Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

It drives me seriously up the wall that so many of my online friends - most of whom I met as a direct result of our common interest in Phantasy Star games - would rather play Final Fantasy 11 than PSU. GAWD.

PSU is just so. much. better.

- You can solo effectively in PSU.
- A noob can afford to customize their house, clothes, and still have decent weaponry.
- There's no downtime during battles to recharge your MP.
- You don't lose XP if you get killed in PSU.
- You don't have to fight with other players to get a crack at a rare monster or three.
- It's cheaper per-month. And you don't pay for having more than one character.
- You're not stuck with auction house fees, because you can open and decorate your own store.
- You only have to dress flamboyantly if you want to - you're not stuck with subligar being the best armor you can get, for 6 levels.
- Nobody ever gets their entire party wiped out by a poorly-timed goblin respawn on PSU.
- You have not one but TWO choices of race for catgirl-styled characters.
- The old varista and dubbal-sabar jokes from PSO are still funny.

Seriously. GAAAAH. Why do they do this to me?

Those all sound like good points that would make PSU a better game. I suppose the biggest draw to online multiplayer games is what other people you know are playing. Games like these aren't as fun traditionally when playing alone, so people tend to go where there friends are.

That's just my theory, though. I haven't played an online game in years.

I would say it also depends on which games you liked better, the old PS games, or the old FF ones. In my opinion 4 is the only PS that could even stand a chance against 7, seeing as how it made 2 movies, and a game after it. XD You didn't mention any bad factors about PSU, or any good ones about FF, which could make a big difference in most people's opinions. For example, PSU freezes up quite a bit, while from my experiences FF doesn't do a whole lot of. XD

It probably makes a difference that their are only like 7 PS's, but more than 14 FF's. XDDDD

SparkyIII wrote:I would say it also depends on which games you liked better, the old PS games, or the old FF ones. In my opinion 4 is the only PS that could even stand a chance against 7, seeing as how it made 2 movies, and a game after it. XD You didn't mention any bad factors about PSU, or any good ones about FF, which could make a big difference in most people's opinions. For example, PSU freezes up quite a bit, while from my experiences FF doesn't do a whole lot of. XD

It probably makes a difference that their are only like 7 PS's, but more than 14 FF's. XDDDD

I suppose what you're saying about fan preference is true, though it certainly didn't stop most of the people I'm talking about from playing PSO for hours on end back on the Dreamcast. Which is mainly why it bothers me. Most of them didn't give PSU even a second glance, some even wrote it off as boring and repetetive - but somehow, FF11 isn't. Even after killing the exact same goblin 700 times just to go up a level.

It just seems silly to me to think an MMO *isn't* going to be repetetive in the first place.

I guess you're talking about the PC PSU, freeze-wise? I've played it on the 360 and the PS2, and on both I've had no bad experiences like that at all. Heck, on the PS2 I'm in the 90-hours range (counting offline mode) and haven't had any problems at all.... Well, other than finding people I already know, to play with.

Yeah, I've never played a game online without one of the regular systems. lol.

I haven't had any freezing problems with PSU on PC myself, but it does run kind of slow. I suppose it depends somewhat on the power of the PC and how high the graphics details are set.

BroWren wrote:Most of them didn't give PSU even a second glance, some even wrote it off as boring and repetetive

Maybe they're thinking of it as a rehash of PSO? While PSU stands okay on it's own merits, a lot of what I've played as felt very much like PSO. It could just be a matter of their tastes in games changing, too. PSO was, for many of them, years ago.