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Hell, you can sit back and watch a full J-Pop concert with an overly bubbly idol at night in the lobby with other players, who all look like discarded Gundam extras themselves. Add in the wealth of extravagant cosmetics available, and it’s clear Phantasy Star Online 2 is a proudly Japanese title. The robust character creator will let you create the anime guy/gal you’ve always dreamed of (or complete abominations if that’s your thing), to include setting physical proportions no normal human body should ever possess. You can take control of a giant mech to crush your foes, and even play as a race of mechs (the ladies of this particular group have all their jiggly bits intact, naturally).

You take on scenery chewing villains the size of buildings, travel across space and time in a story that barely makes sense, and bounce about battles with an absolute disregard for the laws of physics.

It embraces every single anime trope like a lover reunited with their partner after a decade apart. And that’s fine, because the colorful, anime aesthetic that engulfs the experience more than makes up for the muddy environment textures, subdued shadows, and jagged edges.įair warning: if you only have a mild tolerance for all things anime then buckle-up, because Phantasy Star Online 2 is as over-the-top as Japanese games can get. Some games age more gracefully than others, and while Phantasy Star Online 2’s general graphical suite may not have matured like a fine wine, it certainly hasn’t spoiled like milk either. Though, even by 2012 standards Phantasy Star Online 2 isn’t pushing any boundaries. That’s not a knock against Phantasy Star Online 2 – it’s damn near a dinosaur at this point. The overwhelmingly anime art design keeps it all afloat, but as you’re running about the labyrinthine corridors of the procedurally-generated missions it’s clear this was a game released in 2012. The graphics are clearly from a bygone era, with lighting, textures, and anti-aliasing showing their age the most. Other elements of the game make the eight-year gap between Phantasy Star Online 2’s initial release and the North American launch harder to ignore. It’s not terrible once you figure out the nuances, but it belies Phantasy Star Online 2’s age.

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If you are using the baked-in matchmaking from the mission select screen you can opt to pull players in from your block, or can search for groups across the range of other blocks available, but if a group fills while you are browsing the list doesn’t update to inform you of such. If your friends are in a different block you’ll need to first transfer over to theirs before they can invite you into a party. This system means playing with friends or randoms can prove a touch cumbersome at times. Each block can host up to 200 players, and there are well over a hundred per server.

This social hub is much like the Tower from Destiny 2, and it’s sequestered into different instances, called “blocks”, to keep the servers from melting into hot slag.

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There’s a general hub/lounge area where players congregate to either upgrade their equipment, accept quests, or mingle. Instead, it’s more reminiscent of older lobby-based MMOs like the first Guild Wars. There isn’t a wide, open world to explore, jam-packed with players going about their various errands. Phantasy Star Online 2 isn’t an MMO in the traditional-sense, at least not like those currently dominating the genre. Phantasy Star Online 2 has plenty of style to mask its wrinkles.

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