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[Logical2u]

What is this?
Phantasy Star Online 2 (PSO2) is a free-to-play (with real-money perks and bonuses) massive-multiplayer squad-based sci-fi action-rpg diablo-like, the sequel to Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast, Gamecube, Xbox, and PC, and the spiritual successor to Phantasy Star Universe and Phantasy Star Portable (1 and 2).

What makes it interesting?
Free-to-play, maybe? The game can be a relatively straight-forward and relaxing action-rpg, or you can play it like I do and make it more like Lost Planet, circle strafing around everything, dodge-rolling, and shooting huge creatures in obvious glowing weakpoints.

The game tries to stay true to its roots, with rpg-type levelling, stat-bonuses, tiered weapons, and mags (upgradable support 'items/companions') but adds a lot of the action elements from games like Phantasy Star Portable 2: you actually need to aim at enemies and you can dodge out of the way. PSO2 adds jumping - which allows you to easily get to higher ground, avoid attacks, or hit hard-to-reach weak points. Speaking of that, enemies now all have 'weak areas' which do more damage when attacked, forcing you to aim even more carefully. If you're not keen on aiming, there's an auto-lock-on feature too.

All classes have various weapon-skills (photon-arts or technics) and class-skills. I'm playing a ranger, and they have abilities that can turn any hit-box into a 'weak-point', for example. My weapon skills include sniper-shots and shotgun blasts. Weapon-skills all draw from a common pool, class-skills are cool-down based.

Also, all missions are now laid-out randomly and include random-events. So you could be doing a mission to hunt down a boss-enemy, and get ambushed by a different boss-enemy on the way and have to fight it off. Thankfully enemies are all scaled to the level of the mission you're doing.

Finally you can change class at any time, between Hunter (melee weapons), Ranger (ranged weapons) and Force (magic weapons). There are three races but they are all very similar in terms of stats and identical in terms of play style.

How do I play?
The game has only been officially released in Japanese so far. Legally you can't play it, yet - because of various issues, Sega of Japan has modified the Terms of Service in a way that makes playing from outside of Japan a bannable offence. So far it doesn't seem like this is being heavily enforced, and may only be enforced if there are further problems.
So far the game is only in Japanese, although it's free to play. Best to follow the guides here - http://bumped.org/psublog/pso2-guide-list/ - to get registered and started up. Basically you need to sign up for PSO2 in Japanese, much like any other MMO or F2P online game would be like. Thankfully you don't need to learn any Japanese to get anywhere in the game, and the guides are pretty good - I'm actually a good portion of the way through the plot with just those guides to help me.

Note that characters are locked to whatever ship you choose during character creation.

An English version will be released sometime in early 2013. No word yet on how the servers will work or how F2P will work in this release.

Resources
http://bumped.org/psublog/pso2-guide-list/ - bumped.org's massive set of pretty-good guides to playing PSO2. Although the guide may talk about the open-beta, the full-game just went live today so it's still updating.
http://www.pso-world.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=44 - PSO-world's PSO2 forums. Not as well organized but it definitely could be helpful...
http://blogs.sega.com/2012/07/09/phantasy-star-online-2-is-coming-west/ - Sega' announcement of the English version.

Edit: D-Arker is a stupid name.

[Dariush]

Oh hey, PSO2. I was planning to get here, but it didn't seem worth it without a community (or any guarantee to find English-speaking players, for that matter... >_>). If we get at least several guys here, count me in.

How is it in terms of being playable without money investment and grind?

[Logical2u]

Oh hey, PSO2. I was planning to get here, but it didn't seem worth it without a community (or any guarantee to find English-speaking players, for that matter... >_>). If we get at least several guys here, count me in.

How is it in terms of being playable without money investment and grind?

Without spending cash it's still pretty playable, but it has a few grindy-feeling moments. I'm about level 16 (with a level cap of 40) right now and played during the open beta and haven't spent any money. So far paying money seems to only be to reduce the grind, make it easier, and get access to more meta-game type content like your personal room, extra characters, or a skill reset.

Spoiler: A lot of talking about my personal experience with the game (click to show/hide)

A list of what you can get with real-money can be found here - http://bumped.org/psublog/pso2-jp-ac-content-742012/ and there's other stuff you can find get here (but in Japanese) http://pso2.jp/players/catalog/scratch/ac/ The worst thing about the cash system is that without paying money you cannot sell items to other players and there's no trading at all. On the other hand, that means a free player only has to worry about their own character.

It definitely feels grindy in some parts, but even if you don't have any friends to play with (which makes everything go much faster and become much more interesting) you can always take AI companions with you, which speeds up the game a bit too. Just by logging in you get a currency called "FUN" with which can get you things like EXP and Meseta boosters as well, but most of the time you'll just get grinders from it (which are useful for upgrading). There are also a lot of repeatable quests (called Client Orders) that give lots of bonus exp, so that helps reduce the grind as well.

The worst parts of the grind are the timed quests - you need to complete some timed quests in order to unlock more content, but it'll feel like you're failing to either meet the S-rank requirement or the time requirement through no fault of your own. It's possible to do solo but again easier with friends (or AI companions). Another bad part of the grind is the plot, but you can safely ignore that.

By the way, upgrading items and abilities is a huge Meseta sink, so I would say stay away from that until you're about level 12 or so and able to grind for cash and items relatively quickly. If I hadn't been trying to min-max my item abilities I would've been a lot better off.

[ZebAbirul]

I am SO in!!

I have been waiting for a F2P Phantasy Star MMO forever!

I will start on ship 10 aswell once I get it all installed and junk. My characters name will probably be Zeb or ZebAbirul

[Alkhemia]

oh they beta out need to register then i'll go to 10 as well.

[Astral]

Looks interesting enough. Might download it when I have the time. Good thing I still remember a tiny bit of the Japanese classes I took for four years in high school, wouldn't mind a refresher though.

[Solifuge]

Huh... I remember PSO Blue Burst, and of course the SEGA RPG titles before that. Wonder how this stacks up compared to them. I'd love a localization or fan-translation eventually, but it looks interesting enough to check out.

[Logical2u]

Huh... I remember PSO Blue Burst, and of course the SEGA RPG titles before that. Wonder how this stacks up compared to them. I'd love a localization or fan-translation eventually, but it looks interesting enough to check out.

As this is the successor to PSO Blue Burst, it both looks and plays somewhat like that, but with a bunch of actiony-elements added to it from the Phantasy Star Portable titles. It's not at all anything like the Phantasy Star RPGs. There are probably translations in the works but the open-beta (and the final release) have different security measures in place so people were working from scratch on them after translating the closed beta relatively well.

[Solifuge]

Managed to register and get the download. Think I might try Livestreaming this for a bit once I get things running!

Going to roll a Cast Ranger or possibly Numan Hunter.

[Alkhemia]

Anyone know what error this might be? I can't seem to update.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Edit: seem to be a Time out Error maybe

[Seriyu]

So, this is currently only in japanese beta right?

Is it going to be released in north america?

[Logical2u]

Anyone know what error this might be? I can't seem to update.


Edit: seem to be a Time out Error maybe

yeah, this happened to me once or twice, it seems to indicate that your connection to the server was reset while patching. Just try and try again.

So, this is currently only in japanese beta right?

Is it going to be released in north america?

No announcement on a NA release. JP full version was released earlier today.

Edit: Although a NA release seems likely, there've been a lot of hints from Sega lately but nothing in stone yet.

[BuriBuriZaemon]

This game features adjustable bust size in character creation.

[Alkhemia]

This game features adjustable bust size in character creation.

It's Japanese 

[Solifuge]

Yeah, what he said. I'd also note that it's rather silly that so many games with extensive character customization shy away from that because some people are still embarrassed about boobs. Boob stigma is still a thing.

Anyway, by the same token you best also be able to tweak things that make characters unattractive as well... namely, I fully expect to be able to give my dudes a beer-belly, patchy bald spot, and/or epic moobs should the fancy strike me.