R.I.P. Phantasy Star Universe

[BFGfreak]

I just found out that the first MMO of sorts I've played, Phantasy Star Universe, is shutting down it's Xbox 360 servers on September 6th. Now for those who don't know about it, PSU was the spiritual successor to sega's hit console multiplayer game Phantasy Star Online, which itself is a spiritual sequel to their original phantasy star series of games. The game took place in a futuristic system where your basic JRPG crisis formed, and after completing the single player story (terrible voice acting, copy/paste story) you could create your own character and grind your way to higher levels in the hopes of getting good items from piss poor drop rates (STO's proto borg techs seem to have a higher drop rate than some of the items in that game did). About 2 years after it was launched, they released an expansion which included a single player online campaign with multiple branching paths (conveniently unlocked AFTER you beat the chapter, some actually had you complete an event in a later chapter that unlocks a dialogue option in an earlier chapter) and whole new levels. The problems came from the fact that this game was intended for the PS2, and as such, adding new content was more or less impossible, even for the PC server. Anyway, about 2 years ago they shut down the North American PC/PS2 servers due to low populations, and from then on I knew it was only a matter of time before the xbox server dipped below the profit threshold. Dispite the fact that by that point my interest in it waned, I still kept my subscription going and dropped by every now and then. Then at the beginning of June, sega finally anounced that they were going to shut down the xbox servers.

Anyway, I decided to fire up my xbox to visit my old stomping grounds for a few final times, and I just got overwhelmed with so much nostalgia I just couldn't play anymore. For me, this game is what ushered in my console gaming experience, I met my first big xbox friends on that game, who introduced me to their friends which helped fill in my friends list with gamers I could have fun with. It was my go to casual game for when I just wanted to chillax and grind for gear. I had some good memories playing it (and bad one's dealing with sega's less than stellar customer service) So I am kind of sad to see it go away, although not surprised (actually, I'm surprised it lasted the 6 years it did)

Anyway, I'd just thought I'd get that off my chest, maybe see if anyone here ever played or heard if it. It's just that playing that game now feels like visiting an old school you used to go to before it gets torn down. I'm also going to miss my original characters, my first online avatars of myself (outside of the demo for this game) It feels like your friends are going away and you'll never see them again. But life goes on, even more so in the virtual world. While losing those zero's and ones, .mesh's and .texture's are hard, I still look forward to the future, and maybe one day I'll be able to create my own game, and my characters from the various games I've played will be reborn not as "just another player" but as story characters, love interests, vendors, end bosses, and heroes.

[CyAn1d3]

..... I still look forward to the future, and maybe one day I'll be able to create my own game, and my characters from the various games I've played will be reborn not as "just another player" but as story characters, love interests, vendors, end bosses, and heroes.

i say that to myself when i think of how degraded final fantasy has become over the years.

i too wish one day to make an RPG to allow the "spirits of the greats" to carry on.

i tinkered with this game ages ago, and to be honest i though it got shut down long before now, it makes me shudder to think of how old BC is, but this is just proof that old developers should know, and new ones should strive for: when you have a gem, you have one, no matter how old it is.