I’m a total n00b at Phantasy Star Online, having only played Episodes I & II at E3 a couple of years ago. From what I can tell about Episode III, however, it doesn’t really matter whether you played the original or not. This sequel plays totally differently, and no, it’s not really a card game…it’s pure strategy.

That’s right, PSO III is as much a strategy game as Final Fantasy Tactics or Gladius, although the style and rules are a bit different. The entire game is based around battles, just like in many other strategy titles, and there is nothing to do between battles except talk to your boss and edit your decks. When you embark on a mission, you are transported directly into battle, and once it’s over, you are taken straight back to headquarters to get the next assignment. There’s really no filler at all, so the game relies purely on the strength of its battles.

The battles, fortunately, are quite interesting and deep. There are two factions to play as, and each one has a different style of gameplay. The Hero side represents the ruling government, who are trying to colonize the planet Ragol. Playing as Hero side involves only a single character, who can be equipped with all kinds of weapons and armor by playing certain cards. When attacked by opponents, the Hero side loses these items first; in other words, you have to destroy all the equipment before you can deal damage to the character himself. The Dark side represents a rebel faction which is trying to disrupt the government’s colonization and expose corruption. Instead of equipping items, the Dark side deploys summoned monsters, which are apparently like the native creatures seen in Episodes I & II. The Dark side character can attack and be attacked directly, but he will mostly depend on his minions to surround the opponent and pound away. From my limited playing time, it seems that the Hero side characters play like tanks, heavily fortified and intent on breaking through the enemy lines and defeating the commander. The Dark side is more like an infantry division, sending out troops to slowly whittle down the opponent’s defenses, and the Dark commander is himself relatively fragile.

In addition to the many strategies inherent in the two sides, knowing how to deploy cards, move characters, and create combos are vital to winning. There are hundreds of cards available, and you’ll get new ones after each battle. The better you fight, the more cards you’ll get. There are several different types of cards, and each type can be played during different phases of your turn. At the end of your turn, you can discard unwanted cards and draw new ones to fill up your hand. So elements of the system are very much like Magic: The Gathering, the Pokemon Trading Card Game, etc. The combo system alone looks to be very intricate. I’m finding the battles to be quite interesting, although you couldn’t call them exciting…they drag on for twenty or thirty minutes regularly, and there are a lot of pauses while the computer decides on its moves or data is transferred through the network.

The online mode is exactly like the one in Episodes I & II, at least until you start a mission with other players. There are different servers and lobbies to meet up with people, as well as several methods of communication. It probably goes without saying, but if you plan on playing a lot of this game online, you should get a keyboard. There are several options for GameCube owners these days, including USB adapters that let you use any old PC keyboard. I didn’t have too much trouble finding other players, as long as I stayed on the most heavily populated servers. You can also venture into the Japanese server, which is full of ardent PSO III players since the game was released there several weeks ago. It’s just going to be more difficult to communicate.

Online battles can be one-on-one or two-on-two, and in the latter mode, computer players can be used to fill in empty seats. However, the computer-controlled partner I had was extremely stupid and unproductive, and I had to win mostly on my own. There is probably an intelligence setting, or at least an increase in the computer’s skill as your record improves. I hope. Like its predecessor on GameCube, PSO III also includes an offline multiplayer mode, although it’s not splitscreen due to the nature of these battles. In fact, you don’t even need a full set of controllers. Two people can play with a single controller, or you can play a four-player game with just two controllers. You can temporarily transfer your character to a friend’s copy of the game with a memory card. It’s a shame that the LAN mode was scrapped, as it would have allowed you to play against other people for free through programs like Warp Pipe and XLink, and I suppose that’s exactly why Sega chose not to include it.

PSO III stands out for many reasons, particularly its online gameplay. It’s hard to say whether veteran PSO fans will be happy with how much the series has changed, because the gameplay is a completely new animal with little in common with the hack-and-slash antics of previous games. The online mode has boiled down into a glorified match-making service, since there is little real-time teamwork or even communication involved in the new battles. You don’t really need more features than those provided to enjoy the online mode, but it’s rather hard to justify paying nine bucks per month for the kind of online experience you could easily accomplish through a direct modem connection on the PC. (You can use the same account for both PSO games on GameCube.) Still, the game seems to offer very deep strategy, with tons of gameplay for those who can get into its battle system and learn the intricacies of forming combos and positioning characters on the grid.