PSO2 NGS : The good, the bad, and the content?

Released June 9th, 2021 for PC and Xbox, as neither a sequel nor whole new game PSO2: NGS delivers a true open world environment without borders (mostly), a completely redesigned graphics engine, updated battle system, and to top it all off a new story! Fast forward to today (January 10th, 2021 at the time of writing), and what can you expect from this action-packed universe? Well – That kind of depends.

The Good

Graphics – The newly adopted engine from Silicon Studio Japan brought with it a feature they call Enlighten GI. A real-time global illumination (GI) middleware which calculates light as it ” is reflected or absorbed by materials or objects within scenes to accurately simulate both indirect and direct lighting.” This makes the game look and feel phenomenal. While I can’t speak to just how much is actively rendered what I can say from experience is that hovering between areas is extremely fluid and visually stunning. Right down to the fast-paced combat visuals, character designs, and textures.

Character Customization – I can’t think of any other mmo on the market today (albeit free) that comes close to the level of options & character details offered in NGS. Height, weight, individual eye color, hair color, nearly every option imaginable. While this certainly allows for some rather remarkably creative characters there is also an “ah-ha”, to which I’ll touch on later.

Battle System / Classes –

Currently at the time of this article all classes in PSO2 are available in NGS with the exception of: Summoner, Hero, Phantom, and Etoile.

PSO2 NGS doesn’t feel as “spammy” for lack of a better term when compared PSO2 with the revamped battle system. Yes, it is still quite fast paced but not in an overly-caffeinated-button-mashing-organized-chaos sense. You can’t continuously dodge in the air expecting to evade everything as you could in PSO2. Not to say that you can’t in NGS, just that it requires a bit more precision. Another addition is the fact that now you can equip all weapons available to your sub class on your main class! The game feels a bit slower & more refined despite missing a ton of PA’s available in PSO2. Something that Sega is planning to add according to their dev roadmap for 2022.

Generally, I prefer melee classes & enjoy being right in the action so starting out I chose a Hunter (main), and Fighter (sub class). Being familiar with PSO2’s mechanics it’s easy to catch on quick. The only bit that took a little getting used to is the weapon-action which varies depending on your equipped weapon and whether you quickly tap or hold it.

Most boss fights are engaging and as I said earlier, relatively fast paced (see below). The only issue – there aren’t that many of them.

Even with the lack of available PA’s when compared to the original PSO2. NGS is still very engaging combat-wise. I’ve yet to play as any of the other classes so I’m hoping that subpalette fills up.

The Bad

Where is everyone?

PSO2’s main servers are broken down into Ships & blocks. I happen to be on Ship 2 which is considered to be one of if not the most populated Ships to be on due to a variety of factors going back to the JP release of PSO2, anyway. Majority of the player base occupies Blocks 10 and 30/31 – the rest well see for yourself. It often makes finding a group rather difficult & the only time you will see anyone is either in a city lobby or waiting for a boss fight.

And lobbies such as this which players have now dubbed PSO2 as a “Lobby Simulator”.

Back in June of 2021 Sega Sammy (Sega’s parent company after the merger in 04′) reported that PSO2 reached $913 million USD since it’s release in 2012 and has exceeded 9 million users globally with the largest monthly user base located in Japan (6.5m users). According to mmo-population.com though the story is a bit different.

With NGS released in June of 2021 and an estimated peak of 250K users at the time, now looking at barely 50K in January of 2022 it just begs the question what happened? and where did the player base go? The figures are even worse according to Steamcharts. A rise pre NGS release is expected, same as with the drop of new NGS content in December. Nonetheless the picture is clear that the player base is declining despite Segas attempts at resuscitating PSO2.

Clearly there’s a disconnect between Sega and the players and the numbers speak for themselves.

Gatcha~

Much of the distaste for new players that do endure this grind, put in the time and effort to make it all the way to the highest level is the fact that in some form or another anything worth having is highly unattainable unless they spend real money for Arks-Cash (An in-game PSO2 currency used for premium items, access, and features purchased with real currency), and use it on scratch tickets (form of item lottery), and pray they get something worthwhile to sell.

The difference between new player & progression equipment to endgame equipment can be 10’s or 100’s of millions of meseta (Phantasy Star’s base currency – not paid for with currency). In addition, a vast majority of players by which I mean 80% or more of PSO2 is driven by cosmetics / appearances i.e having the latest costume, skin, accessory, hair, etc. Now do you see how this ties into character customization as I mentioned before.

The Content – We’re in the Endgame Now?

Phantasy Star Online has always been an action-packed grind fest. Even thinking back to the countless days spend on the Dreamcast playing PSO Episode I & II, it’s just what we’ve come to expect from the series. However, scenes such as this (see below), are all too commonplace in NGS. Players huddled around waiting for the next big enemy to pop as there’s nothing else to do. There are Urgent Quests which involve players grouping up into teams at specific locations and adhering to battle power requirements for participation but those occur far and few between.

Long gone are the golden days of PSO running TTF, or different quests / challenges to hunt rare and difficult monsters with your team. In NGS you don’t even have a personal quarters or alliance quarters to have your own personal space to yourself or teammates. So, what’s there to do instead? Well – not much.

Sega is apparently aware of this growing appetite for any content and has outlined a roadmap to appease the NGS community.

Whilst this is a good effort the most concerning bit is missing. Where are the quests or missions? What about class balancing? It’s naively optimistic to think this will be included in a skill cap increase and / or timed with new skills but we’ll have to wait and see.

There is no easy way to summarize the experience of PSO2 NGS as it is a love hate relationship. I think the best way to put it so far is this. PSO2 NGS offers a vast and vibrant environment filled with stunning detail down to the nearest pixel. An engaging combat system yearning to be tapped into with any form of content. All for a freemium price paid by the ever-dwindling community and their desire for content in the pursuit of cosmetics. I hope Sega turns things around and listens more to the actual player