I have to say from the start that I’m almost completely new to PSO – actually to the Phantasy Star series as a whole. I checked out the PC demo when it was released a few months ago, and a friend gave me a copy of the DC game, but I haven’t spent a whole lot of time with it. So when Sega handed me the controller last night, I was really out of my element. It didn’t help that I had a level 2 character and Sonic Team’s characters were all at level 80 and above. Yuji Naka was at level 200!

What struck me immediately was how overwhelming the interface can be at first. Unlike most RPGs which have turn-based battles, combat in PSO takes place in real-time. It’s easy as long as you’re just walking around smacking enemies, but since the action doesn’t stop when you go into a menu, it can be a little frustrating trying to navigate the menu and keep up at the same time. It’s not too hard to find yourself lying dead on the ground because you stopped paying attention to an enemy while looking for an item to recover your magic. However, from what I can tell, it does appear that there are shortcut keys you can assign to certain commands or chat phrases. Unfortunately, I think the Sega representatives had more fun watching me die trying to type a message than they would have had if they had taught me all the controls.

Speaking of typing, I did ask about the ASCII Keyboard Controller while I was there. The representative told me that it would be coming to North America, but that no date has been confirmed at this time. However, even without the keyboard controller, there are simpler ways to communicate. PSO is filled with greetings, warnings, and other phrases that you can select quickly to talk with your team. It may take time to learn how to navigate the menu system quickly, but using pre-set phrases allows you to speak quickly to your teammates and even cross language barriers so that you can play with Japanese and eventually European gamers.

As far as the online aspects of the game are concerned, I was very impressed. Not only was it a fun romp with Yuji Naka in San Francisco and Sonic Team in Japan (I was in Los Angeles), but there was no lag that I could detect. From my experience with the PC demo that was released a couple of months ago, I was accustomed to seeing teammates pop back and forth across the screen or groups of enemies suddenly appear or disappear. However, on GameCube none of that was present. Naka and Sonic Team were running right alongside of me just as smoothly as if we were playing in the same room. There were no significant framerate problems, and the only sign of pop-up mysteriously affected the splashes of blood from fallen enemies.

Overall, PSO appears to be a worthy venture for anyone willing to head online with the GameCube for the first time. It’s quite intimidating at first, but it’s clear that there is a lot to discover. Everything from the Dreamcast games is in Episode I, with Episode II encompassing an all new quest. Adding in the upcoming downloadable quests and whatever new content Sega has in store, PSO should keep you busy until Nintendo finally decides to unveil their online lineup, however long that should take.