Phantasy Star Portable, any good?

I played Phantasy Star Universe, even beat it, when it first came out. However, I consider it one of the weaker installments in the series.

I heard Phantasy Star Portable 1 and 2, are slightly different in gameplay. But can't acertain how much they differ, and if for better or worse.
I cant prejudge games I havent played, but admittedly dont like PSU much.
And yet I loved PSO, and the classic series, of course.

Are Phantasy Star Portable 1 or 2 any good?
I was thoroughly impressed with Phantasy Star Zero; however from what I understand, all games mentioned have a different development team, aside from the PSO and onward music composer, being a similar bond of these games.

Any suggestions or viewpoints are welcome. Thanks.

I can't really comment on it regarding PSU or PSO, since I have not played any of those. But I have played PSP and PSP 2: Infinity.

They do have an interesting story, from the little I have seen. This was a period when I had little time for games, so I did not go deep in the story, choosing the dungeon crawler side instead.

I can tell you the character customization and collecting focus of the game can be very attractive if you are into that. Getting more equipment, creating yourself, friends, and/or characters you like in order to play with them is also good.

The difficulty is nice. You can create a challenge for yourself if you want, going to missions with higher-level monsters, or you can train and be overpowered, and obliterate everything on your path.

What did you not like in PSU? I think you can like these action RPGs, since you liked PSO and also enjoyed Zero. Was it the story? Was it Ethan? OR the classes/species/techniques?

What I can recommend is getting the demo for PSP. It allows you to play the first story mission, but you can play more multiplayer missions, and level up to level 20. It should be enough to get a general feeling (and more) of the game and know if you like it or not.

PSP 2 in English is very expensive, though. I had to import Infinity because of that. I like it because I will have more story and more items to collect (with Pizza Hut and KFC, too). I do not like it because there is a lot of the story I will miss since I only understand the very minimum of it, practically nothing that is not names.

Thank you Icecypher, much appreciated. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I already went ordered a PSP along with Phantasy Star Portable. Only the first one.

I guess I have poor self-control, but not really that, more along the lines of insatiable curiosity. But I appreciate your reply anyway; it was Phantasy Star Portable 2 that had me interested: precisely for the fact that it does seem to sell for much more than the other Phantasy Star Universe titles.

Yes I've only played PSU for the Xbox 360. I haven't played Ambitions of The Illumnus, and the portable titles that I have mentioned above.

I suppose you had quite well in all areas that I did not like PSU. Ethan, I could tolerate, after all I can tolerate Chaz. The story itself I could also tolerate, but the setting I suppose was most unpalatable thing I didn't like. The way they handle the different races, The voice acting, I could've done without. In the music was not memorable, despite it being the same composer. I can certainly say that I did not like vocal songs, unlike Phantasy Star Online's. So pretty subjective reasons so far.

In PSU, I suppose overall it is the themes of how they presented the different races, the different planets, the way they conveniently inserted Dark Falz had no build up, the concept of photons and the techniques, and just the execution of the game itself was good enough to play through, but not good enough to go back to.

I suppose objectively on paper, all the same things that I dislike it for, are in Phantasy Star Online and even Phantasy Star 0 (Zero). However the subjective feeling that I have for PSU isn't the same warm feeling that I have for PS Zero and PSO.

I think PSO was beautifully executed despite being a great leap from the traditional Phantasy Star gameplay.

It took me years, because of both school, work, and a general weariness, to play PS 0. But I finally did recently, and I am glad. It handled the racist thing I think quite well, and the throwback story with gentle nods to Phantasy Star II I found quite well. Not only that, but the slight tie in with Phantasy Star Online was one that I noticed and appreciated.

But yeah, all of these things that I don't like PSU for, they all exist in the other newer games. So I was just hoping that I just found the execution of the other games much better. Phantasy Star Portable may redeem itself, or its sequel. I read mixed things about the games, so my only way to find out is to find out for myself.

But if you're happy with the gameplay in PSP 2, I suppose that is a good sign; it's in Japanese which I assume you don't understand, and yet the game is so very much playable or enjoyable, so must have a good execution. I just have to find a copy of the game now.

Thank you.

Apparently as opposed to buying the American PSP game for PSP 2, there is also an international version that is in English, this was localized for the European market.

This is a cheaper alternative to obtaining the game in English, without paying the incredibly high price.

About PSP 2's price, I imagine PSP was produced in great quantities, and it did not sell as well as Sega expected (it retains a cheap price), so they only produced very few PSP 2 units, so most of them are sold and now the few that are left get a high price. Although I think the general concensus is that PSP 2 does everything better, compared to PSP.

If you already bought the first game, I am sure you will at least enjoy it enough to finish the story. That much should be fine. Let us see if you are hooked for hours and hours of free missions, as well.

I actually managed to snipe and eBay auction for Phantasy Star Portable 2 for $25 USD with shipping. But my PSP hasn't arrived yet; but I will let you guys know how these games are in my humble opinion.

I have still been playing Phantasy Star 0 (Zero), however I still have 3 missions that I cannot clear on hard mode, at least yet. The MechBoss faced on those 2 missions before Mother Trinity keeps whipping my team’s, assets.
Which is surprising because I managed to defeat that same boss on Hard mode, on the non-mission storyline aspect of the game. So I'll just keep grinding for now.

Who would've thought that the PSP requires a memory stick, in order to save my data....? And in addition to that nuisance, who would've thought that it does not use SD cards or microSD cards without any such adapter required. because it does. It's when playing games becomes work that I tend to back away.

I wish the 3 DS could emulate the PSP. This device is too small, small screen mode buttons, etc. It reminds me of the early 2nd generation GBA .

Zio_Falz wrote:

I wish the 3 DS could emulate the PSP. This device is too small, small screen mode buttons, etc. It reminds me of the early 2nd generation GBA .

and the truly still second and third that opinion.
I hate the PSP.
I find the control of the awkward and unplayable.
all that effort to find complete copies of PSP1 and PSP2, are seemingly, in vain.

It's a shame.

While I definitely am more comfortable with Nova's controls, I think the PSP games' controls were good enough for me, especially after getting used to where everything was.

I hope this does not detract you from trying some other PSP games, though. Other games may have better designs that would suit you more.