The day that I’ve been waiting for since the GameCube launched is finally here. My GameCube is finally online. I just received my import copy of Phantasy Star Online with the modem from our good friends at Lan Kwei, and have been playing for the past 4 hours.

These impressions will not discuss the offline game at all. The word “online” is in the title for a reason; it’s an online game. You may call me a snob, but 4-player split screen gaming isn’t for me. I want the whole TV to myself, and I want to play this game in its natural state -- online.

Since PSO has an English option, the only part where you’ll have to fight with some Japanese is in the modem settings, and getting your hunters license (your PSO account). Setup was a breeze, thanks to well done guides from Ragol.com. Configuring the online settings and getting a hunters license is pretty straightforward. Fortunately, the Japanese version of PSO has a free 30-day trial (the US version will not have this), so I’m currently playing for free. I haven’t received my Broadband Adapter yet, but it should also be simple to set it up.

Once you have everything configured, you create your character. You can choose between 3 character classes: Hunter, Ranger, and Force. Hunters are mainly melee fighters with bladed weapons, Rangers use guns, and Force utilize techniques and magic. Within those classes, there are different sub-classes: Male, Female, Androids, Newman, Female Newman, and more. To see a more extensive background of these character classes, check out our PSO Preview. Basically when you choose your character class you’re choosing what style of fighting and protection you want to be equipped with. Since I like to fight up close, I chose a Hunter.

Once you get online, you are placed on the main ship, the Pioneer II, and from there you need to choose which lobby you want to begin your game from. The lobby setup is excellent, and if you know which lobby your friends are in, you can quickly find them, trade items, and begin games.

The game that I played was with players in the UK, Australia, and the US. Even on a 56k modem, the game plays very smoothly, with very little lag. This is very impressive considering I’m playing on Japanese servers with players spread out all over the world.

Controls are simple and customizable. You bind specific actions to buttons on your controller. Usually, A is attack, B strong attack, and Y is open. R acts as a shift key that opens up 3 more slots to bind actions to. X brings up the software keyboard where you can type messages. L rotates the camera in back of you. Z and Start bring up the configuration menu.

Battles are all in real time, and progressively get more and more difficult. A lot of the time spent playing PSO is leveling up your character. This means having to play the same levels over again. It might sound boring, but when you’re playing with people online, it’s still a really good time.

I will admit that I wasn’t one of the most hardcore PSO freaks, and only dabbled a little with PSO on the Dreamcast. I was instantly impressed with the improvements Sega has made over the DC version. The sound and graphics are better, and the layout of everything seems to be more comfortable. The levels are a lot more detailed, and look fantastic. Outside of that, it’s really not all that different from PSO on the Dreamcast.

Since the real meat of the game is online, communicating with people in your party is very important. I opted to purchase the ASCII Keyboard to do this. Using the software keyboard is very simple, but too tedious for me. The keyboard alleviates this headache. Impressions of this hardware are coming tomorrow.

Phantasy Star Online has translated well onto the GameCube. If you’re dying to play, PSO is extremely import-friendly, and also has the 30-day free trial. Even though it’s not much different than the DC version, if you haven’t gotten a chance to play it, there’s a whole new world being opened to you. With that said, it’s not for everyone. It’s a very time consuming title. For newbies, it takes a while to get used to. Don’t get me wrong, PSO is a lot of fun, and if you want to get your GameCube online, this is going to be it for a while.