‘Phantasy Star Portable’ Review (Sony PSP)

When it comes to console-based Role Playing Games, one of the most noteworthy franchises is the Phantasy Star series. The series spawned a cult following after its release of Phantasy Star III and IV on the Sega Genesis. At the time, Phantasy Star’s turn based gaming was the dominant force in console RPGs. Multiple endings, endless dungeon loot hording, and memorable NPC interactions helped build the genre for years to come.

The series saw a rebirth on the Dreamcast with Phantasy Star Online. In PSO, the franchise made a sharp shift from its turn-based combat to real time fighting. Phantasy Star Universe was another directional change to the Phantasy Star world by leaving behind the remnants of traditional fantasy gaming and expanding into the Gurhal Star System.

Phantasy Star Portable takes place after the events in PSU. The threat of SEED is back and there are also terrorists lurking in the shadows. You begin your journey as a new Guardian recruit who is paired with a new CAST named Vivienne. Like most RPGs, your actions throughout Portable will shape one of the different endings you’ll see. The only nuance is that each choice you make will directly impact how your CAST grows. She starts as a blank slate, who learns from your choices and inevitably becomes the type of person you want her to be.

The story unfolds through several exceptionally long dialogue sequences that tend to be extremely wordy and boring. Instead of using the standard cut-scene, players will have to click through endless amounts of 2D non-animated character pictures with limited facial expressions. After a while this gets redundant. The settings aren’t much different. Interacting with NPCs is flavorless. Your stuck in a 2D rudimentary room map with a couple of circle tokens to represent the NPCs. From there, another 2D character picture will pop up. None of the character designs are really memorable, but on the positive side you can occasionally recruit characters to your party. All of this amounts to a sadly lackluster RPG story.

Forgettable Voice Over acting poorly tops off the 2D character dialogue sequences. I felt like everyone was voiced by Soundwave from the Transformers. One Soundwave is ok, but an entire world of Soundwaves is just way too much. The music doesn’t really stand out either and I could actually have done without it. Is either the voice over or the music bad? Not really. There’s just nothing here that leaves a lasting impression.

Your party can hold up to four characters, depending on the mission. And, players have the ability change between the Ranger, Hunter and Force classes at will to maximize their gaming time. This is one of the games best features because you can do this without losing your experience and it also allows you to fully enjoy all the loot you’ll be able to stack up. So, if you get bored of button mashing as a ranger you can switch off to the more refined TECHNICs (magic) of the Force type.

Players can add guns and different items to their action palette for quick access during missions. This is a nice feature, as you’re not married to only using a sword or a rifle. You can quickly switch between several weapon combinations. If you like dual wielding handguns, but then want to swap out for a sword you can with mid-battle. You navigate your action palette with the circle button. At first doing this will seem difficult during battle with the crowded HUD. But, after a while you’ll be slashing away, while quickly injecting yourself with a healthy dose of Monomate and Dimate. As an added note, the guns can be a pain to use because the aim-locking mechanics are off. You can never really lock onto an opponent and the camera shifts will have you catching more than one laser blast to your back.

Portable’s AI is nothing less than atrocious. I still can’t believe how utterly dimwitted my party members are. Every three or four steps you take you’ll see a message pop up on the screen with your NPCs complaining about being lost. Not only is this annoying, but it’s just added clutter to the HUD. That’s the least of your worries. Party members tend to be lazy and need a good healthy shock before they decide to fight back or revive themselves.

I actually wasn’t too turned off by the repetitive looking missing settings in Portable. Despite lacking enough differentiation in the mech-looking “dungeon” areas, I had tons of fun just going around hording loot. There’s just a lot of stuff to find here. However, there were a few disturbing flaws in the mission locations. There was quite a bit of pop-up that occurred. Also, something was severely off in the collision detection. I found myself walking through walls on more than one occasion. There was one time when I fought several droids by slashing them through a wall. I almost felt sorry for them because they couldn’t fight back. Poor droids. I’m sure they’ll be writing a nasty letter to the developers.

One thing Phantasy Star Portable does exceptionally well is character customization. There feels like an endless amount of clothing and looks you can outfit your character with. I probably lost several hours just heading to my room and sifting through my locker.

I’m sad to say that I’m a little pampered after playing Phantasy Star Online. Since the PSP is a console that was created with online functionality, you would expect to see some sort of online play in this title. Unfortunately, there is none. You can however play multiplayer locally, outside of story mode, which does have a level of enjoyment. The only problem is you’ll have to find other people with the game to really get the full enjoyment. We picked up an extra two copies and noticed that there was some lag issues when adding the third member. We still had fun just going on dungeon wide loot binges.

Phantasy Star Portable’s stale story is a definite strike against buzz factor for this title. Monotonous settings, flat 2D character cut-scenes, and shoddy AI all take away the fun of this new addition to the Phantasy Star franchise. On the positive side, this game is still fun to play through if only for the sake of the loot. And, if you’ve got a few loot-hording friends around with PSPs, this is one title you’ll have wild time playing through.