I actually got this game wayyyyyyyy back when. My parents were never huge on video games and so for the longest time (until I was about 18 yo) I only ever had low quality PC games and DS games to play. I'd get 10€ a week for food at school, but I didn't eat much during the day as a kid so I'd save the money and buy reduced second hand games at my local Gamestop on my way home from school. And one day I found Phantasy Star Zero. It was in a German box and it was 17€. I wasn't sure if I should buy it, but all I knew up until that point were games like Harvest Moon or maybe Pokemon. Seeing a game where you would actually engage in battles and use different weapons to beat your enemies seemed... so fantastical to 11 yo me at the time that I ended up buying the game. Which ended up being in English. I only had a year of English at that point, but from the second I entered PS0s world I wanted to know what it was all about, so I looked up words (mostly in my dictionary) and pieced together the words I couldn't find until I kinda understood what everyone was on about. I loved the story, I loved that your story changed depending on which race you'd play. I loved the combat system, the way your weapon combos would connect if you calmly pressed buttons, but wouldn't if you just smashed them repeatedly. Up to that point I had only known turn based combat and this was something totally new. Sarisa was best girl and I had my own little headcanon for my MC Wolf and her. I spent so many hours in this game, I have so many beautiful memories with it, and I still play it. This game helped teach me English and it made me fall in love with video games in ways no other game had before. I have rarely felt anything quite like it, and I can still feel that nostalgic sense of wonder and enthusiasm whenever I play the game today. Phantasy Star is a magnificent game series in my opinion, and its games deserve so much more recognition than they get today. I haven't finished Phantasy Sat Universe yet, but the games are some I definitely want to still play in the future. Their world is so unique and different from titles like FF or Dragon Quest, and it's a shame they have kind of been overshadowed by the 2 franchises.

@nym2259

3 ай бұрын

wow thats really cool and also the fact online still exists for it today is awesome ive only played pso chap 1 and 2 and i think its amazing

@MerkhVision

Ай бұрын

That’s a great lil story that shows some of the magic of gaming growing up, thanks for sharing!

Its got a community still

@RetroRulzMyTown

Ай бұрын

True, but still a far cry from the community that PSO has.

It's ironic because I've been thinking about this game a ton lately. I loved this game and it's definitely underrated. You can still play online nowadays, there's a small dedicated community. I disagree about PSO's story, I think PSO had a great story, and I loved the vagueness, you had to work to find out what happened and fit the pieces together, and the PSZ story is directly linked as it takes place on Coral where Pioneer 2 came from. Anyhow cool video dude

@generaljive

Жыл бұрын

100% agree with this. PSO's story was deep and dope. If you read all the data pods you can tell Heath cliff was slowly going insane . The revelation that he donated his body to become a failed experiment literally tossed to the bottom of a deep chasm was rough. PSO 2 and NGS stories are real let down in comparison.

@rokmare

Жыл бұрын

The story changes a little bit depends on what race you play as so in order to get the full story you need to play as all three race

@user-zu8dw1ox1q

11 ай бұрын

​@@rokmareThat's my favorite aspect of this game

@SilverbackGorilla69

7 ай бұрын

@@rokmare I didn't realize that. I always played as a HuCast lol..

@Pink5G

Ай бұрын

@@generaljive PSO2 has a great story, it's what kept me playing it for over 8 years and keeping up with content patches, I think the issue with PSO2 is Episode 1 takes it slow to build the groundwork of the world with lowstakes, admittedly boring arcs until the climax, and that after the original EpI and II, Phantasy Star Online titles began to present the story to you directly, rather than being something you had to seek out yourself, which felt less engaging But I do love PSO2's story, when the final story update hit in 2019 for the JP servers, and I played through it, I actually cried, they went so hard in making everything that came before it since release feel meaningful in that final year of updates, and finally facing the big bad that the game had been building up for nearly a decade with the return of the original PSO2 opening song as the final phase music actually broke me

A great follow up game. I'm still playing this to this day. It was exactly what I was looking for, as a Phantasy Star online player on GameCube.

Year later cause I only just saw this on my youtube recommends, but it's so crazy to me that people act like PSO had no story, story was what hooked me on the original Dreamcast release, PSO Episode 1 has SOOOO much in game lore, quests with choices that affect later quests, so many fun character interactions (particularly with Dr. Montague and his troupe of Android girls), Black Paper, Sue's mysterious character, the original PSO was my first real investment in a game world and it still is to this day, the difference nowadays is that from PSU onwards, the story was present to you directly, instead of something you had to seek out yourself, which I always found to be a step down from the original.

This game was a delight. I wish Sega would remaster it for mobile.

@archivechannelforthejet

Жыл бұрын

Anything on mobile will sadly become a Micro transactions heaven :(

Ironically this is the only PhanStar game I have any experience with, so it's weird to me that something I put so many hours into is the forgotten one of the series. Still, I never thought I'd see anyone making videos about it in 2023.

@lalas3590

11 ай бұрын

Same, I tried to PSP entries and I quickly grew bored with both them, but this one I liked a lot and actually finished the main story.

@Metaphysicist

5 ай бұрын

It was magical. We may have even crossed paths.

@TheBlazegeo

4 ай бұрын

Same, I don't know much about the rest of the series😂

I loved this game! I used to play it online with my friends all the time

01:25 - DONT MAKE ME CRY!!!!!

man, the CASTs designs in this game are so cool, it's a crime SEGA didn't re-use those designs in PSO games, especially the RAcast one.

@SorarikoMotone

3 күн бұрын

they did tho, iirc some of these were available in pso2 at least.

To anyone thinking of playing this, make sure you bump your emulator's rendering resolution by a minimum 10x. It'll murder the jaggies and make this game look GORGEOUS.

Insane to me that I found this AND Resident Evil: Deadly Silence on a vacation to Colorado. Still one of my most treasured memories.

I'm coming to this video just after me and my friend streamed a multiplayer session. Yo, this is one of my favorites! my top three are PSO, PSZ, and PSP2 in whatever order I feel at the time, lol, but usually this is over PSP2. you can still play this online and to me, feels like they tried to make a better PSO Ver 1 in terms of gameplay. max level 100, 3 difficulties, hard not to compare em. Makes sense the music isn't as space focused, plenty of weapons in this aren't using photon how we know it from PSO, and I love the crunchy effects, myself. it's got a certain retro charm to it. Still, this is like a dreamcast game shoved into a DS cart. it's crazy. you need to check out the chain system too at some point if you play multiplayer. setting up a chain between me and my friend sent my damage from ~20 per hit to 100+ on my photon arts. it's super satisfying to do.

Me and my Mother still got this game, Still pretty fun.

in my area the game was hard to find, i had to go to cities away to find 2 copies, i wish PSZ could get a rerelease on switch

i was watching you videos because of my love for PSO, but as an electronic musician, i really appreciate the topic of audio being brought up.

You're really going to make me dust off my DS and play this game again!

I like the unique aesthetic of it, western phantasy star (it's version of Ramar is literally a cowboy, Fomarl looks like a nun, etc.) plus it had HUnewms in it, which I absolutely would've mained if they existed in psobb.

Man, I miss this game. I was the first kid in town to get it (I went in on the morning of the release and bought it as the Gamestop employee was unpacking the shipment lol). Played it all throughout High School with my friends at lunch. I would love an expanded remake/remaster with better customization options.

I'm happy Phantasy Star Zero existed be a use I use Kai's Axeon Gunblade for Slayer in NGS

Great video, man. Those basslines are bangin'. I didn't even know about this game?! I was a huge fan of Phantasy Star Online for the Sega Dreamcast. I even had the Sega Keyboard, so I could communicate with my friends. Dreamcast had 56k dial up modem hookup back then! lol :D No online subscriptions, just plug and play. Thanks to your video, I actually just ordered a physical copy of this game.

playing this online with others was pretty amazing for the time... i fell in love with it :-)

I never really thought of this as a single player game at all. Mainly because you could chat to other players with Pictochat, and that was a lot of fun. I don't think we were expected to type at all, it was all Pictochat. Problem is, the gap between the Japanese version and the translated versions was huge. Most of us waiting for it, probably either got impatient and imported it, or ended up using a pirated version. Although the wait wasn't quite as long as the wait for PSO2.

Concerning the music, it having less of a sci-fi futuristic theme and sound more like a inbetween between traditional and futuristic music makes sense - due to the story of the game, we are NOT playing the same futuristic exploration game, we are basically in a Western inspired RPG where our weapons run off lost/rediscovered technology. So the music being generally bass heavy compared to the more futuristic music of the original PSO. That being said, the music in later areas of the game DOes start resembling the more futuristic PSO style music. So I figure the music being a bit inconsistent and just plain different compared to PSO style-wise is an additional element to give the narrative some atmosphere. Or it could just be that the Soundchip of the DS couldnt handle the actually intended style and they decided to go for a more bass heavy style to utilize it better, making my upper argument stupid. I dunno, I am not a musician. And yeah, I think the general sound effects being crunchy is really because the DS couldnt handle the intended sounds.

Not only does this game have great base lines, but so does your voice! Good video, I like this sorta stuff.

It's so whacky that I was remembering this game (mostly because I was thinking about good low-poly aesthetics) and how I didn't get that far into it for whatever reason, and I stumbled upon your video you just uploaded. While Phantasy Star: Portable holds a special place in my heart gameplay-wise, I'm going to give this more of a chance to at least complete the story.

I was a DC PSO player and had a blast with this game

At the age I was at when this came to the US, I would often ask Gamestop employees for certain game titles that release later on, be it popular known ones or really obscure, and it was the only way I knew how Phantasy Star Zero would be coming around so I could buy my copy. I have not known or seen any kind of advertisement anywhere that this game would even see the light of day internationally, so I think that's definitely the biggest reason why no one knows of this game's existence. The way the story actually links with a certain game in this series is honestly quite fascinating, and I think this might even explain the direction they have took with stuff like the soundtrack - but I do admit it's still not my favorite either as much as I have personally played this game and ultimately I think this is definitely a game that may have really reached it's full potential had it been a project for the long-away 3DS than for the DS at the time. I think the gameplay loop is quite fine, both in considering the limitations of the DS to work and how they had to adjust the OG PSO loop to fit it in worked out quite nicely. I'd say it's more so the pacing, since maps split into square grid sections and just how even with the inclusion of Photon Arts, you likely still won't clear rooms as fast as with something like Charge Vulcans or Baranz Launcher, it can get pretty tedious running into dead ends and long maps when nothing good drops in sight. Still though, absolutely a blast to play for those who are a fan of the PSO formula I'd think. And it might be a bit easier for new players, since the segmented sections does make it easy just to put your DS on sleep move/save state and go back to it late, probably the best way to experience it really in just small bursts here and there.

I love how psu supposedly divided the community and made sega rethink their games but sega hasn't gone back to the original style of gameplay and every subsequent game has pretty much been iterating on psu.

I played this game on emulator over a decade ago and I enjoyed it. Great vid

all the memories running eternal tower and excitement finding the hidden pizza shop 🤧 so nostalgic

This game has been stuck on my brain for months now. I was never able to find a copy of it back in the day. Tempted to drop the money to get it now just to play it after all these years

@CrazyMonk3y59

7 ай бұрын

Psst, look into flash carts

Gosh, I love PSZ. Played so much of it back in the day and recently (a few years ago) started a new character. I find it to be a great complement to PSO and a valid fix if you want PSO on the go, minus multiplayer. You can play online still after jumping a few hoops, but I'd say PSO is much better for that, tbh. Still, PSZ is a full-fledgd PSO successor with plenty of content for a portable game.

I played it on the DS. I actually bought the DS to play it. Loved it too. I was hoping Sega would make another console/PC version that played like PSO Zero. They exceeded my expectations with PSO2 and NGS. I played PSO2 since the Japanese launch. I stopped playing the Japanese version of PSO2 once the global version launched though.

This game and Mega Man Starforce 1 are two of the reasons the DS era has some of my all time favorite music. I felt the limitations were just enough to really make composers have get creative and it produced some really unique osts. This was my first Phantasy Star and I had a blast with it. It was neat how each Race had a slightly different story too. (HuCast best class!)

I remember enjoying this but never beating it, I’ll probably dig it out again someday though I’ll definitely have to start over because I only vaguely remember where I was.

This is one of my favorite DS games and so far sadly the only Phantasy Star game I've played for more than 30min. Tried to play the PS-Universe game for Xbox 360, but bounced of really fast because it wasn't like Zero. But I'm planning on checking out other titles in the future.

My friend and I played the ever loving HELL out of this. It was AMAZING and everyone should play it!

Nothing beats Phantasy Star Online's soundtrack. I have it on a playlist on Spotify. Phantasy Star 0.....if you love PSO you will love PS0. It is just a miniturized anime style version. A new adventure.

Phantasy Star 0: more friendship speeches than an episode of Yu-Gi-Oh abridged.

it's mini PSO for me, that's all I need haha. The loop and grind keep me occupied. I would love to see a Phantasy Star Zero/Online collection for Switch. PS0/PSOEp1,2 &3 and maybe a collection for Universe and Portables.

this was my first Phantasy Star Game i've played (or PSO "version") online. I had PSO for GC and tried to play it through fan servers though... i didn't quite "found" the story behind PSO / PSO Blue Burst. Zero though was kinda fun :) i also liked that the story changed a little bit depending on the ancestry of your character.

cool video, instant sub

The biggest thing that contributed to this game not really doing well is that it was on DS. I didn't know many people who played pso (or psu for that matter) that owned a DS. ...I had it though, and I had a blast with it. I remember wishing more people knew about it so I could play with others.

lol this was actually my first phantasy star game. I was impressed then started playing portable and portable 2 on psp

PSO was my childhood, but PSZ was my teen years and my first online experience with a Phantasy Star game... Mostly trading though. It's not the same kind of hub and explore feel of PSO The main issues i have with PSZ is the departure from the core scifi style, both visually and musically. It's still the PS game i actively grind and play though. I think the gameplay loop is more refined. It's a slog getting through the story and unlocking the things you actually care about What i really want is a new "classic" PSO for switch. Offline and online friendly with split screen and LAN play

This game was fun online when it first came out. While it has that single player story element, it was indeed an online game as well.

Huh... after all these years, I learned there's even MORE story if you played as the other classes...? I guess that Joint Trunk option to transfer all my money and loot between save files is more useful than I thought...

PSO had a plot and characters, but they were widely interspersed between the offline quests. Can't speak to the online quests, never got to play those.

@Fade2BlackSS

Жыл бұрын

I try telling this to people all the time. Yeah, Rico and Flowen were the main plot but the guild quests explained a lot more about the world itself. From the shady government shit talked about in quests with Sue and Kireek to the quest where you have to help a girl girl who's trying to save her friend who's a sentient computer. The cool part about it was that most of the characters crossed over in some quests too. I loved it. I'd rather have a game where you have to discover the secrets in the lore opposed to a ton of exposition at once like the later games did.

I feel like the DS was capable of having really good sounds and music, Pokemon White 2 is a good example.

this doesn't have that Y2K cyberpunk aesthetic that the original PSO had, which is the main appeal of the game for me

Phantasy Star Zero was the odd one out. Being on the DS & all. But it was the only one I knew that kept most of the combat & class mechanics intact, albeit, improved & more streamlined. Much of the combat in PSO2 was taken from PSU but with the dodge roll added from Zero. the character design was done by the artist who worked on the Lunar series as well as IdolM@ster...I think.??? Also this game brought the Rappy's cute design with it as well. Which we call it the "Mini-Rappy". I remember asking my mom to buy this for me when I was house-sitting for her back in 2009. Man, I've played this game, Phantasy Star Portable, & PSO (DC ver. btw) back-2-back. Now about the story...this one is a bit of a doozy but the true deal is that this game's story...actually does fit into the lore of PSO. But like it's predecessor, you have to put bits-n-pieces together. Aside from the main story, much of the important are explained through the quests. That's how you could put together the whole shebang in PSO. Much of was told thru quests themselves. especially when PSO EP: I&II were released on GC, XBOX, & PC. Since I've playing them for almost 14 years, i was able to form a complete timeline. But I've been kinda hesitant to type it all up. Due my lack of motivation & whatnot. It's alot to write up...almost like an essay really. Maybe it's about I should do so...

Best Nintendo DS game IMO, I bought it both in JP and NA

I remember playing this, my first room had rag rappys then never again for another 6 hrs😅

Just FYI the sounds are like that because the NDS, like the GBA, DOESNT have a sound chip, so all of that is done via CPU, and the game is rather intensive on the CPU because of its graphics, so they probably went with the simplest sounds they could do, making most of the stuff you arent gonna be listening frequently very compressed sounds.

I felt like I was one of the only people in the US who played online with others and when I did , it was a FUCKIN' DELIGHT! As a kid I just kinda got partied up with random people and it was just... idk it felt so special. Also I absolutely love the soundtrack, I really enjoyed listening to it on Spotify and the ENDING theme What a lot of people DON'T KNOW is that there's a hidden character relationship interaction counter thing and after the final boss you'll get a bit of extra dialogue from them.

I wish this game was brought back in hd. It's was the closed thing to pso and brought all the best things from psu/pso2. I also took the game out from a box to show a friend like 2 weeks ago😅

Still absolutely love this game. Fun fact throw it in the drastic emulator with upscaling and it looks sooo much better. Just wish it had more legendarys to farm.

@chrisbfreelance

Жыл бұрын

I agree, the variety of drops is too limited.

While playing, I often wonder if some of those odd sounding SFX are using the GBA’s sound capabilities? Some of the explosions could probably be recreated in LSDJ. The DS can play GBA games natively. Can a DS game access the GBA’s GB sound generation to save space on the cart?

I played this a lot in 2009. If they tried I would have tried to make a sequel that (spoilers) Dark Falz controlling mother trinity was defeated. Unfortunately, MT under DF created the Beast race as a way to counter attack the other 3 races. I know, the beast and duman races were for Universe, then moved dueman over to PSO2. That is my episode 2 for PS:Zero.

Fantastic game, good vibes

Interesting that we still use that same gunblade idle animation in the current series

My brother and i were picked to go to San Francisco Sega HQ to play Pszero. They even let us keep the game so we got two copies. There were like 30 people total.

I played this on DS at launch, beat it and found the end lacking. Felt like a mini version of the real PSOs Educate me on what I missed or if there is good private server content for it

I like PSZero. But I think Phantasy star portable 2 is what this game wanted to be. It gets a +1 for mag feeding tho. Which is something I wish the psp games had.

been trying this game out and the camera/lock on system is INFURIATING. its so janky AND penalizes your movement speed

Never forgot it.

I recall hearing the talk about this but remember getting it and was really disappointed by it. It just didn't feel like PS to me personally for some reason. And this is coming from someone who LOVED PSO and sank countless hours into it.

I just caught wind about this

This was the game that made me quit WoW. I didnt even know about this game, i just downloaded it on my R4 and gave it a whirl. I then found an awesome community online in xatu (i think thats what it was called) its like a chat room. We were all hunting together trying to get weapons. I got this black sword large 2 hand sword thst you got from the last boss and its special was just epic. Although i think later on i found out loots can be hacked, then it lost all meaning so i quit. But it was such a blast!

Pso original soundtrack is soooooooo good

I did enjoy this for a while but it lags hard a lot of the time and its clunky to the point that it makes PSO look smooth and fluid. This could have done better with less focus on grinding for levels (keep the grinding for weapons and rare items) to make the progression quicker and maybe if there was less focus on the graphics the game would have been smoother but really the biggest problem was that this was a DS exclusive, the DS wasn't really equipped for games like PSZ.

This game would've entirely benefited from a sequel on the 3DS.

I hope you were running the anti anti-piracycode to get normal drops on the ROM!

@ikagura

3 ай бұрын

What is that?

You like bass lines check out Guardians Crusade ost on PS1.

hmm doesn t Phantasy Star Portable 1 and 2 on the psp beat this one?? Heck i still play Phantasy Star 4 on my sega genesis mini

I wish PSOBB got a remake. Idk what it is about pso2 ngs but ive had a lot of trouble getting into it.

I enjoyed it a lot until I got to the tower. Shouldn't have an area where there's like 80% walking and nothing else to do that lasts so long. If only it ended with a bunch of maximum attack or endless nightmare quests instead. But for me, once I reached the endgame, it was just not fun anymore.

This resolution is begging to be upscaled on an emulator XD

there was local and online tho or shoud i say is because of wiimmfi

Actually the Phantasy star zero opening theme is pretty epic and makes you feel like you’re going on a epic adventure also the anime storyline of PS zero is way better than wherever we got in PSO2 NGS

"Phantasy Star if it was on the Saturn" you mean Burning Rangers?

Pokemon B&W, and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days were both DS games - if the music in PSZero wasn't as good, dynamic, or fitting as it could have been, that's a skill issue, not a hardware limitation.

@ikagura

3 ай бұрын

They came out after this game tho.

Great game, too bad the endgame was the 100 floor tower and obviously this wasnt online compatible . . . The game needed an endgame that was online compatible imo. The gameplay was much better than PSO since you could actually dodge lol

The weird tentacle rape scene in the Human storyline made me uncomfortable as hell.

It's weird you keep calling this "single player" when it had full local AND online co-op and is the closest the DS ever came to having an MMO. They just focused more on single player because...it's a portable game and you're gonna be away from the internet a lot. Seriously though, there were 3 online dungeon crawlers on DS: Crystal Chronicles Echoes of Time whose netcode was so bad the game was unplayable, Blue Dragon: Awakened Shadow which was 3-player friend codes only in a random dungeon mode, and this which had a full suite of online quests and fantastic netcode. Honestly, gameplay-wise, THIS is my favorite PSO and I constantly call it "The Real PSO2" since the gameplay takes original PSO and evolves it with dodge rolls, lock-on/side stepping, and Photon Arts (which are charge attacks in this game) as well as introducing the GunSlash to the series as a workaround for the lack of PSU dual wielding. It's like they were taking classic PSO gameplay and backporting the best parts of Universe into it. The ONLY reason I'm not clamoring for a remake of this is because the art style isn't as good as classic PSO. It's better than the blandness of PSU but not as good as PSO or PSO2 artistically. And yeah, fun sidenote: The game was originally going to be an almost straight port of PSO. They made Forest 1 and had a different more PSO-esque set of designes before deciding that maybe running the same 4 dungeons AGAIN but on a handheld might be kinda stupid since they have to rebuild the game from the ground up anyway. Either way, good to hear someone else enjoying this often overlooked gem of a game. EDIT: Oh also, this was the game that switched me from a Numan For Life into a CAST Main almost entirely because of Ogi...but also Lindow and the other CAST girl whose behavior gave me a lot of interesting fan theories...

I loved this game and honestly the only downside was it being on the DS. Such a craptastic console. Donno why they didn't put it on PSP instead, woulda been so much better like PSP2i was.

I dont want universe to be remade i want them to make real phantasy star games again

@zedorian6547

8 ай бұрын

So Phantasy Star 1-4? I’d also like to see those games with some new bells and whistles and a shiny new coat of paint

At least for me, this game is nothing like Phantasy Star Online. PSO is clunky, weird and slow, PSzero isn't like this at all. You got a dodge roll, fast paced combat and all. Its Better than PSO in everything it does. The problem is that its cousin, Phantasy Star Portable, did everything PS0 did but better in every way too.

phnatasy star 2 now kinda dead, inflation is overwhelming and barely retain player base

@zedorian6547

8 ай бұрын

Idk I keep hearing that PSO2 original is fine and that its NGS that is bleeding out, but what do i know? Lol

It never caught on because the online play SUCKED