READ THIS: IF YOU ARE IN THE SEA REGION, YOU HAVE TO USE YOUR LOCALIZED VERSION, JP VERSION HAS IP BLOCKED SEA PLAYERS - THE MNGMTPhantasy star online! There are almost certainly plenty of people that remember that game. The hunt for red boxes and timing based combos has, indeed, made a return. But, before I get into describing this, I'd just like to say, the game is only released in japan. As a result it's fairly anime! Recent events have made it fairly obvious they will not be releasing this game in america. However! It's possible, and endorsed by sega, for american players to play on the japanese servers. There's no IP block, and the connection is actually pretty good! Similarly there's a ship that english players have more or less made their home (ship 02), japanese players have more or less adjusted to the influx of english players, and on top of all of this, the playerbase has basically translated most of the game for us. It's a pretty sweet deal! If this sounds acceptable to you, then please carry on.
Phantasy star online 2 is, in all respects, a direct upgrade to PSO. Combat has been improved, it's a bit more monster hunter-ey now, loot is instanced, no more wrestling over those red boxes, any race and gender can be any class, you can switch classes, you can subclass, skill trees are mostly passives/buffs, offensive skills drop from monsters, it has it all. Read on for more specific information!
Combat is, as I said, basically monster hunter. Most basic enemies attack too slow to be much of a threat, and larger monsters will tear you a new face if you let them. Specific classes use specific weapons, specific weapons have specific abilities. Hunter have the ability to block, bravers have the ability to counter, rangers/forces just use it to switch techs. You can carry multiple weapon types at once, to boot, so don't worry about that. Combat generally revolves around avoiding/minimizing damage via active movement and abilities, so while the hunter has a tank tree it's not very useful.
Hunter - Close range, durable. Notable for being one of the best subclasses, and one of the worst main classes, but you have to go through this or braver to unlock fighter. Uses heavy weapons, greatswords, spears, and wired lances, which allow grappling and are it's only "light" weapon. All weapons have a block ability, a great way to get familiar with the game.
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Ranger - Long range combat specialists. Uses rifles and rocket launchers. Note while there's an over the shoulder mode, your dude aims automatically, so don't think this'll be FPSey.
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Force: Casters. Use rods and talises, talises apparently allow remote casting. Heavy damage, very fragile.
Notable positives:
You have the best dodge skill! It's almost all invincibility frames and lasts for a decent amount of time (for a dodge skill)
You will eventually shit out terrible amounts of carnage. It takes time, customized techs, good weapon gears, and switching between techs for elemental damage boosts (elemental weaknesses aren't that big a deal but it adds up), and you're not terribly efficient about it compared to ranger or braver, but if you need brute force a force is the way to do it. Eventually.
Proably the only class that can reliably take advantage of elemental weaknesses. Again, it's just a flat number on top of your damage I think, but it's somethin.
Area of effect! Forces have some of the most effective area of effect attacks in the game.
Downsides:
You're notably fragile. I mean, everything in this game except tank hunters is made out of glass but you are particularly so. Luckily you have that awesome dodge.
There's a lot of spin up time. Early on you'll be running away from a lot of stuff and ultimately not doing a lot of damage. Have a buddy waiting in the wings if you want to make this less painful, notably melee classes start off running and slowly fall off compared to ranged classes, and a hunter is a nice reliable fella that can draw aggro with warcry and kill shit fairly well, all while not dying to a stiff breeze.
You'll be switching techs around a lot, especially if you want to hit elemental weaknesses/support/heal. Those weapon switch times add up.
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Braver: Uses a katana or Bullet Bow. Relies on quick movements and counters. More effective then hunter generally, but a lot more prone to suddenly falling to pieces if not played well. Katana has a counter ability, well timed counters negate damage and reflect some back.
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Fighter: You'll need to hit level 30 in hunter or braver and do some quests before you can use this class! Close range, uses knuckles, daggers, and double sabers (double ended lightsabers basically), quick movement, has a stationary dodge ability.
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Gunner: You'll need to hit level 30 in ranger and do some quests before you can use this class! Close range gun user! Uses SMGs and rifles if you need to get some distance. High damage, more flashy then hunter, while still providing a long range alternative.
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Techter: You'll need to hit level 30 in force and do some quests before you can use this class! Support. A lot of buffs and heals, still has T-Atk so they can still use offensive magic. Uses Talises and wands. Notably, wands hit a little harder then rods, compared to forces.
Unless otherwise stated, female races are better at casting/ranged, and male races are better at melee. It's not a huge deal, and it'll generally only be terribly relevant for humans and deumans, and even then not a big deal. A female hunter can still be perfectly viable.
Humans: As always, generic, middle ground. Does everything fairly well. Good for basically any class, although there'll always be something better.
Newmans: Artificial humans, made by humans. Lore wise, has the notable disadvantage of spontaneously dropping dead, being biologically unstable. That isn't reflected in game though, so you're fine. High caster stats, high PP totals. Poor defense, but not horrid. Good for forces/techers.
Deumans: Humans infected with SEED, from Phantasy star universe. Naturally this doesn't effect their appearence at all besides making them wear an eyepatch, because this game is pretty anime. High offensive stats all around, low defensive stats. Glass cannons. Good for most things.
Casts: Robots. Melee specialists. High durability, high physical damage. Absolutely terrible with magic, low magic stat totals. Good for melee/ranged, bad for magic.
- If you play as a hunter intitially, and intend to stick with it, go offensive. Combat in PSO2 revolves heavily around avoiding damage, and in 90% of cases the hunter offense tree will serve you better then the defense tree.
- Getting all of your gear skills is rarely a bad idea! It usually doesn't take many points, and gear skills are super useful.
- Despite initial impressions, the rare item mastery skill isn't terribly worth it. A single point is good, as it provides a straight +30 attack for a single point, which is great, but return investments quickly drop off. One point or nothing.
- Emergency quests are great exp, especially the dark falz quests. You'll generally get carried through them anyway, so don't feel shy about dropping in!
- Pay attention to koffie. All of her client orders give out access to missions and new areas, along with mags/level caps/new difficulty levels, etc. Every single one of her client orders is hyper relevant.
- You have a room! You can get there by going to the channel change booth and selecting the top option. You do crafting here, and can also decorate it.
-Save your grinders, synthesizers, and photon drops. They're all valuble and you'll need a lot.
(From Girlinhat, career force):Generally you'll want to prepare before a fight - you should know the area you're entering, and be aware that it has significant fire, ice, lightning, etc weak enemies. If you're doing the forest, you KNOW they're weak to fire, all of them. So prep your spells for fire. Also prep a light spell, because Darkers are all weak to light. Most importantly, go the fire route of skills, just so you can get 'recharge pp while casting' because it makes a world of difference. What damage type you go for after that is whatever you want.
Because you are going to have to work into certain elemental types to get different buffs, you're likely going to end up with one dominant element type. At that point, you'll probably just go full-out with it. Don't bother much with shifting spells, because your chosen type is going to be quite a bit stronger than any other type.
Go to the visiphone, search "Fjallheim" via arks search, team, send the leader a message, I'll get ya. Be in arks when you do this and wait for me to get you in. If I'm not on, you can go to teams looking for members, find fjallheim manually, and accept that, and I'll get a mail message when I next log on.
That's that! If you're convinced,
Go here for a guide on how to get things translated and how to sign up for a japanese SEGA ID. It's not super complex. Please note patching will litterally take days, even on the best connections. The game's been out for 2 years and it looks pretty good, so it takes a while to get up to speed. The PSO2 tweaker available on that website will both translate the game for you and provides a better patching alternative (Click the orb, find the option that says check for PSO2 updates, let it finish over the course of days, install the patches through that orb, you're good). PSO2 tweaker will resume downloads from the point they were at before disconnect/crash/cancel. Official patcher will not! Use PSO2 tweaker or you will cry salty tears constantly.
If you were interested in what the OP title was referring to, well,
here you go! You can break off all those turrets and shit that are around. It's a great fight.