Having dedicated over 6,000 hours to the original Phantasy Star Online 2 (PSO2), and experiencing it from Episode 2 on the Japanese servers, I felt I had a strong understanding of what made the game tick. When Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis (PSO2 NGS) launched, I jumped in, spending around 70 hours. However, initial impressions were disappointing, leading me to abandon it. While I’ve occasionally returned to base PSO2 with friends, NGS remained untouched. The content updates seemed insufficient to reignite my interest. But, three years have passed.
Now, Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis is three years old. Those years have been filled with consistent content updates, aiming to address the content drought that plagued its early days. Curiosity and a sense of duty as a long-time PSO fan led me back. I decided to dive deep once more, investing over 80 hours this time to thoroughly explore Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis and see how it has evolved.
So, what’s the verdict? Where does Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis stand today?
Firstly, the level cap has significantly increased to 85, a stark contrast to the level 20 cap at launch. Several new classes have been introduced, including the Slayer, which I chose as my main. The most efficient way to level up, it seems, is still through the story missions.
The story, unfortunately, remains as poorly written as I remembered. Worse, it’s now mandatory to progress through the story to unlock game content, a step backward from base PSO2, which allowed players to bypass the narrative entirely. Disappointingly, the entire three years’ worth of story content took me only about 4 hours to complete. During this time, I effortlessly reached the level cap with Slayer and the subclass level cap of 80 with Force. Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis appears to prioritize the destination over the journey, a far cry from the engaging progression of its predecessor.
Next, I ventured into the world of Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis. Cocoons and Towers are decent additions, and mechanics like hoverboards add a touch of novelty. However, the world itself feels largely devoid of meaningful exploration. The Mag’s item-finder system essentially guides you to every point of interest, turning exploration into a mundane process of following prompts, collecting items, and repeating. The open world, in essence, feels empty and serves little purpose beyond material gathering in Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis.
Past Phantasy Star Online titles thrived on procedurally generated dungeons for level design. Even when open worlds existed, as in Phantasy Star Universe, they were gateways to randomly generated dungeons. Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis‘s complete absence of procedural dungeons contributes significantly to its repetitive nature in combat zones, quests, and exploration. This fundamental issue persists even with new area additions, which ironically seem to be getting smaller, exacerbating the problem.
Procedural quests are also absent in Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis. Leciel Exploration is the closest approximation, presenting a 5×5 grid of rooms with randomized challenges. These challenges typically involve defeating enemies or activating switches, culminating in a daily rotating boss encounter. However, even this attempt at variation feels limited and repetitive in the long run within Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis.
To access most content in Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis, Battle Power (BP) is required. At launch, BP was a flawed system. Damage was gated by level, not BP, leading to situations where under-leveled but well-geared players could deal negligible damage, while others with insufficient BP were excluded despite potentially contributing more. While a level requirement was later added, the core BP gating system remains a barrier.
BP essentially measures gear quality. To meet the BP requirements for endgame content in Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis, I had to purchase a 10-star weapon from the market. Having done so, I finally reached the endgame content. So, let’s talk about content.
Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis offers various types of content, but their quality and engagement levels are uneven.
Combat Sectors are open-world areas designed for enemy grinding. The gameplay loop involves methodically eliminating enemies to trigger further spawns, primarily for EXP and in-game currency. Enemies in each combat sector die so quickly that there’s virtually no discernible difference between them. Gameplay often devolves into spamming attacks and moving to the next spawn point. Numbers go up, but engagement remains low in Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis.
Urgent Quests (UQs) are intended to be a highlight, appearing unscheduled and offering four options across different areas. However, due to the ease of reaching the endgame and the limited player population spread across servers, most UQs are sparsely populated. Many Urgent Quests in Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis struggle to attract a full room of players, including:
- Mining Defense 1
- Mining Defense 2
- Dark Falz Aegis 1
- Dark Falz Aegis 2
- Dark Falz Solus
Conversely, a few UQs manage to draw players:
- Stia Rappy Rumble
- Dark Falz Dalion
Stia Rappy Rumble is a boss and enemy gauntlet, and it is genuinely fun, arguably the best content currently in Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis. Despite running it 12 times with rare drop rate boosters, I only obtained two 10-star drops and no 11-star drops, highlighting potentially low drop rates or simply my poor luck.
Dark Falz Dalion is essentially a simplified, easier version of the world boss encounter, representing recycled content.
A week-long world event called Stellar Grace, a scavenger hunt for hidden boxes, was implemented. While conceptually interesting, the Mag’s guidance system negated any sense of discovery, turning it into another guided collection task within Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis.
Leciel Exploration has already been discussed, and Event Quests rotate weekly. These Event Quests involve traversing enemy gauntlets to reach a boss, remaining the same for the entire week. The repetitive background music further contributes to the monotony. While initially somewhat enjoyable, the repetitiveness quickly diminishes their appeal in Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis.
Duel Quests are 1v1 time trials against bosses, offering no rewards. They serve solely as practice arenas against existing bosses, none of which are new.
Trigger Quests are essentially abandoned content, primarily used by pre-formed groups. They involve running through enemy gauntlets to reach a boss, a familiar pattern in Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis.
Time Extension Quests, time attack challenges used to farm Genesis Points, are also dead content. Queuing for 30 minutes across all servers failed to assemble a party for even a single run, indicating a severe lack of player engagement.
World Bosses are queueable encounters, with three currently available. These pit you and three other players against large-scale boss fights, reminiscent of Dark Falz encounters from base PSO2. The first world boss feels like a hybrid of Elder and Persona from the original game. The second world boss proved impossible to attempt due to insufficient player numbers. The newest world boss, while potentially fun, was marred by players frequently abandoning runs after a single mistake, and repeatedly leaving queues when matched with the same players instead of offering guidance. The community seems averse to in-game communication, even refusing to type. Despite these social challenges, I managed to defeat it on my fifth attempt and briefly experienced a nostalgic feeling of playing base PSO2. However, there’s little incentive to clear it more than once weekly.
And that, remarkably, is all the content Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis currently offers. Three years of updates have culminated in this limited and often repetitive gameplay loop.
Creative Spaces, heralded as a major feature of Version 2, promised substantial content. However, the reality is underwhelming. The editing UI is clunky and unintuitive. The resource grind for decorations is excessive. Some decorations are exclusively purchasable with AC, the premium currency. While creating impressive spaces is possible, the time and effort required within this outdated system are disproportionate to the results. Decorations can also be acquired with Genesis Points or SG. SG, crucial for quality-of-life improvements, is time-gated and scarce. Genesis Points, ironically, are farmed from the dead content that no one plays.
What about the economy of Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis?
Recently, a scratch ticket was introduced offering augment capsules. These are the most potent augment capsules in the game, potentially increasing overall damage by 30%. However, the market price is currently around 16 million meseta for a single Spirit capsule. Achieving a 100% success rate requires 10 capsules, costing 160 million meseta per augment. Applying these to three armor pieces and one weapon necessitates 640 million meseta. Weekly earnings from all available sources, excluding direct farming, are capped at approximately 2 million meseta.
Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis is undeniably pay-to-win. The irony is that there’s little content left to “win” within the game.
In conclusion, Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis remains a content-starved environment with pay-to-win mechanics, a toxic community exhibiting social aversion, unrewarding side content, and a plethora of dead activities. The critical flaws that made it a step down from previous Phantasy Star Online titles remain unaddressed. The story and journey are brief, while the endgame is an endless, unfulfilling grind. After nearly 80 hours of exploration, my experience breaks down as follows:
- 6 hours gathering
- 4 hours exploring
- 4 hours story
- 10 hours combat zones
- 2 hours boss clears
- 5 hours in a single UQ
- 1 hour UI navigation frustration
- 3 hours Leciel Exploration
- 7 hours limited quests
- 1 hour concert viewing (repeated 4 times)
- 10 hours cosmetic browsing
- 10 hours outfit creation
- 15 hours AFK
The tangible results? A few stylish outfits, decent armor, and four classes at level cap. Did I enjoy it? For about 2 hours, yes.
Does Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis still disappoint? Regrettably, it seems to have worsened.
