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PRE-GAME

It’s time to d-d-d-duel...IN SPACEEEE! 

In the 3^rd installment of Sega’s popular online incarnation of it’s Phantasy Star series, you must choose your what faction you’ll side with, be it the path of the Hero or the “evil” Arkz. 

While swords and stats determined your chances the first two times around, this time everything lies on what cards you have in your deck. But your going to need more than the “Heart of the Cards” to get through this one.

EYE-SPY

HOW IT LOOKS AND FEELS: If this game was on the Dreamcast, I may be pleased. But it’s dated. Horribly. You won’t go from some of the GC’s Triple A titles to this without flinching. And what were the programmers smoking when they were working on the movement animation?      All the characters look like someone shoved a hedgehog (Get it? Sega? Hedgehog? My humor is wasted on you) up their asses whenever they run, walk, talk and breath. Seriously, there’s a lot of good intentions when it comes to the character, monster and environment designs (play either of the first two installments to see my statement in action) as well as some cool lighting and rain effects, but it should have been improved for the purple ‘cube of doom. Even if you have progressive scan, the game looks like a 2^nd generation Xbox title at best.

As for the controls, well, don’t expect that to be a factor much in this game. The analog stick with get you to where you need to be in this game, and the face buttons all serve a certain purpose, but there really isn’t much to the controls, seeing how this is a strategy game and lightening fast reflexes aren’t necessary. A far cry from the first two installments again, and this is something I’m going to stress a lot in this review.

HOW IT SOUNDS: Is coma-tastic a word?

Seriously, the soundtrack to this game will put you to sleep, or will make you want to put a gun to your head. It’s dull and slow. It would make a Jigglypuff jealous at how fast the games soundtrack would put you to sleep (Cliche Nintendo/Pokemon reference of the day). Seriously why would slow and mundane music be choice to accompany “epic” (and I use that word loosely mind you) card duels. Maybe to remind you how better off you are sleeping than play this garbage.

As for the voice acting, it’s on-par with Final Fantasy VII. And the only reason why I compare this P.O.S. to Square’s masterpiece is that there is no voice acting in either. Keep in mind that FFVII is a Psone rpg, and that PSO Episode 3 is a Gamecube game. And the in-game sound effects sound like they were stolen from various Japanese cell phone  ring tones and crappy Power Rangers-esque shows, so don’t expect anything amazing from that department as well.

EXTRAS: You can choke to death on the game disc instead of playing it. Which is far more rewarding than using it as intended at times.

CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE: A nice little intro FMV, nothing afterwards. Yeah, Sega put a lot of effort into this one.

BEST PLAYER: The HuMar males seemed to be the least suicidal inducing choice of mine, but you could play as card wielding robot. Which is kinda cool. I guess.

CHEAT CODE YOU NEED: NONE!. No cheating at online card games. It’s immoral. Course, you would need to find something to play against online, with I imagined would be slim pickings.

CHEAT CODE YOU WANT: The ability to turn this hunk of junk into one of the first two episodes.

OH MAN! MOMENT: Realizing how bad this game is after the first duel, then being reminded that you paid for it, and that you can’t trade it in at any legit game store.

GLITCH ITCH: Aside from ruining a relatively good franchise? None. It runs well, for crap that is.

FAN SERVICE: Plenty of references to older PSO games. Which will only make you long to play those, instead of this failed attempt of a YU-GI-OH wann-a-be.

END GAME:

Excuse me as I go on a rant for a little bit. There’s only 2 reasons why I bothered reviewing this game, or playing it in general. For starters, it was free. Yup, I didn’t spent a dime on it. The 2^nd reason is that I played the hell out of PSO episodes I & II, on both the DC and GC (You gotta have X Box live to play it on the Box), and was generally excited to play the newer installment. For free.

Oh man, how quickly that excitement was replaced with homicidal rage!

This game should be considered a snuff film, because Sonic Team has gone and raped and murdered a respectable franchise, one of the few Sega had left thanks to disappointing installments of Sonic. Outrun, Ecco the Dolphine, Toe Jam and Earl and others not worth mentioning (luckily, Virtua Fighting, Otogi, and the Panzer Dragoon series remain unsoiled). Instead of giving the fans more of what they wanted ( an action packed RPG that I would rather play thorough than say Final Fantasy 11), they decided to pull a 180 and turn it into a card game. Yeah, smart move geniuses. Granted Konami and Square Enix have all tried the same card  trick (no pun intended) with two of their popular franchises (see Metal Gear Ac!d, and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories for details), at least there were things redeemable about those games. This game only makes Satan, Nazi scientists, whoever thought the Blitzball mini-game in Final Fantasy X would be fun and every other citizen of hell jealous that they didn’t create something so horribly evil and torturous.

To be fair to Sega (I know, why bother) I can see where Sonic Team was trying to go with this. I’m sure if you have the time, the patience, and no life what-so-ever, playing PSO Episode 3 could be a fun experience (insert laughter here.) I mean who cares if it looks like a 5 year old Dreamcast game right? That you’re going to go into this game with little to no explanation as to what the hell you’re supposed to do, no matter how much you played the first two episodes.  That the plot seems like it was stolen from a bad episode of Pokemon (2^nd mentioning of said cash making franchise in this review, how bout that!). And that even if you play through this game and master it, you’ll probably find all of 5 people to play the damn thing online For the love of Christopher Walken Sega, Nintendo has the lowest online base for it’s game, why is this thing a Gamecube exclusive? It could have sucked for the masses on the Xbox or  PS2. Then again, the less people exposed to this game, the better I suppose.

Innovative? Maybe, but more of a bad idea if anything. This type is type of game that you play and you realize why the Saturn and Dreamcast bombed. Why this is the darkest chapter in this series (and proof that anything with the words “Episode 3" needs to be avoided), it’s not over. Luckily, Team Sonic is going back to basics for a new PSO game, entitle “Phantasy Star Universe” for the PS2 and PC that will be more akin to the first two episodes (which are also coming to the PC this year as well). You’ll want to check those two out if you want to be exposed to the PSO universe, and avoid this travesty like the plague.

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