Now, after playing both the original Phantasy Star Online to death on my Dreamcast and then playing PSO I & II for GameCube, Episode III is a bit of a shock. PSO was originally intended as sort of a Diablo-lite, with its realtime co-operative battling and emphasis on making “Ruins Runs” as players would call them. PSO III, on the other hand, is a turn-based card game that revolves around card management and dueling it out with other players online.

Jonny compared it to SRPG titles like Fire Emblem or Tactics Ogre, but I personally find this very, very far from the truth. Or rather, if it was meant to be an SRPG, Sonic Team has failed considerably. Most SRPGs revolve around multi-character parties that battle it out in arenas of various sizes, while managing equipment, spells and so forth. PSO III has only one character (if you’re playing as a Hunter) and grids as small as 3X3. This isn’t exactly my cup of tea.

As mentioned in Jonny’s impressions, most of your offline Story mode involves your avatar running around in their base and speaking to their higher-ups until it is time to do battle. Then you beam down onto the surface of Ragol and duke it out. The thing is, you don’t play as the character you created via PSO’s extensive Character Creation system. It’s merely meant to give yourself an avatar for online play and running around the aforementioned HQ. Instead, you create a deck and use that to battle with.

When creating a deck, you choose one of your “teammates” (a predefined PSO character with his/her own strengths and weaknesses) and then build a deck around his/her characteristics. For instance, the Hunter Sil’fer is a HUnewearl, and as such benefits more from close melee weapons rather than guns or Techs. You’re encouraged to build various decks around the personas of different characters you recruit throughout the game.

Once you’ve created your deck(s), you’re able to start fighting. Depending on which side you pick, your gameplay is setup differently. The Heroside, Hunters, are a crack investigative team under direct orders from the secretive Government of Pioneer 2. Their decks consist of different equipments and weapons that overlay on top of their own HP. Essentially, before the player gets damaged him/herself, their weapon will be destroyed first. The Darkside, ARKZ, are a rebellious group who are out to show the public of all the lies and deceit the Pioneer 2 Government have propagated throughout the entire time the ship has been orbiting Ragol. ARKZ’s decks use monsters that are summoned and fight in your stead. This is the only way to directly control more units than your “main character” on the grid.

Once in battle, you’re asked to roll die in order to get your amount of AP (attack points) and DP (defense points). AP is used to equip weapons or summon monsters, move around the field, and attack, so you have to ration them accordingly. DP is used when you’ve been attacked and can then select a defensive card to protect yourself with. Once your die is cast and you decide what weapons to equip or monsters to summon, you’re ready to move and attack your foe.

There are a variety of ways to attack. One is to directly use monster/item on your foe. You can also pair a magic card such as the spell “Foie” (fire) to it. However if you wish to use magic, you must make sure the equipment/monster you’re using is “Tech compatible”, or the Spell card is entirely useless. Some classes are unable to use any Techs as well (such as the androids), so there’s no point in even giving them magical cards. Unfortunately, so far there isn’t that much strategy involved (at least during the early game) as it devolves into “find the story character and slaughter them as quickly as possible”.

As you clear offline “quests” (orders from your commanding officer), you’ll gain more cards and areas to battle in. Depending on your rank, you’ll get more powerful and more valuable cards after you vanquish your foe. Ranks depend on strategies used and how quickly the battle ended, among other factors. Online games are basically mini-tournaments where players come together to beat the living crap out of each other. The lobby system is unchanged from the old days of PSO, and fans will have no problems starting up a game.

Unfortunately, the graphics haven’t improved much from the “good old days” of PSO 1. Character models are still DC-quality, and environments have thus far been quite shimmery and low-poly in detail, not to mention frame dropping from time to time. It’s especially apparent after a Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicle marathon.

So far, my feelings on the game are fairly negative. I realise that I might not be “getting” it just yet, but as an SRPG it is failing miserably. Playing as a single character (or a few monster characters) is quite far from being strategic. When fighting Hunters it seems to take forever to get past their numerable amount of weapons, and with ARKZ (especially early on), the monsters are simply too weak to be of any help. Coupled with the fact that as an ARKZ you have no HP-defending equipment, if you become cornered you’re pretty much screwed. Not that playing as a Hunter is any better. It’s all been very boring so far, and the interface is both ugly and bloated. In addition game seems to have taken inspiration from Skies of Arcadia, the way it constantly is loading and uses incredibly boring, life-eating camera pans for every last little thing. Somehow, I feel if Sonic Team had left an option for a basic 2D grid environment, I wouldn’t be losing this much patience early on.

Perhaps it is because I’ve been coming off Fire Emblem that I’m not coming to PSO III on its own terms, but so far, PSO III just isn’t doing the “SRPG thing” very well. Hopefully things won’t look so bleak with another twenty or so hours of gameplay behind it.