We listed the 10 things that made us really love Phantasy Star Online 2.

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SEGA’s Phantasy Star Series started all the way back in the Master System, but not all gamers knew about the fabled franchise. Finally they will be able to experience the twenty-five year old franchise with Phantasy Star Online 2.

The very first English server for PSO 2 was made available for the South East Asian players, we had a test drive of the game during the Closed Beta phase and we were so hooked into it. So we made a list of the things that really made Phantasy Star Online 2 so awesome.

It has Japanese Voice-Overs

Otakus will give this a thumbs up, as you can now enjoy full Japanese voice-overs when you play the game. And mind you, they are not just short one liners or grunts, you’ll be hearing full dialogues from cut scenes and triggered in-game scenarios. You’ll be hearing some noticeable voices from the likes of Kana Hanazawa and Mai Kadowaki.

Gamepad Support

What’s the use of an Action RPG if you can’t use your gamepad? Good thing Phantasy Star Online 2 has gamepad support. Sure some may still prefer the good old mouse and keyboard, but the gamepad can add more fun to the experience.

You can go solo

In any MMOs, you need to rely on joining parties or guilds to beat the toughest bosses. Here you have the option to go commando by yourself if you don’t want to play with other players or you can tag AI controlled characters and form your party.

Third Person View

If you are using a Ranger and a fan of shooters, switching to third person view will make your shooting fest much enjoyable. You will be able to hit the enemies’ weak point in a breeze instead of just relying to the auto target function.

You can switch to a different Class anytime

You don’t need to create a new character just to try out a different class. Tired of playing melee? Change to Ranger, bored of shooting? Switch to Force. Your character can become a jack of all trades if you invest enough time to level each class.

Awesome Character Customization

What’s a great MMO game if it doesn’t have a good character creation tool, Phantasy Star has a lot of options on their character creator, from the facial structure, to the physique and the voice tone. You can even save your creation or even import one from friends or from the internet.

Insane Boss Fights

In most MMOs, all you need to kill a boss is by spamming your top-tier skills, here you need to find their weak spot and learn their attack patterns. And these are not your ordinary dungeon bosses; they are the enormous types that makes the term boss more fitting, heck we even saw a giant battleship-like fortress that is actually a boss that you need to climb aboard just to beat it.

Some Quests are Fun with Friends

Though you can play solo in the game, nothing still beats completing boss battles and quests with your friends. There are some event quests that will encourage you to join other players, these certain quests will tag you along with a dozen of other players and complete certain requirements like clearing out enemies in an area, protecting your base from waves of monsters and defeating a massive boss.

Feels More Like a Console Game

What makes this game different from your same old MMOs? The story in the game is more engaging, the plot scenes are more fleshed out thanks to in-game cutscenes and voice-overs, and you get to recruit different NPCs to your party, just like what you play on JRPGs in consoles. You have the power to choose either you play the game all by yourself and enjoy the lore and story of the game or engage into with the same way you enjoy MMOs; playing with your friends.

Symbol Arts!

You old emoticons are out and Symbol Arts are newest trend in PSO2 in terms of social interaction. The Symbol Arts is a new kind of electronic signboard that can act as your emoticon, you can customize your Symbol Arts that suits on specific scenarios. You can even export your creations and share it to your buddy or import from fan sites for those hardcore designs.

If you really can’t wait to try out Phantasy Star Online 2, it will be available on May 29 and Closed Beta Testers will get an early access on May 27 (available only to Southeast Asian countries)

You can visit their official website at http://pso2.playpark.com/en/