Yes, the expansion to Phantasy Star Universe is finally out. It is called
Phantasy Star Universe: The Ambition of the Illuminus. To all of you who left PSU early on, you may actually consider coming back. First off, you may want to visit the old topic for the basic information. You can find that
HERE. Most of the info there is still true but some stuff is incorrect. We never did end up getting any vehicles except for the Floaders and the list of people is out of date.
Enough about old PSU though, let's move on to the expansion. For those of you who left early on, here's what has happened.
THE INFO
All Original PSU content has been unlocked, except for a few offline only items. All missions are open as well as all story missions. Almost all ultimate arts are available except for about 2 spells.
There is a new combat system in place that plays more like PSO. Timing your hits can cause more damage. For forces and rangers you can attack faster if you attack right after guarding. These systems are now known as Just Attack and Just Guard.
Enemy stats and player stats have been rebalanced. Some enemies are no longer as broken and some were made tougher. Forces have been given more defense but less attack, hunters more attack and less magic, and all that jazz.
YOU CAN NO LONGER LOSE A WEAPON BY GRINDING IT TO MAKE IT STRONGER. If you fail a grind now, all that will happen is the weapon will go back to ungrinded status and it will lose 1 grind level. So if you can grind to level 10 and it messes up at 6, you will be back to 0 and the weapon can only go to 9.
Classes can now go up to level 15. This means more stat boosts than you can count.
Photon Arts, Bullets, and Spells can go up to level 40 now, as long as your class allows it.
There are new weapons. We have your whips, we have your chainsaws, we have your slicers, we have a bunch of random crap now.
There are 2 new classes, Acrotecher and Acrofighter. They can use the new weapons like whips and Acrotecher can get higher level support spells.
New Story Mode! This is online only but just like in PSU we will periodically given new story missions which have some pretty neat concepts and puzzles.
New clothing! We have lots of outfits now to customize your character in a variety of ways. You can be a shirtless buff guy in a cowboy hat if you want to be or you could wear some really spiffy coats. The choice is yours.
New missions, enemies, and lobbies! We have new missions that make use of some of the empty lobbies and they lead to new lobbies. They can also be pretty tough as just S rank has enemies over level 100. Some missions may also have old enemies from PSO. Everyone remember Boomas? One of the new lobbies worth mentioning though, because now we have....
A Casino! Yes, you can waste all the time you want at the Casino Voloyal (which is a very dumb name) and win some great/weird prizes. These include tickets to remodel your room, music discs that you can play in your room on the new jukebox, and weapons like the Chainsawd. More prizes will be added as time goes on.
We don't have them yet but coming soon, PSO worlds! In a few months we will most likely be getting the forest and caves from PSO. According to beta testers for when AotI was in testing, the forest uses PSO music and has the PSO enemies like the wolves, boomas, and rappies. Relive the glory days. To help with this, PSO clothing will be released when these levels are so you can look just like a HUmar if you want to.
So there you go. There's a ton of stuff I missed so I'll probably be adding to this quite a bit. For almost all your information needs, your best bet is to visit PSO-World. You can get there by clicking
Here. There are a few things I should point out though.
Important!
There is a montly fee. $10 per month or you can pay for about 6 and get a discounted rate.
There is no offline mode in the 360 version and you MUST have the original PSU game disc to play the expansion. The expansion is downloaded from the marketplace on the 360 and it's about $20 to get it.
PS2 and PC are the only versions with offline. It's the online story missions from PSU Original but with new cut-scenes and voices. You
DO NOT need the original PSU game to play AotI on these platforms. Expansion only is fine.
On PS2 and PC, it's a one-way transfer of characters to the expansion. The old game's online mode will be worthless once you move.
Stuff is still released periodically. We do not have everything right now but for those of you that left within the first months, there's definitely enough content now to keep you happy for a while.
360 and PS2/PC servers are not shared and never will be. Sorry. I know, I hate it too.
So there you have it. If we get some players, I'll make a list of them. Hope you enjoy.
Posts
I am loving the Just Attack system; meleeing feels so much more like PSO these days. They even use the same sound effect for it as the Heavy Attack.
I'm "kupiyupaekio" on Discord.
SushiX - Beast Fighunner soon to be Acrofighter maybe..
I usually play on Uni 13 with the Dreamstation.cc group, but yalls are welcome to crash the party whenever you guys want.
Also my PP regens so quickly now even when not using Just Attack to regen the PP that way.
If those people were disappointed then, the real PSU has arrived now.
I loved PSU when it launched, but I really despised the entire "let's not give them much of the game to play online at all so they continue to pay us" deal they had going.
You're still gonna get that with the expansion, but not as much..
I quit for a bit in PSU and came back about a month before expansion right when 1up happened, and I was still kinda miffed that alot of stuff was still kinda kept hidden till expansion broke, but it is still somewhat fun doing the whole rare hunting and whatnot, and rares seem to be dropping alot more now, and the economy (pc/ps2 side) has seemed to improve quite a bit now, no more paying 30 million for an A Rank weapon anymore (it is my honest belief that A Rank weps grinded a bit are a bit better than some S Rank weps..not all but some)
Other than that I am quite pleased with the expansion and I am glad I came back.
Also goddamn you Sega. You put the Varista back in this game just to taunt all of the old PSO players with the same goddamn trick didn't you? OH LOOK, A RED WEAPON! VARISTA?! Fuck.
hahahahaha I thought the same thing when I got mine..I now have four of them, and sadly they do not sell for much in the shops..
But, the Varista was one of my favorite one hand gun in PSO so I am somewhat happy the brought it back, now if I see a Spread Needle I will wet myself.
Oh, I absolutely LOVE Acrofighter, sure I miss my Dbl Sabers alot, but man those slicers are a force to be reckoned with, and the PA for them are fairly easy to level up, I got mine to 23 so far and it looks pretty sweet and does an obscene amount of damage even unbuffed.
The thing is, I cannot really decide if I like the Cards or the Shadoogs better for my other slot, on one hand I love the whole pew pew pew with both the Card and Slicer, but on the other hand I really like the beam that comes out of my Ebrozike..
edit: And is it just me or are Photon Charges gone? You can buy them but I never find them anymore. One of the things I always did in the first game on the first level was grind for Scape Dolls, Star Atomizers and Photon Charges. They were EVERYWHERE. Now I haven't seen a one of them.
Photon Charges drop like crazy online, I really dont know about offline, but with the new Just Attack and Just guard, you really dont need them too much anymore, since that was updated I rarely use Photon Charges anymore since your PP recharges with each successful hit.
Where does the Rappy Mode fit? I can't seem to be able to use it. Does it only go in one type of slot or something? All I have now is the head slot.
Also, how exactly does Just Attack and Just Guard work? I'm doing my attacks in sequence judt like PSO and there's certainly no extra damage being dealt.
To do Just Attack, you have to press the attack button again just before your character resets to their neutral position. It's not enough to do a combo; you have to do it on the very edge of the losing the combo. If you do it correctly, you'll see a quick energy intake animation as your next swing begins.
I have never done Just Counter, but it's about the same thing. Attack just as your guard animation fades, not before.
*Even if I'm wrong, I lose nothing. I'm not online! ...yet.
I'm "kupiyupaekio" on Discord.
Right now, we have about 4 stars in the the main universe which is about 1500 people and random people are scattered around in other universes. 360 is about double that.
Yes, it is, but what does that mean? Do I have to find an armor with an "extra" slot instead if head, legs, arms etc?
You should be able to just go to either Parum or Neudiz to the armor dealer and buy yourself an armor with an extra slot, it fits right in there..Unless you are a Cast since I dont believe Casts can wear them due to thier extra slots are for SUV's, and I have a lvl 17 Cast Hunter offline mode and found three of those and could not equip them even though my extra slot was open for some reason (No SUV since I am not 20 yet)
Some of the more high-end things like Puyoment Aura and possibly Rappy Mode can only be equipped on A rank armor.
Or higher.
All armours with the appropriate slots can equip units of the same or lower grade ranks.
And yes PC/PS2 version is about 1500 players I assume. However we should continue to push to get people back into the game.
I'm "kupiyupaekio" on Discord.
I'm reinstalling the damn client, but I'm wondering how I get the expansion pack. Do I go to the store or something?
Yeah, PS2 and PC are physical copies you have to buy seperately. 360 is downloadable content that's half the price but requires the original game as well.
Also a get-together night would be pretty cool but I'm not able to play late at night most of the time. I usually have to stop around 6 pacific time. If it was before that though, I could probably join.
And... servers just went down to start on AOTI's first update
Female Clothes
Mikumiko Set ( Shrine Maiden )
Hulauna Set
Vatavara Set
Male Clothes
Fujifiji Set
Kouze Set
Male CAST parts
Apollos Parts
Female CAST parts
Baclone Parts
Also that new dragon boss in Neu is really awesome looking.
Also it figures that I'd make a dark armor as soon as some light missions open up :?
I guess Sega couldn't bear to see Capcom get all the glory for Monster Hunter on the PSP.
http://www.rpgamer.com/news/Q4-2007/120507a.html
http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ps/psp/propaganda/psp1.jpg
I don't know what to think about it. I know the PSP is a fully capable device and I'm sure nothing will change, it'll likely have it's own servers and whatnot. But still, there's a part of me that is concerned that things are going to get dumbed down a bit. And considering PSU isn't exactly the most complex game to begin with...
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
It's not even online:
http://www.gemaga.com/2007/12/06/sega-goes-completely-mad-phantasy-star-psp-not-online
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
It took SonicTeam how many years to finally stop picking the corpse of PSO's pockets for change and release a new game, and all they add to the combat is strafing? No cool particle effects on attacks, or a nice new modern combat system. We get strafing bolted onto the old system. Whee.
I keep checking in to see if that's changed, but it doesn't seem like it ever will.
But no, PSU/O don't have the deepest combat systems. But on the other hand they're dungeon crawlers. PSU combat is a step up from Diablo type games IMO. Sure, instead of pushing 12345 you're pushing ABXY but it still at least feels more interactive with positioning and whatnot.
I don't really know what you're looking for. Besides the technical limitations of doing such, you're not going to have a game like this with a combat system from prince of persia or something.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
hahah wut.
God I wasted so many hundreds of thousands of Zeni trying to make the goddamn goddamn axes because they were awesome and Fortefighters are awesome and now it's 100% for everything now oh god.
And let's not forget that the meleers are doing gymnastics on their special attacks now, as opposed to a heavy attack being a normal hit with a charge animation in front of it.
I'm "kupiyupaekio" on Discord.
Well, it's not exactly 100%. They activated the bonuses we earned during the 1Up Cup and one of them was a 15% synth rate increase so until thursday, anything that was normally 85% is now 100%.
Neither was Monster Hunter Freedom and tons of people are playing that online anyway. PSUSP will be no exception I'm sure.