Phantasy Star Universe: Ambition of the Illuminus

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Ready for round II? Or are you already tired of this game?

Words: Heidi Kemps, GamesRadar US

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Dec 5, 2007

Phantasy Star Universe is a game that’s had its fair share of issues. It had to live up to the legacy of the Dreamcast original Phantasy Star Online while being different enough to be a new game in itself, for starters. Then server problems, level caps, and a truckload of locked items, missions, options, and locations embittered PSO vets and franchise newbies alike, sending them back to meatier (working) MMOs. There was a one-player offline story mode too, but the less said about that, the better. One year later, PSU’s first major expansion - Ambition of the Illuminus - has finally hit store shelves. We can assure you all that it’s a step up, though it’s still got its caveats.

First things first: There’s a new single-player mode, titled “Episode 2,” which you can play with your own original character in a setting like that of the online game… just with less features. The plot continues where the first game left off, and (if you actually played through that) you’ll see a lot of familiar faces. The thing is, if you’ve been following the episodic story content downloads, you’ll have already played through this story. And since you still can't carry over what you gain in offline mode to online, there’s little motivation to play the story mode. In fact, there’s really no reason to play offline at all - the story’s every bit as lame as it was before, and even getting your own custom character this time doesn’t amend the lame dialogue and obnoxious supporting cast.