Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst

Well. Apologies to all nonexistent readers. Exams and other trials and tribulations have left me with little time to do anything, let alone blog.

However, in amongst the chaos, I discovered a gem of a game in the form of Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst.

First, the bad. A difficulty curve that is purely vertical, leading to me and my force character dying more times than Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Also, a targeting system that cannot actually target anything whatsoever, when you are phased by a simple walk to the left, it hasn't been thought through. Third is an almost communist approach to items, i.e. we have none, at all. The final complaint is a predictable one, a camera that just loves to zoom in on butterflies and flowers and other irrelevent things whilst big scary monsters come to eat me. Big scary monsters that strafe.

Now, the good. Combat is fun when not aimed at rocks and other scenery, (if scorchmarks stayed on the server, the walls would be blackened). The story is actually rather good, if you pay attention to it. But the main reason for it's greatness is that it is an MMORPG not inhabited by amoral assholes that superimpose little target signs on characters with levels lower than themselves. Playing it online with Sprite has been a joy. There is little lag (except on my home connection, but given that both of my connections are usually torrenting. This is acceptable.) My main joy is the price. Free. Because I subscribe to a private server, I don't have to pay for the game, and because it's downloadable free, my wallet stays healthy from those costs too.

Now, this next bit deserves a drumroll, because it leads into a description of the most...annoying...bug...EVER. Sega made it a closely guarded secret that to input your username and password, you have to press control and F11, but only on randomly selected machines! The rest function fine. I imagine at this very moment, small Japanese SEGA employees are being chained up and flogged to death due to this particular bug.

Still, it's a fun little game, and well worth it if you like the MMORPGness without the assholes and the n00bs. If you want the private server details...check it out in the SnesOrama forums.

If you do decide to join, I'm called Lightmare and I usually use female force characters, check. I haunt the RaGoL ship. See me around.