The E3 demo of Phantasy Star Online: Episodes I and II was sadly quite limited. Still, what was shown will be familiar to veteran members of the Hunter’s Guild but still enjoyable and new.

First off, the graphics are completely redone. The HUmar named “SONIC” held a DB Sabre and it is no longer a normal white blade we’re all familiar in the DC version. The HUcaseal, which I played as had Blade Dance and were gigantic daggers that would remain “sheathed”until you attacked, revealing the photon blades that were almost bigger than herself.

A friend and I played through two levels: the beach and the temple. The only enemies onscreen were ones we’ve seen previously from Episode 1. They varied from Hildebears from the Forest to Dark Belra from Ruins. All characters had unlimited Monomates, so we were essentially invincible. Also, we couldn’t access the normal menu, and were unable to reconfigure the controls to customize our attacks. So essentially we went forth and smacked around the enemies oldschool. The setup is much the same though Sonic Team has redesigned the Action Icon set. No new spells were shown but at least we got to play as a FOmar (male force) and HUcaseal (female android).

The four-player mode boasted beautiful visuals, even with the amount of visuals onscreen. It’s just a shame the demo was crippled so.