Eh...Nothing special. Sound effects get on your nerves quickly, and the music is a far cry from that of earlier Phantasy Stars, including PSII which is included in the Dreamcast Smashpack. Few of you play through the game JUST to hear music, so this won't hurt the final score too bad. Just pop one of your CDs into the stereo and listen to that instead. You'd probably enjoy it more. I do.

Isn't this supposed to be a Phantasy Star? This is not only a lame story and a tired premise, but also the worst RPG story I've experienced since FF8 or PSIII. The story is slow starting up, heats up a bit and then ends with one of the weakest endings ever! Why Yuji?!?!?!

This is the section where I review the game from a design standpoint, much like a digital Joan Rivers. Well, the futuristic motif works for the most part, with a very Episode 1ish look and feel to everything (I can't explain it so don't ask me why)and the weapon design is also pretty awesome. The monsters are also pretty damn awesome-looking, but I would like a little more variety all around. Monsters may look exactly the same, only they'd have a higher HP, a different name and a slight shade or texture difference. Variety is awesome guys, strive for more please.

You can't play online on more than one Dreamcast. Can you get any lamer? Anyway, other than that, the menus are user friendly, and the character customization option is very extensive. The translation seems very extensive as well, but when playing online with foreigners the auto-translation tool makes things a little jumbled. Too bad. You also can't pause, whether your online or offline. I understand the online part, but there are times when I have to leave for a sec, and I think it is cruel they can't let me piss without getting my ass killed.

Now that I got the aesthetic issues out of the way I can get on to what really matters: how it plays. Imagine if you will behind-the-character Diablo, That's pretty much how PSO plays, except gameplay gets extremely tedious due to the fact you have to remove all enemies from a room before proceeding to go and play your pc games download. Control issues also make the game a lot less enjoyable, but that is a whole other issue. Also, as an offline game, things get old too quickly, and would make a horrible game alone.