Phantasy Star Portable 2 is an upgrade, marginally, of PSP1, which was a stripped back version of PSU to run on lower spec hardware. I’ll try to break down my thoughts into sections, as if it were a review, I guess. Story, graphics, sound, mechanics and final thoughts as a whole. Trying to avoid spoilers, but minor ones are unavoidable. I can’t comment on the multi, however, since I tend to avoid playing with other people as much as possible.
On starting the game, you are given the option to import your character from the first game, or start anew. They didn’t do an amazing job on the importing, but I’ll come to that later. Thankfully, so far, Ethan is nowhere to be seen. I know he’ll appear later, however, since the story is a direct continuation of PSP1 (which was a direct continuation of PSU/AOI/official webcomics/etc.) Set three years on, even. Main cast is a little bit younger, but your mileage may vary according to whom is more annoying, Emilia or Ethan. A lot of old characters return, like Tonnio, and others. Like PSP1, you create an alter ego, rather than play a set character. Thankfully, they realised Ethan was a mistake from the beginning, and haven’t had him as a “main” character since the first PSU. PSP1’s story was sufficiently epic, and Vivienne sufficiently cute to carry it through the lagging points, but the story mode isn’t really the draw, I suppose. I know I’m strange for playing PS(Onlines) as a single player experience, but there it is. The mission based structure is still there, but now it’s all more streamlined, none of the “going to a planet to see the missions available, which meant a little FMV, finding out that the mission you wanted was on another planet therefore backing out and going to another planet, and another FMV, etc.” The home base is a place you can wander around in, the menus are stripped away. It’s still a little small, but now your room is a place you can actually chill in, and decorate. I gather it’s to facilitate multi-player a little more, giving people places to chat without needing to start a mission for it. That was what it was like in PSU, at least. All in all, the game feels like they’re re-adding elements of Universe back in, with some from Zero.
Graphically, the game is solid, but not amazing. There’s nothing in here that will push the psp, except maybe when five or more enemies start to die/spawn, all while spell effects and attack effects are going on, etc. Everything is distinct, and the Universe aesthetic is generally clean and appealing. The textures are pretty low quality, unfortunately. The enemies are good, though a decent amount are just direct ports from PSP/PSU. There’s still quite a few new ones, and a few hidden bosses that are quite pretty. I’m not going to rag on the game too much for reusing content, but it does do a lot of it. If you’re new to the Universe milieu, there’s a metric tonne of content to fiddle with. If you’re not new, not so much that’s new, but it’s still content. More than PSP1, definitely.
Aurally, there’s a lot of re-used music, but the new stuff is still decent, if you liked the music from Universe, and PSP1. Nothing really sticks in my head, though. Mostly just zone it out, I’m afraid. Since I mostly play this at work while at lunch, or on a train to and from, I can’t really comment.
The game plays a lot like PSU, and hence PSP1: An over the shoulder 3rd person viewpoint with a lock on button, in parties of four. They’ve added elements from Zero, like the emergency dodge/roll. The ability to block when equipped with a shield or two handed weapon is new, also. They did away with the PP system per weapon, so you don’t have to worry about a dwindling resource on your favourite sword, and either having to not use it, stand around for a while just holding it, or using an item. Now your PP is linked to your character, and recovers much faster. It’s used for all sorts of things, from firing guns, to skills, to dodging and the blocking system (blocking doesn’t use PP, but while you have the button held you will not recover it, and any damage you take will lower your PP until you have none, and can no longer block until it recovers). The game is actually reasonably difficult, so far, but that could be because they expect you to abuse the new features a little more, and not just charge in like it’s PSP1, and die. Or at least have a couple of near brushes. Scape Dolls are reasonably common, so it’s not too bad.
Missions are the usual level limited affair, but storyline missions will adjust within reason to your level, so it’s a challenge always. You have (very) limited control over your AI team-mates with commands such as “Free”, “Melee”, “Ranged” or “Heal”, but they’re still mostly useless. There’s also challenge modes, and a battle mode. I haven’t really gotten far enough in to unlock them, or they’re multi only, hence I can’t comment. I’m only 25 or so hours in, haven’t really even gotten to B rank yet. I spend a lot of time doing free missions and ignoring the main quest, though. There are also side story missions, including one I have available (I assume more will unlock as I go through the story?) which is where you can meet Vivienne again.
Which brings me to something I commented about earlier, they dropped the ball badly when they allowed you to import characters from PSP1. As far as I can see, all importing gets you is a title, and a C-rank weapon you’ll discard soon enough. None of the returning characters remember you (except Vivienne, maybe?), and your levels and items get reset anyway. They could have made it so much more immersive with just a couple more pages of dialogue for imported characters.
It’s still the PSU levelling system, with the ability to change “class” at any time between missions, levelling them separately, though things are a bit different now. There are still Hunter, Ranger and Force, but they’re joined by a new class– “Vanguard” which is the all-rounder, I gather. I play Hunter and Fighmaster, so I can’t really comment on it, yet. Classes start with C-rank in certain weapons, and that’s it. To use a B-rank saber, for instance, even a Hunter has to go to the relevant shop and “extend” their class with “extend points” that you earn by doing missions. The cost for a Hunter to raise the skill level of a saber or sword is lower than say a force, but the fact that both can do so is still true. You can play a Force, and run around a with an S-rank Axe, if you really wanted to, it would seem. You’d be doing far less damage than a Hunter with the same weapon, of course, but that’s how it works, no? Classes are limited by skills, again, Hunters allowed combat skills to thirty, but bullet skills to fifteen and technics to ten (I think), and so on. An attempt to make it that anyone can do anything, but just not as good as someone who’s actually skilled in it.
I guess it’s not going to sell itself to anyone who doesn’t already like the item trawl that PS(Onlines) tend to be, but it’s brilliant for people like me that have a good 40 minute train ride twice a day, since the missions are generally between 10-30 minutes long. I’m still left wanting a real Phantasy Star, but I’m resigned to the fact I’ll never get one, and these MMO-likes are all I’ll get.
The niggles that annoy me, are things like this: the PA skill system has reverted to the PSO archetype of “find higher level disks to upgrade” from the old PSU style of levelling them as you use them. You can learn a whole lot more of them at one time now, though, which is good. The screen can get a little busy, and it can be a little hard to judge distances, though both are things that practice helps with, since I tend to forget about the mini-map. There’s still a small to very large (c-b, a-s) jump in difficulty between mission rankings, a lot of time where you’re trouncing enemies too easy for you because you can’t really survive in the higher ranked missions.