Since very early beginnings on the Sega Master System to the recent entries on the Xbox 360, the Phantasy Star series has always been known for a quality RPG experience online or offline. The Dreamcast version of Phantasy Star Online is still seen as one of the best MMOs ever, but a true sequel, that lives up to the older games has never come to fruition. Now Sega are bringing the series to PSP, but will the lack of any online mode make this little more than another Monster Hunter clone?
A semi sequel to Phantasy Star Universe, in story terms only, Phantasy Star Portable uses elements of the online series, while not actually including any online functionality; the first of the game’s many troubles. By not including online, the world is never actually populated by other NPCs, with all control taken away from you outside dungeons making this even more noticeable. You select every element of your adventure from a set of confusing menus, which leaves only the somewhat lacklustre dungeons for you to navigate. These dungeons are then near empty, with only your small party filling what huge space there is.
One element of the online game that is present here that works though is the first option you’ll have when loading the game for the first time. The character creation is effectively done, with just enough variety in all 4 of the races available-this boiling down to a simple defence vs. attack specialty curve for each-and enough sliders to alter that you can have a unique character. While this is great, the purpose of creating a character is that you stand out form the crowd. When that crowd can consist of no more than 4 players-in Adhoc mode-it ends up being pretty much pointless. The lack of online is the least of the game’s worries though, as the fundamentals of the game fail to live up to expectations.
The missions in Phantasy Star Portable are split into two distinct variations, story based missions, and free missions. Obviously the story missions are required for progress, but this is less of an issue thanks to the way that free missions are required to unlock the next story mission. This defeats the point of having free missions, and allows these to be rehashes of old challenges, with no new story or character development. That said, the story missions aren’t too diverse either, with every single one having you kill all the enemies in an area to find a key, then unlock a gate with the key, rinse and repeat. It gets repetitive pretty quickly, and whatever the game tries to do, from throwing a new enemy at you-which there are very few of in the first place-to making you trigger an event by smashing crates rather than defeat enemies, it never makes the game feel varied in any way, which spells danger for an RPG.
The combat may seem to be interesting at first, but even in this the game fails to feel varied. Square is your primary attack button, and while some weapons allow the use of triangle for a special, or L to shoot a gun instead, most have one way of attacking. The same combo will repeat over and over again, which makes for severely boring animations in battle. The game also suffers from bad hit detection here, and far too often you’ll be swinging your weapon into thin air stuck in a combo you can’t cancel. There is a lock on system, but this only emphasises the game’s other, major control problem, the camera. You’ll lock onto an enemy, but the camera won’t so you’ll be then aiming in the wrong direction, making certain fights near impossible. The only control you have over it is with the directional buttons, but this is way too slow to be useful. But in battle the one thing you will be doing is repeatedly pressing the attack button. In nearly the entire game, all that is needed is some faux tactics where you decided when to use a healing item, and pressing the square button repeatedly. The gameplay in Phantasy Star Portable is yet another example of why the game is a poor example of the genre and franchise on the PSP, but nothing can prepare for how lacklustre certain elements of the presentation are.
The in game graphics are well done, with detailed character and enemy models and a clean style throughout. The environments are a tad drab though, which is reflective of where the game originated from, where the amount of people on screen at once would outweigh the environment. This makes the emptiness of the dungeons that much more evident though. The menu systems that the game uses may look decent, but the very fact that these are used instead of exploration is more important than how they are presented. One aspect of the game that really suffers from presentation is the story, which is terrible to begin with. The game displays story in multiple ways, far too many differing ways to keep track of the boring tale it tries to tell. There are FMV scenes that look fantastic, still image galleries, and lengthy bouts of talking heads with subtitles appearing at the bottom of the screen. All of these are accompanied by the worst aspect of the entire game, diabolical voice acting. Every character seems to have been voiced by someone bored throughout, with key lines being delivered with such a lack of emphasis that you will skip the dialogue as it drags on. This is the only aspect of the sound design that is weak though, as the music is actually pretty impressive, and the sound effects do the job effectively. The voice acting is some of the worst on PSP, which in an RPG as long as Phantasy Star takes its toll on your patience.
For a series that is often referred to as one of the premiere RPG franchises on the market, Phantasy Star Portable is one of the worst entries Sega could have hoped for. The game has far too many problems to recommend to even fans of the series, and the lack of online multiplayer makes this even more disheartening. A real disappointment in nearly every area, pick up Phantasy Star Universe instead, or Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII for your RPG fix on PSP.
Nometet.com says 
