega music is always great.

Other then the music and the boss fights, with their epic scale and progression, I'll say every other part of the game is about decent to downright awful. It really shows it's age, being a game released in the early 2010s. It's reassuring that Sega and the Phantasy Star team are working on updating the game engine for 2021 and developing a sort of sequel for the game, Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis (PSO2: NGS). Hopefully I could get a new computer by the time it releases, because my 2015 dinosaur of a laptop is definitely not going to be able to handle that shit.

And that's a wrap for my first Playtime. I was going to talk more about the other games I played as well, but released that would extend this post way to long, so I'll try to mention them next time. See you guys then!