After extensive playtime at the PSO I and II celebratory bash, I must admit I am quite pleased with Sega’s first online venture for GameCube. I must stress that the game looks quite beautiful in the later stages: even the newly modeled ship areas looks surprisingly complex. However, the old episode I stages merely sport cleaner textures and no real improvements other than your character’s model itself. This, however is due to Sonic Team wishing to keep the older content available to new players to help adjust to the online world of Ragol.

One nit-picky problem I must mention is the fact that some textures suffer from pop-up. Namely the “blood smears” enemies leave behind when they are killed. This was excusable in Version 2 but, I’ll admit it’s a little annoying now. Otherwise, graphics are clean and crisp. I will mention now that the newer character classes that were added specifically for the GameCube look a little better than the others, but it might just be my eyes fooling me.

On the audio side of things, I was quite impressed. The game sounded very good in Dolby Pro Logic II and sound effects worked well. Hearing an enemy howl behind you off-screen helps give you a good idea of what is all around you. I will also mention that it sounds like instrumental samples themselves were improved as well.

At any rate, I was playing with a FOmar (Human Male Force) by the name of Minmae. Now since the character was level 87 I wasn’t about to have any sort of troubles with the game while it was set on normal. The controls are familiar as they are exactly the same as the DC version. The only slight difference is that now instead of the “Action Icons” sitting in a diamond pattern they cascade from right to left. As before, you can hold the R button for a secondary set of commands. Menus are also familiar but redesigned. Everything is set up as before, but with a different style. Menus seem a bit cleaner if on the plain side.

One addition that I know veteran players will appreciate is the addition of the “Trade Window” in the menu options. No longer do you have to worry about losing your hard earned meseta or rare items in a trade. Instead of dropping your items, you set up a trade so that you can make sure the items you agreed to trade are indeed the ones they are giving you. People unfamiliar with the prior system should know that all basic item types look exactly the same: spinning colored boxes. Usable items are Green, Weapons are Orange and Armors/Slots are Blue. Previously, one could be scammed out of hard-earned item because a less-than-ethical party member decided to drop a low powered item instead of the promised trade.

At any rate, after resetting the options menu similar to my old default on DC, I created for myself a game and explored. The US Server names that were available are as follows:

• VEGA

• ALTAIR

• DENEB

• ANTARES

I must say that while it isn’t a gigantic improvement, the higher level spells certainly are prettier than their Dreamcast counterparts. Things like Ryuker (Teleportation spell) had small added warping effects and the like. Small things, perhaps, but nice effects nonetheless.

There is one very large flaw that PSO Episodes I and II has not escaped from its predecessor. That is the lock-on. The problem I have is that you cannot manually target an enemy and instead must face in the direction of the foe and hope that it automatically selects the creature. This might not be a huge issue for Hunters, but for Rangers and Forces, this is not only frustrating, but could theoretically cause your untimely demise. The auto-aim simply isn’t any good, and trying to target and actually successfully attack might seem almost random until you become accustomed to the method. Then it is merely an annoyance when every once in awhile you have your Force cast a spell only for them to cast it away from the enemy because you accidentally touched the Control Stick. I was hoping that Sonic Team would have implemented some sort of real lock-on solution. I am not expecting something as elaborate as Zelda-style Z-targeting, but something that would at least guarantee that your character is always facing (and focused) on one enemy until you actively choose another target.

One thing I am quite pleased with is that it appears that classes have been balanced. In the previous games, Forces were nearly useless as the other non-Force classes could learn Techs nearly as well as them. However, now only Forces can learn spells up to level 30 while all other types may only use tech disks half that.

There were a few modes that I didn’t have a chance to experiment with but I can explain briefly what they are in lieu of Version 2. Battle mode allows you to deathmatch other characters in specially designed arenas. Challenge mode awarded players with special weapons and armor if they could meet the requirements of finishing a level. (ie: Beating a level in under 5 minutes without dying.) There are both all new stadiums to wage war in and Challenges added to the GameCube incarnation.

From this limited amount of gameplay, I must commend Sonic Team on the excellent sequel they have developed. I can only hope that the high entrance fee of $9.00 a month in the US does not turn gamers off.