Phantasy Star Universe (PS2)

...Gameplay :

Phantasy Star Universe is an Action-RPG, character exists in the 3D real-time action and movements. Character can run or dodge the enemy's attacks depends on the players controlling skill. Player can also perform the special attacking styles combos to defeat the enemies.

Control:
Left Analog - Move character
Right Analog - Turn camera view
D-pad - Move selection
Circle - Confirm/examine ...
...- Cancel function, display quite item use menu
Square - Attack/use the existing equipment
Triangle - Attack with skill/technique
L1 - Lock-on target, center camera view
R1 - Draw weapon (gun)
R3 - Zoom into first person view
Start - Open menu

<In-Battle >
Attack
- Press "Square" button for normal attack
- Press "Triangle" button to perform skill ... more

One hundred years of peace is destroyed in an instant when deadly invaders called The SEED descend on the Gurhal System. As the Alliance Military Force Fleet crumbles under the SEED's superior might, Ethan Waber begins a heroic journey to save his home planet alongside the elite GUARDIANS." This event change the life of Ethan Waber, a 17 year old Human who lives at the Guardian Colony with his sister Lumia. Ethan is not very fond of the GUARDIANS, a group of protectors whom his father once belonged to and was killed while on a mission for the Guardians. Eventually, he realizes his hatred was misplaced, and ends up joining the guardians.

Characters :

Ethan Weber
Age: 17 Years Old
Race: Human
Sex: Male
Class: Hunter (changeable)
Weapon of Choice: Player's choice!
Special Technique: Any

The protagonist of the story, and the character you control in story mode. Friendly, but he also can be aggressive and rather reckless. He tries his best to provide for and take care of his sister Lumia. Ethan and Hyuga are good friends, and he seems to have a thing for Karen.

Lumia
Age: Unknown, younger than Ethan
Race: Human
Sex: Female
Class: Unknown

Ethan's younger sister. Her personalities are nearly the opposite of her brother's. She is religious, and often talks about the Holy Maiden.

Leogini "Leo" S. Berafort
Age: Unknown
Race: Beast
Sex: Male
Class: Hunter
Weapon of Choice: Two-Handed Swords, Spears.
Special Techniques: Spinning Break, Dus Rubado.

Ethan meets Leo in the very beginning of the game. Leo accompanies Ethan as his instructor. Leo's personality has a high self confidence.

Hyuga Ryght
Age: 17 Years Old
Race: Human
Sex: Male
Class: Hunter
Weapon of Choice: Sabers and Twin Sabers
Special Technique: Gravity Strike, Assault Crush.

Ethan's right hand man throughout the game. Hyuga is very religious, often babbling about the Holy Maiden, though he also tries to get with every girl he sees.

Karen Erra
Age: 17 Years Old
Race: Newman
Sex: Female
Class: Hunter
Weapon of Choice: Twin Daggers
Special Technique: ?

Karen is Ethan and Hyuga's original instructor while they are in Guardian training. She got her guardian license at 14 (which they make seem like a big feat to do at a young age), and became an instructor. She's a very good instructor, and always tries to keep Ethan and Hyuga in line during missions. Karen and Ethan seem to have a bond. Karen was an adopted child, and Maya is her "sister". Even though she's a Newman, she cannot use TECHNICs.

Lucaim Nav
Age: 160 Years Old?
Race: CAST
Sex: Male
Class: Hunter
Weapon of Choice: Knuckles and Twin Claws
Special Technique: Bogga Danga

Lucaim is the Headmaster of the Guardians, and is quite old (and as one might expect, he is a sick old perverted with Lolita complex). He is very strong despite his old age.

Maya Shidow
Age: 20 (?)
Race: Newman
Sex: Female
Class: Force
Weapon of Choice: Staves and Crossbows.

Maya works for the Guardians to make new items and equipment. She is very smart girl and also Karen's "sister", as Karen was adopted into her family.

Tonnio Rhima
Age: Unknown
Race: Beast
Sex: Male
Class: Hunter
Weapon of Choice: Daggers, One-Handed Claws.
Special Technique: Buten Shuren-zan

He may look like a child, but he is indeed an adult. He is always ready
to start a fight, especially with Ethan at first. He is very cocky and
easily get angry.

Gameplay :

Phantasy Star Universe is an Action-RPG, character exists in the 3D real-time action and movements. Character can run or dodge the enemy's attacks depends on the players controlling skill. Player can also perform the special attacking styles combos to defeat the enemies.

Control:
Left Analog - Move character
Right Analog - Turn camera view
D-pad - Move selection
Circle - Confirm/examine function
X - Cancel function, display quite item use menu
Square - Attack/use the existing equipment
Triangle - Attack with skill/technique
L1 - Lock-on target, center camera view
R1 - Draw weapon (gun)
R3 - Zoom into first person view
Start - Open menu

<In-Battle >
Attack
- Press "Square" button for normal attack
- Press "Triangle" button to perform skill move
- Hold "R1" to switch for gun attack
- Hold "L1" to log-on the target

Inventory Change
- Hold "X" button to display the fixed item, then move the selection to the item or equipments that you want, release X to use or equip. You must set the items under 'Inventory' menu first.

PP bar
- As you can see the blue line at right bottom, it's the PP bar which used to perform your skills.
- The amount of PP available is affected by the weapon.
- Each time you use skill, it will reduce the PP. It will restore slowly while going through the battle.
- To restore the PP bar faster, you can either use PP restoring item or charge it with Photon Charger. As for the Photon Charger, it's an object like save point but with a cube.

Character Status :

HP = Hit Points. It's the character's health, if it drops to 0, he/she dies. This can be recovered using items or restorative skills.

ATP = Attack Power. Increases the damage of melee attacks.

ATA = Attack Accuracy. Incrases the damage of ranged attacks.

TP = Technic Potency. Increases the damage of TECHNICs

DFP = Defensive Power. Decreases the amount of damage suffered.

EVP = Evasion Power. Decreases the chance of getting hit.

MST = Mental Strength. Decrease damage from TECHNICs

STA = Status Abnormality Resistance. Decreases chance of Status Changes.

PP = Photon Points. These power TECHNICs as well as special moves for weapons. Each weapon has it's own set of PP, and they can all be recharged using a Photon Charger or by finding a stationary Photon Recharging Unit.

Item Types:

Weapons:
- Melee weapons range from the simple (One Handed Saber, Dagger
etc...) to the Huge (Two-Handed Sword, Spears), and the creative
(Knuckles, Claws).
- Ranged weapons are pretty much what you would expect. Handguns, Machineguns, Rifles, Shotguns, Bows, and anything alike.
- Staves are the same, they all look different, but do the same thing: house the TECHNICs you will use in battle. There are one-handed wands and long staves. You can have a handgun with one-handers, while long staves take up both slots in the palette.

Armor:
- Armor is pretty much the same wherever you go, the only difference is the type of slots that the armor has. There are four slots: Head, Arm, Body and Extra. Each slot can have a type of Unit added to it that will increase various statistics.

Items:
- Items range from recovery items (-Mate family, Star Atomizer),PP Recovery (Photon Charger), Party Revival (Moon Atomizer/Moon Atomizer X), and Status Recovery (Sol Atomizer). You can also consider Grinders in this series as well (more on those later), as well as Mines.

Clothes:
- Each character has a set of clothes on. In the case of Ethan, at
first he has an entire set of clothes that he customized, but he can
later choose from normal clothes like any other character. Clothes
consist of a Shirt Type, Pants Type, and Shoes.

Boards:
- Each item has a specific board (as in like..."motherboard" or such) which you must give to your Partner Machine in order to synthesize said item. Each board contains the "recipe" of ingredients you need to do so.

Ingredients:
- Instead of finding Weapons and Armor all over the place like you used to in PSO, you find ingredients. Ingredients can be used by your
Partner Machine to Synthesis new Weapons, Armor, and other things.

Discs:
- These are what you use to learn Photon Arts. Typically these are
bought at a store, but these can also be received from party members
after completing a Mission with a rank of S. Each character can only have 36 Photon Arts learned at a time.

Classes :

Hunter: Hunter is a great overall class, and good for beginners. They can use any melee weapon in the game.

Ranger: Good with ranged weapons, while you can still use some
melee and staff weapons.

Force: Master of TECHNICs! which can deal great amount of damage. This class doesn't have much to choose from in types of weapons, but you have TONs of spells to choose from. However, Force class has low physical attributes.

Basic Mechanics :

The Palettes:
-Will be your dearest friend during battle. You can set up to 6 Weapon combinations in the Action Palette at one time. Each slot has two sections, left and right.

-Tool Palette is located on the left of action palette, where you can put items and other things to be accessed easily. You'll use this for healing items, and tools like your Photon Eraser and Photon Reflector, etc.

Photon Arts :

Photon Arts are special techniques that you can apply to a weapon to either give you a new move (Melee), spell, or just add an element to the weapon (Ranged). In order to use Photon Arts, you must gain the disc which contains them. These can be bought from shops, or you can get them from party members after completing a mission, but only if you got a perfect score (1,000 Points). Each weapon type has it's own set of Photon Arts. Each character can only have 36 Photon Arts at a time.

Missions :

There are two types of missions. Main Missions (Story-Mode and Online Mode only) and Free Missions (all modes). Within each mission you are given a goal: Destroy this monster, Escort this person, make sure a person doesn't die, Reach this point in a stage, etc. Depending on how many monsters you killed, how long it took you to complete the task set to you, and (when applicable) how many times certain party members died, you will get a Mission Score. Doing Missions is the only way to level up your class, as you need Mission Points to do so. Check your Vision Phone in order to
see which Free Missions are available in all modes.

My Room :

In all modes you get a personal room, which contains a Partner Machine (named "Pete" in Story Mode), a Save Crystal, 3 spots to put up Room. They provide you with storage, and can also Synthesize
weapons, armors, and items for you. Your partner can level up, and depending on what you feed them, they will become a different type, winding up having a different attitude in battle and using different weapons.

Synthesizing :

In order to make items through Synthesis, you need to find Item Boards that contain the recipe to make the item you wish to Synthesize. You must insert the board into your Partner Machine, and then check to see if you have the necessary ingredients to make it. If you do, you must put the ingredients into storage, then attempt to make it. Each item has it's own success rate, depending on the level of your Partner Machine. By Synthesizing, you can get powerful items you may never see in a store, or make items a lot cheaper. You can also customize certain items to your liking.

Store Types :

Instead of having just one type of shop, there are many types: GRM, Tenora Works, Yohmei Corp, and others. This means that a Saber style weapon you get from each company will be different in looks, stats, and price. This also means that you cannot have your weapon
grinded anywhere, you have to take it to the shop where you got it from.

Grinding :

You can buy them at shops, and you have to take them to a Weapon Upgrade shop. Your weapons can break when you have them grinded. The maximum level of any weapon is 10 grinds, and the first two will almost always work.

Overall this game is quite entertaining, though it's best to be played online with other people. The graphic is not extremely special but it does have many flashy special effects, the soundtracks are quite good. And for the storyline itself, it's still reasonably worth playing. 

...less