Appreciate the love and support on the video so far guys. It really humbles me and makes me feel so happy knowing so many people still play and care for the older phantasy star games. For any of you that want to hangout we have a discord :- discord.gg/hx2v2uKXqx I also live stream PSO & soon to be PSU every week here on UA-cam so come hang out there too! ☺️
Another reason I think it's not as popular is because a lot of people that came to Ephinea from NGS. They see PSO 2 and look into the original game and not knowing about PSU at all.
Really glad you made this video, hopefully it helps getting attention brought to Clementine. I do want to add some things to this though. Most importantly 14:18 the wiki is currently up and running but may be still missing stuff since the original went down as you saw for some reason. The site is the same name just under a different domain extension. It also has a pretty useful "Getting Started" page that even covers potential hardware issues like what you mentioned. Also to note at 5:15 when you check the current player count on the server through the player>status menu it will also display what the most populated areas are at that time. Granted it does tend to always end up being Guardians HQ with people filling up the 5th floor, but you can still find others in different areas, hopefully even more so with this video potentially bringing more players in. Not really anything to add specifically on this 11:37 but man, I have spent so much time just sitting at Falz Memoria listening to the music. I know the area itself is in PSO but being able to just group up and chill to the music together was fantastic. Sadly I do have to let you know that no, the whip did not make it into NGS. Unless you count the Wired Lances that were also in PSO2. I do think that people who enjoy PSO2/NGS could still very well find enjoyment out of PSU, if at the very least for just the sheer amount of PA's to mess around with. But mainly due to it being that perfect in-between of PSO and PSO2. It's not THAT much of a shift to go to compared to PSO, buuuut you will have to give up your jump button, and I know that can be an immediate deal breaker for some lol.
Thank you for this addition Syrenos! Really good information and I can second you on the Falz memoria for sure! Shame to hear about the whip though but I very much thought that could be the case!
I honestly just wish SEGA would sell PSO2 classic's complete edition as an Offline Mode version. I still play PSOBB offline and there's really nothing quite like the PSO games for solo players like myself in the current generation of video games.
would be interesting idea only if they also give us pre-made maxed stat Cras series in the end for HTPD battle and ability to link account with main online version. Many might not like the idea of having to paid to buy PSO2 Offline tho I think
Yeah I totally get you with the barrier of entry with this game. While Ephinea we can even set it up on steam to take advantage of steam input, for clementine.... I need a third party program for full screen, another for my controller, another for the floor reader (ephineas just autostarts on boot). I realize that PSU is janky as heck but it would benefit a lot from fixes that SEGA should have had implemented ages ago. It's funny that you mentioned the weapon palette, since most players at endgame use shortcut words to swap their line shields and weapons on the fly (the palette has some weird input lag). I made it to 190 somewhat fast and some of the changes they did and are still doing are pretty sweet (they recently adopted weekly boosts like ephinea) and they are working hard on ultimate but it doesn't pull me as much as pso even though I started playing the series with PSU :( PSP2i is really the ultimate version of this, I just wish we had gotten a PC release of it haha
I remember siting on this game as a wee lad on my Xbox 360. playing online with a usb keyboard plugged in so I could spam. I’d love to play this online again.
I do agree, if it wasnt bc I had like 5 ppl dragging me around I would've been lost from the start, Im still lost when I play by myself since my experience was running an event mission over and over again for the most part and I have to look up so much on the wiki, so I dont reaaaally know what Im doing and I been playing it on and off for almost a year
Hey! Thanks for taking the time to comment! I completely agree with your insight and honestly if I didn’t have all those hours spent on the XBOX 360 I would be beyond lost too. With a tempermental wiki, lack of players and no real guidance it can be hard to see why you would want to stick around.
I know a lot of people are still playing PSP2 Infinity online or doing the PSO private servers. Unsure how popular PSOU is among the fanbase. Ultimately with how PSO2NGS is, I don't blame anyone for going back and just playing the older games.
I think I’ve always struggled with the newer hyper anime, fast paced focus of the later games so I guess that’s why I’ve gravitated towards PSO and PSU for so long. Although the way microtransactions are these days I’m not even sure I would want them to consider a remaster to be honest.
@@deployablelover prior to ngs I personally had spent 8 years on pso2 and view it as nearly perfect. Good things never last forever though. Spent a year in ngs but ultimately dropped it and just returned to PSP2 Infinity.
You got me, NGS killed future of PSO as the ip and turned it into pachinko machine with garbage gameplay and soulless lifeless world with nothing to grind now i'm playing PSP2 Infinity and having as much fun as with original PSO2. Turning PSO into open world was a huge mistake.
I’ve been playing the PSU Clementine server since late 2016, the community is definitely still one of the strongest points. One thing you won’t see from just hopping on now is how much work has been put into this server from Marmalade and his team over the years, the game we have today is nothing like it was even in 2018, it could compare to a slightly better version of the demo back then.
That’s a really cool insight! Thanks so much for commenting! Really good to hear from a dedicated player. Even after this video was posted I’ve still continued to play and having a great time!
Tried it out. Saw barely anyone playing. Saw some untranslated missions, discord was helpful but having to run lasso, launch the game in window mode to then set affinity every time, close the game, relaunch it in fullscreen since no borderless fullscreen option, to then play it. Just...yea. I could put up with all that if I saw maybe at least 200 people playing actively, but since I only ever see at most, 50, from the discord tracker. Just gotta nope it out. Its a shame really, I played PSU for thousands upon thousands of hours back when it had official servers, spite SEGA withheld more than half the content JP got, since well, SEGA has always been shittin the bead since the Dreamcast days, and never stopped. Just a damn shame. If Clementine ever gets some sorta resurgence, and can maybe find some talented people to help alleviate the barriers of entry *Other games with private servers managed to do this* then it could maybe get a come back. I wish I tried years ago when it still had a population.
Great video. Have a couple things to say about. 4:06 This is in no way nostalgia. The Universe and Portable series themselves share a very unique approach to how Sega drew and designed the game. The color palette used itself is much brighter, vibrant- the artstyle itself is near-cartoony and much more playful. Online, Online 2 and NGS all decided to pursue a fair more realistic, dark feel to it. The way PSU looks itself is very attractive, despite being low-res and textured a bit goofy. ・The game itself is structured terribly, and introduces the idea of one single objective correct answer, that involves spamming the exact same mission over and over again, due to a unique problem being that a LOT of these Missions are already accessible, or will quickly soon be. The Difficulty System hurts the game because it has the game frontload all of these Missions at you that you could do, and then you happen upon just the single Mission that you SHOULD do all the way up until you reach 190. And even then it's a little bit of a problem, because even though other Missions that are objectively not wastes of time open up to you, and you could try running other Missions instead of the server-designated Event Mission, no one is doing those Missions. (This problem is technically alleviated by just kinda utilizing the lfg channel in the Clementine Discord, but it adds another step you have to take.) ・This is technically a different conversation, but it still ties together the idea of there being a "correct Mission" to run. Your lament over Raffon and no one in the Mission Counter for White Beast is unfortunate, because there aren't many solutions Clementine can offer on sort of showing or pushing you towards where you SHOULD go. The Active Players section in the Status menu helps, because it shows you some of the most populated areas, so you naturally are drawn to just go there to do your difficulty progression missions, but I suppose there's also an argument to be made on the idea that it's weird for a server for an MMO to just tell you where it thinks you SHOULD go. Like you should just do whatever you want. Wiki also exploded, and even if something like that is written down, I can't imagine the number of New Players that will take the time to read the wiki being high. But I kinda chuckled at your mentioning of the different lobbies, because even though I like them and prefer them there, I do think it's ultimately detrimental to the game because it already spreads an already super thin community even further out. ・PSU itself never tutorialized you outside of the story/single player. That was ALWAYS a problem with retail. You had to figure it out somehow, or ask someone, or someone just tells you the information unwarranted because you're not going to think to ask something niche like "what Element is White Beast? What PAs are available to me? Where can I purchase things that will help me in different missions," nor will you understand why these things are important. Because no one, not even the game, told you any of these things. And I don't think Clementine really can implement a sort of in-game tutorial. You just have to look for information elsewhere, and that sucks as a barrier of entry when it's really no one's fault but Sega's, lmao. People don't even know where SHOPS are. When I think about how PSU released, it's almost as if they expected you to play the Story, learn how to play the game the way the story tutorialized it, and then jump Online. So, yeah, new players are insanely hard to retain because they're going into Missions with ・No friends ・No PAs ・No Elements ・No grasp on how the Job system works ・No damage causing half hour C Rank runs ・No fathomable idea WHY they're getting 1-shot to Megids ・No clue on where they should go, no one to tell or help them (because they're in Missions, AFK, or with this playercount, completely nonexistent) All in a game that they already had to spend hours figuring out ・Why their controllers aren't working normally for a game that was made on 2 consoles ・Also realizing they have to install XPadder or Joy2Key to make it run like it did back in the day ・Why their Window/Fullscreen resolutions are so messed up (Alt + Tabbing also crashes (´◉◞౪◟◉)) All while giving you no real variety of Missions that don't make you feel like you're wasting a colossal amount of your own time while simultaneously punishing you for DARING to play a melee class, and getting virtually zero drops. And I ABSOLUTELY love this game. Oh well. At least unlike NGS, we have something to do. P.S. You can deactivate allocated CPU cores to a specific program in the Task Manager itself.
This is an awesome chunk of information that I believe all new players will heavily benefit from so I thank you for your insight and comment! It’s clear to see your passion oozing out of your words there and that is something the phantasy star community as a whole all have in common. As for turning the cores off in task manager I actually already tried this before having to download lasso as that step just wasn’t working for me.
@@deployablelover My man, I too am an Ephinea enjoyer, and I'm really glad you talked about this and made a video on it. If I still see you around when I pick the game up again when a more fun mission is picked or Ultimate comes out in Clementine, I'll try and say hello. Phantasy Star Universe is exceptionally difficult game to access. But it is also the ONLY game that offers an experience one can only describe as: Phantasy Star Universe. No matter how hard I dunk on this game, no matter how many problems I come across, I'm convinced I will never stop loving this game. I recommend this game to anyone playing NGS to give PSU Clementine the best shot that they can. And if they love both PSU and NGS and haven't tried Blue Burst yet, I really hope they end up loving that one too. Cheers mate.
I'm not sure because of weekened or what, but I've seen more players... Which is awesome. Still thoroughly enjoying the game doing my SSF playthrough (no buying from player shops) The game has a hardcore mode, where if you die, you start over entirely... Might be worth looking into.
They are having issues with the domain of the wiki from what I can tell. If you join the clementine discord someone will be able to help you with a separate link to get started
I just came back to Clementine. The last time I tried it, it was unfinished and missing a lot of features. When I logged in yesterday I saw over 90 active players. Which, wasn't terrible. The lowest I've seen recently was 30 players.
we just started a couple of days ago, and somehow ended up sweating for 3 whole hours in that MAG mission thing on normal we didn't know we could nullify the instant death probablymegido does until like just a couple hours ago Edit: oops, ment MAG.
ah yeah i played clementine for like 3 weeks. psu... eh i just dont like it but the server seemed cool force seemed really op and gunmaster was just ok or something, thats all i remember cuz i picked gunmaster and i sucked. i leveled up the things i was supposed to like my guns and subclasses but it was just meh. i guess the reason i didnt stick around was because the progression was way too fast. i was leveled up and playing the hardest quests in like a day or two from my first login. the lack of photon arts for weapons also kinda turned me off with the hunters. my sword had like one move that did damage and all the other moves did not do damage but helped regain tp which is lame. i prefer my regular attacks being my real attacks like in psobb but eh idk. i just think the core gameplay is not that good and boosted exp made the content go by too quickly so the next thing i knew i was playing in high level quests without understanding core concepts of the game
When I got into the game the basic controls were so insane that I had to pretty much rebind everything, then I got bored of being forced to follow through their super long tutorial missions without being able to do what I felt like doing so I quit.
i just wanna note of what u said about the attack system in PSObb think of it like this most dont its litterly still a first of its kind with 3 attacks like that in a way thats it feels like a turn based/free based attack i think it adds skill to the game idk lol feels like that maybe some games doen it like that but but exactly like pso they always try to make it more new in some way we need to bring it back from PSObb exactly like that just with new graphics areas bosses and every thing n maybe movin while shootin in al imited way side to side idk
Honestly I love PSU and still play PSP and PSP2I to this day but I wanted to play PSUAOTI only to fid out that Episode 3 is online only. Then I found the Clementine project in a facebook group years ago and wanted to get back in only for me to realize that they will never do episode 3
I think nostalgia plays a very big part into it as well. I personally feel like there were more people who grew up, enjoying PSO than people who grew up loving PSU. PSU did not get the best reception when it first came out. I love PSO so much. But I will admit that nostalgia plays a big part of my enjoyment. A newcomer probably won’t enjoy PSO as much as someone who grew up playing it.
I got in to phantasy star with ps2i early in this year after beating i searched about the other games and find both ephinea and clementine servers, i have alot fun with clementine because of how easy is to join a party and how easy to get into the game.
PSU is a strange game for me; I played it a load back when the Sega servers were still online but whenever I try playing Clementine I just can't get as invested in it anymore. While I love that there is a PSU private server out there, as someone who is familiar with the official server Clementine can feel like such a big departure from it in some areas. I do think that PSU deserves more credit than it got at the time and it definitely laid some of the groundwork for PSO2 but I just don't seem to enjoy it as much as PSO. In reality, a lot of that is probably down to nostalgia though.
Hey man! I completely agree and I don't think the love for PSO is just nostalgia driven. I very much feel the difference between PSO and PSU. It's very real and quite a hard sell for long time fans.
I miss psu. I miss pso 1&2, but psu was a slight progression that I really enjoyed. Where pso2 was too anime for me(even though psu were equipped with anime intros and outros) and new genesis just feels hollow. I still remember me and my buddies torturing this poor player by dancing around him for about 5 minutes straight 😅😅😅 and meeting new players from outside of my friends circle. Psu(and pso1) will always hold a special place in my heart that the new games can't compete with.
My current issue is keyboard controls.. I feel like an in-depth individual can dig deeper into that to make it work. Also.. there is events that give like 1500000% experience. Like ehh.. If I want to come back to this game I want a legit experience, it turned me off that someone came into my twitch chat & mentioned that. Like you said, yeah people want to just jump into this game with no issues, keyboard controlls included. This is on the PC, it should have a default. I played on the xbox 360 for 10,000 hours, I know the game engine isn't designed for it. Then again it was on PC as well, not sure how that played, probably how it is currently, and it's terrible. Not enough people right now, but I feel there should be a full wipe, or vanilla mode(Plus JP content, minus boosts) I feel like PSO2 for a lot turned into something disgusting not many enjoy, and want these games back. omg lol I'm in this. XD! Sorry for the sloppy message, I'm off to sleep can't wait to play more! Great video ^_^. (I had a script while typing all that out, required to play M&K lol) I have my R & T keys reversed, & my enter key as X.
OMG GLOWSTICKS! You saw this?! Thank you so so much for not only your conversation in game and time spent with me but also your comment here too! It’s so so cool seeing you insights, many of which I completely agree with! The pacing of this game feels super weird for me compared to PSO. Your comments about the expectations to do Massive EXP gain missions is what someone said to me earlier too in game. It’s like it’s not normal to just level up slowly and take your time. It seemed to me like it was either no game or end game. As for the keyboard controller I’m afraid they are naturally just rough for a lot of these older games, hate to say it but the answer is always to grab a controller.
@@deployablelover :D Yeah, agreed. ^_^ I did play a lot of PSO on the gamecube so I do understand the differences, just for whatever reason PSU had my attention the most at the time of it. I have some poorly recorded video on my channel from like 15 years ago when I was a kid walking around my room being smug lol.. (not like that anymore) But you might get a laugh (poorly recorded) I recorded it with an ipod nano lol! Keep up the content, I feel like as mentioned PSO2 turned into a turnoff for the original people who played it, so these 2 games have probably seen a slight influx of players since then. The conversation I had felt like I was back in the game when it was on 360. Thanks for the convo! :D Going to be playing this vanilla style, ignoring additional content for the most part.
I played PSU when it first came out. Was there on the day the official server ended. I heard recently clementine was done (I remember when it was a fever dream), but I looked at the install instructions and the complexity of getting all these fan servers going (And how hard it was to get blue burst working) I figured screw it, PSU wasn't worth it. I want Sega to formally re-release these games and put them on Steam with real servers, real hardware support, and modern bells and whistles.
as you mentioned, the jank of the private servers is why i gave up on it, setting up PSP2i on an emulator with all the necessary hacks is easier than it.
Psu, even in Clementine server isnt newplayer friendly. No one seems to help or talk much. No new player knows what to do, where to begin, where to go? Everywhere is empty. After a few random missions and many deaths, new players tend to juat leave and not return to the same experience even to try on a better day.
It’s 2025 and I just found out about clementine this week. So much fun. I ran into some nice people and I hope this game takes off. We need to reboot the player base in this game!
I only follow the phantasy star franchise since the mmo PSO2, tried another title older one i dont recall the name, but the problem is that they dont do anything innovative or creative to blows players minds, the games feels its same formula over an over and expect it to work, look at PSO2 NGS total different formula but they were too greedy for money they forgot to place the elements to make it work, like good story and variety of content, cause they have a gorgeous world, what did it happen 90% players left first 2 weeks cause there was nothing to hold them, i mean im willing to say we need a brand new dev team or leader and shutdown ngs and make pso3 if its not online fcking make it a normal game but a good fcking one cause the franchise needs to recover their players.
I stream it regularly I feel PSO2 and NGS are a major downgrade. played PSO2 in Japan for 8 years and in the West for a few more. In PSO2 you live in a metal closet and have no connection to the places you fight in. Where PSU you move across world areas and maps this gives a semblance of place. Both NGS and PSO2 have become cash grabs by SEGA there is no cash shop in PSU 2006 was the end of a golden age of gaming pre micro transactions. SEGA makes most its money selling Pachinko machines these days, and the new games are just as soulless. NGS had a chance to make it feel like a breathing world again, but its world is small and more mechanical, and micro transactions are more manipulative than ever.
The fun part in this, PSO2 is more close to PSO then NGS. Even PSU still follows parts of that OG PSO formula, but changed things a bit up. If they used a "central hub" per planet with lots of shops, it would have the same effect as PSU did. BUT, they did this in NGS now and it's actually pain to play.
I loved how smooth combat felt in PSO2 and how varied locations and enemies were. Story, artstyle and music were also great. But monetization and every episode being not really connected to other episodes ruined my fun. And NGS was so garbage that i have decided to play earlier games even tho i have started with PSO2. NGS has the most boring and soulless monster design to date, classes are just a poor imitation of old titles and are not fun to play, world is big but devoid of any detail you are running just to kill yet another boring mob or mini boss with nothing worthwhile dropping.
In my opinion, PSU thought it was coller than in reality. The characters were boring, the storyline unninteresting and the mechanics were not as engaging. PSO2 felt right from the start. Even the characters were cooler at first. It was fulfilling to play and kill monsters, collect loot and change weapons during combat.
NGS sucks balls, but the people on it are so addicted to NGS's slop that they don't even know what an actual good game, much less what an actual video game, looks like anymore. NGS barely even qualifies as a game. I've seen more content in a bucket a white paint than this damn game has.
I never liked pso2 its just to fast i like the slower gameplay of psu. also what that point of making a cool looking person in pso2 cause people cant see you anyways cause you move too fast, I'm talking more about pso2new gen
PSO2NG went overboard with everything and especially particle effects. I loved the feel of fighting bosses in original PSO2 you had to be careful otherwise you would die if you were underleveled and then when you got better gear and levels you could just stand there and wreck boss in few seconds you felt like your progress mattered you can't feel that with NGS everything feels the same there.
@@Dregomz02 Don't forget in ngs you cant kill a level 10 boss in one hit at level 75 you feel so weak and need to play with other people and its kinda hard to do that cause most people in that game are drama junkies I for real just started playing alone then just out right quit i just want old pso and psu
I hate universe. The split classes after playing pso really bugs me. I understand them but you're fully locked out of other weapons and abilities depending on your class. You can't be a hunter and use the basic pistols or techniques. Being able to at least use heal and antidote as a hunter or ranger was great.
Having this sort of attitude does no benefit to the growth of the community, if you want your game to grow then you need to willing to take people under your wing and help them so they have a chance of sticking around long term.
psu was only great at is prime back in the day on the ps2 and 360 excellent community back then to 2005 to 2010 it die lol the clementine is trash the population is none existent and the social aspect is horrible just like base pso2 or ngs lol back then was way better u could make friends easy ppl use to talk being normal social individual unlike today bunch of weird antisocial freak . it will never be the same lmao i m glad i was there in the golden age to witness the greatness lmao therse was no freaking discord to ruin stuff up ppl use to talk in game for god sake miss that shit
![[PSO2:NGS] This NGS Headline Makes It Hard to Care Anymore](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3s03VFzoAFU/mqdefault.jpg)
![[PSO2:NGS] This NGS Headline Makes It Hard to Care Anymore](/img/tr.png)
![[Phantasy Star Universe] Why It Deserves More Credit!](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EKNCg3Dn01A/mqdefault.jpg)
Appreciate the love and support on the video so far guys. It really humbles me and makes me feel so happy knowing so many people still play and care for the older phantasy star games.
For any of you that want to hangout we have a discord :- discord.gg/hx2v2uKXqx
I also live stream PSO & soon to be PSU every week here on UA-cam so come hang out there too! ☺️
Another reason I think it's not as popular is because a lot of people that came to Ephinea from NGS. They see PSO 2 and look into the original game and not knowing about PSU at all.
Really glad you made this video, hopefully it helps getting attention brought to Clementine. I do want to add some things to this though.
Most importantly 14:18 the wiki is currently up and running but may be still missing stuff since the original went down as you saw for some reason. The site is the same name just under a different domain extension. It also has a pretty useful "Getting Started" page that even covers potential hardware issues like what you mentioned.
Also to note at 5:15 when you check the current player count on the server through the player>status menu it will also display what the most populated areas are at that time. Granted it does tend to always end up being Guardians HQ with people filling up the 5th floor, but you can still find others in different areas, hopefully even more so with this video potentially bringing more players in.
Not really anything to add specifically on this 11:37 but man, I have spent so much time just sitting at Falz Memoria listening to the music. I know the area itself is in PSO but being able to just group up and chill to the music together was fantastic.
Sadly I do have to let you know that no, the whip did not make it into NGS. Unless you count the Wired Lances that were also in PSO2. I do think that people who enjoy PSO2/NGS could still very well find enjoyment out of PSU, if at the very least for just the sheer amount of PA's to mess around with. But mainly due to it being that perfect in-between of PSO and PSO2. It's not THAT much of a shift to go to compared to PSO, buuuut you will have to give up your jump button, and I know that can be an immediate deal breaker for some lol.
Thank you for this addition Syrenos! Really good information and I can second you on the Falz memoria for sure!
Shame to hear about the whip though but I very much thought that could be the case!
I honestly just wish SEGA would sell PSO2 classic's complete edition as an Offline Mode version. I still play PSOBB offline and there's really nothing quite like the PSO games for solo players like myself in the current generation of video games.
would be interesting idea only if they also give us pre-made maxed stat Cras series in the end for HTPD battle and ability to link account with main online version.
Many might not like the idea of having to paid to buy PSO2 Offline tho I think
They are too greedy for that they want you to play garbage NGS and whale on their gacha every single day.
Yeah I totally get you with the barrier of entry with this game. While Ephinea we can even set it up on steam to take advantage of steam input, for clementine.... I need a third party program for full screen, another for my controller, another for the floor reader (ephineas just autostarts on boot). I realize that PSU is janky as heck but it would benefit a lot from fixes that SEGA should have had implemented ages ago.
It's funny that you mentioned the weapon palette, since most players at endgame use shortcut words to swap their line shields and weapons on the fly (the palette has some weird input lag).
I made it to 190 somewhat fast and some of the changes they did and are still doing are pretty sweet (they recently adopted weekly boosts like ephinea) and they are working hard on ultimate but it doesn't pull me as much as pso even though I started playing the series with PSU :(
PSP2i is really the ultimate version of this, I just wish we had gotten a PC release of it haha
I remember siting on this game as a wee lad on my Xbox 360. playing online with a usb keyboard plugged in so I could spam. I’d love to play this online again.
I do agree, if it wasnt bc I had like 5 ppl dragging me around I would've been lost from the start, Im still lost when I play by myself since my experience was running an event mission over and over again for the most part and I have to look up so much on the wiki, so I dont reaaaally know what Im doing and I been playing it on and off for almost a year
Hey! Thanks for taking the time to comment! I completely agree with your insight and honestly if I didn’t have all those hours spent on the XBOX 360 I would be beyond lost too. With a tempermental wiki, lack of players and no real guidance it can be hard to see why you would want to stick around.
I know a lot of people are still playing PSP2 Infinity online or doing the PSO private servers. Unsure how popular PSOU is among the fanbase. Ultimately with how PSO2NGS is, I don't blame anyone for going back and just playing the older games.
I think I’ve always struggled with the newer hyper anime, fast paced focus of the later games so I guess that’s why I’ve gravitated towards PSO and PSU for so long. Although the way microtransactions are these days I’m not even sure I would want them to consider a remaster to be honest.
@@deployablelover prior to ngs I personally had spent 8 years on pso2 and view it as nearly perfect. Good things never last forever though.
Spent a year in ngs but ultimately dropped it and just returned to PSP2 Infinity.
You got me, NGS killed future of PSO as the ip and turned it into pachinko machine with garbage gameplay and soulless lifeless world with nothing to grind now i'm playing PSP2 Infinity and having as much fun as with original PSO2. Turning PSO into open world was a huge mistake.
If it's anything like PSO EP1&2 I'm willing to bet it's the very "new player welcoming personalitys" of the OG players there 😁 Just my take
I’ve been playing the PSU Clementine server since late 2016, the community is definitely still one of the strongest points. One thing you won’t see from just hopping on now is how much work has been put into this server from Marmalade and his team over the years, the game we have today is nothing like it was even in 2018, it could compare to a slightly better version of the demo back then.
That’s a really cool insight! Thanks so much for commenting! Really good to hear from a dedicated player. Even after this video was posted I’ve still continued to play and having a great time!
how is Clem doing? I havent checked it since like 2015ish and I do miss PSU,
Blizzard
If you happen to find a way to lock the cursor in mouse mode within the game, please let me know. O.o
Tried it out. Saw barely anyone playing. Saw some untranslated missions, discord was helpful but having to run lasso, launch the game in window mode to then set affinity every time, close the game, relaunch it in fullscreen since no borderless fullscreen option, to then play it. Just...yea.
I could put up with all that if I saw maybe at least 200 people playing actively, but since I only ever see at most, 50, from the discord tracker. Just gotta nope it out. Its a shame really, I played PSU for thousands upon thousands of hours back when it had official servers, spite SEGA withheld more than half the content JP got, since well, SEGA has always been shittin the bead since the Dreamcast days, and never stopped. Just a damn shame.
If Clementine ever gets some sorta resurgence, and can maybe find some talented people to help alleviate the barriers of entry *Other games with private servers managed to do this* then it could maybe get a come back. I wish I tried years ago when it still had a population.
Great video. Have a couple things to say about.
4:06 This is in no way nostalgia. The Universe and Portable series themselves share a very unique approach to how Sega drew and designed the game. The color palette used itself is much brighter, vibrant- the artstyle itself is near-cartoony and much more playful. Online, Online 2 and NGS all decided to pursue a fair more realistic, dark feel to it. The way PSU looks itself is very attractive, despite being low-res and textured a bit goofy.
・The game itself is structured terribly, and introduces the idea of one single objective correct answer, that involves spamming the exact same mission over and over again, due to a unique problem being that a LOT of these Missions are already accessible, or will quickly soon be. The Difficulty System hurts the game because it has the game frontload all of these Missions at you that you could do, and then you happen upon just the single Mission that you SHOULD do all the way up until you reach 190. And even then it's a little bit of a problem, because even though other Missions that are objectively not wastes of time open up to you, and you could try running other Missions instead of the server-designated Event Mission, no one is doing those Missions. (This problem is technically alleviated by just kinda utilizing the lfg channel in the Clementine Discord, but it adds another step you have to take.)
・This is technically a different conversation, but it still ties together the idea of there being a "correct Mission" to run. Your lament over Raffon and no one in the Mission Counter for White Beast is unfortunate, because there aren't many solutions Clementine can offer on sort of showing or pushing you towards where you SHOULD go. The Active Players section in the Status menu helps, because it shows you some of the most populated areas, so you naturally are drawn to just go there to do your difficulty progression missions, but I suppose there's also an argument to be made on the idea that it's weird for a server for an MMO to just tell you where it thinks you SHOULD go. Like you should just do whatever you want. Wiki also exploded, and even if something like that is written down, I can't imagine the number of New Players that will take the time to read the wiki being high. But I kinda chuckled at your mentioning of the different lobbies, because even though I like them and prefer them there, I do think it's ultimately detrimental to the game because it already spreads an already super thin community even further out.
・PSU itself never tutorialized you outside of the story/single player. That was ALWAYS a problem with retail. You had to figure it out somehow, or ask someone, or someone just tells you the information unwarranted because you're not going to think to ask something niche like "what Element is White Beast? What PAs are available to me? Where can I purchase things that will help me in different missions," nor will you understand why these things are important. Because no one, not even the game, told you any of these things. And I don't think Clementine really can implement a sort of in-game tutorial. You just have to look for information elsewhere, and that sucks as a barrier of entry when it's really no one's fault but Sega's, lmao. People don't even know where SHOPS are. When I think about how PSU released, it's almost as if they expected you to play the Story, learn how to play the game the way the story tutorialized it, and then jump Online.
So, yeah, new players are insanely hard to retain because they're going into Missions with
・No friends
・No PAs
・No Elements
・No grasp on how the Job system works
・No damage causing half hour C Rank runs
・No fathomable idea WHY they're getting 1-shot to Megids
・No clue on where they should go, no one to tell or help them (because they're in Missions, AFK, or with this playercount, completely nonexistent)
All in a game that they already had to spend hours figuring out
・Why their controllers aren't working normally for a game that was made on 2 consoles
・Also realizing they have to install XPadder or Joy2Key to make it run like it did back in the day
・Why their Window/Fullscreen resolutions are so messed up (Alt + Tabbing also crashes (´◉◞౪◟◉))
All while giving you no real variety of Missions that don't make you feel like you're wasting a colossal amount of your own time while simultaneously punishing you for DARING to play a melee class, and getting virtually zero drops.
And I ABSOLUTELY love this game.
Oh well. At least unlike NGS, we have something to do.
P.S. You can deactivate allocated CPU cores to a specific program in the Task Manager itself.
The LONG-term player retention problem is a compleeeetely different conversation, however.
This is an awesome chunk of information that I believe all new players will heavily benefit from so I thank you for your insight and comment!
It’s clear to see your passion oozing out of your words there and that is something the phantasy star community as a whole all have in common.
As for turning the cores off in task manager I actually already tried this before having to download lasso as that step just wasn’t working for me.
@@deployablelover My man, I too am an Ephinea enjoyer, and I'm really glad you talked about this and made a video on it. If I still see you around when I pick the game up again when a more fun mission is picked or Ultimate comes out in Clementine, I'll try and say hello.
Phantasy Star Universe is exceptionally difficult game to access. But it is also the ONLY game that offers an experience one can only describe as: Phantasy Star Universe. No matter how hard I dunk on this game, no matter how many problems I come across, I'm convinced I will never stop loving this game.
I recommend this game to anyone playing NGS to give PSU Clementine the best shot that they can. And if they love both PSU and NGS and haven't tried Blue Burst yet, I really hope they end up loving that one too.
Cheers mate.
I'm not sure because of weekened or what, but I've seen more players... Which is awesome. Still thoroughly enjoying the game doing my SSF playthrough (no buying from player shops)
The game has a hardcore mode, where if you die, you start over entirely... Might be worth looking into.
How did you even get to their site just tells me it cant be found is the clementine down or gone?
They are having issues with the domain of the wiki from what I can tell. If you join the clementine discord someone will be able to help you with a separate link to get started
@@deployablelover Whats the name of the discord i tried using google but no luck
@@zahrashadagon2888 discord.gg/teamclementine
@@deployablelover thanks
I just came back to Clementine. The last time I tried it, it was unfinished and missing a lot of features. When I logged in yesterday I saw over 90 active players. Which, wasn't terrible. The lowest I've seen recently was 30 players.
we just started a couple of days ago, and somehow ended up sweating for 3 whole hours in that MAG mission thing on normal
we didn't know we could nullify the instant death probablymegido does until like just a couple hours ago
Edit: oops, ment MAG.
Ooof that is rough but I feel your pain!
ah yeah i played clementine for like 3 weeks. psu... eh i just dont like it but the server seemed cool
force seemed really op and gunmaster was just ok or something, thats all i remember cuz i picked gunmaster and i sucked. i leveled up the things i was supposed to like my guns and subclasses but it was just meh. i guess the reason i didnt stick around was because the progression was way too fast. i was leveled up and playing the hardest quests in like a day or two from my first login. the lack of photon arts for weapons also kinda turned me off with the hunters. my sword had like one move that did damage and all the other moves did not do damage but helped regain tp which is lame. i prefer my regular attacks being my real attacks like in psobb but eh idk. i just think the core gameplay is not that good and boosted exp made the content go by too quickly so the next thing i knew i was playing in high level quests without understanding core concepts of the game
When I got into the game the basic controls were so insane that I had to pretty much rebind everything, then I got bored of being forced to follow through their super long tutorial missions without being able to do what I felt like doing so I quit.
i just wanna note of what u said about the attack system in PSObb think of it like this most dont its litterly still a first of its kind with 3 attacks like that in a way thats it feels like a turn based/free based attack i think it adds skill to the game idk lol feels like that maybe some games doen it like that but but exactly like pso they always try to make it more new in some way we need to bring it back from PSObb exactly like that just with new graphics areas bosses and every thing n maybe movin while shootin in al imited way side to side idk
Honestly I love PSU and still play PSP and PSP2I to this day but I wanted to play PSUAOTI only to fid out that Episode 3 is online only. Then I found the Clementine project in a facebook group years ago and wanted to get back in only for me to realize that they will never do episode 3
I think nostalgia plays a very big part into it as well. I personally feel like there were more people who grew up, enjoying PSO than people who grew up loving PSU. PSU did not get the best reception when it first came out.
I love PSO so much. But I will admit that nostalgia plays a big part of my enjoyment. A newcomer probably won’t enjoy PSO as much as someone who grew up playing it.
I got in to phantasy star with ps2i early in this year after beating i searched about the other games and find both ephinea and clementine servers, i have alot fun with clementine because of how easy is to join a party and how easy to get into the game.
PSU is a strange game for me; I played it a load back when the Sega servers were still online but whenever I try playing Clementine I just can't get as invested in it anymore. While I love that there is a PSU private server out there, as someone who is familiar with the official server Clementine can feel like such a big departure from it in some areas. I do think that PSU deserves more credit than it got at the time and it definitely laid some of the groundwork for PSO2 but I just don't seem to enjoy it as much as PSO. In reality, a lot of that is probably down to nostalgia though.
Hey man! I completely agree and I don't think the love for PSO is just nostalgia driven. I very much feel the difference between PSO and PSU. It's very real and quite a hard sell for long time fans.
I miss psu. I miss pso 1&2, but psu was a slight progression that I really enjoyed. Where pso2 was too anime for me(even though psu were equipped with anime intros and outros) and new genesis just feels hollow. I still remember me and my buddies torturing this poor player by dancing around him for about 5 minutes straight 😅😅😅 and meeting new players from outside of my friends circle. Psu(and pso1) will always hold a special place in my heart that the new games can't compete with.
My current issue is keyboard controls.. I feel like an in-depth individual can dig deeper into that to make it work. Also.. there is events that give like 1500000%
experience. Like ehh.. If I want to come back to this game I want a legit experience, it turned me off that someone came into my twitch chat & mentioned that.
Like you said, yeah people want to just jump into this game with no issues, keyboard controlls included. This is on the PC, it should have a default. I played on the xbox 360 for 10,000 hours, I know the game engine isn't designed for it. Then again it was on PC as well, not sure how that played, probably how it is currently, and it's terrible.
Not enough people right now, but I feel there should be a full wipe, or vanilla mode(Plus JP content, minus boosts)
I feel like PSO2 for a lot turned into something disgusting not many enjoy, and want these games back.
omg lol I'm in this. XD!
Sorry for the sloppy message, I'm off to sleep can't wait to play more!
Great video ^_^. (I had a script while typing all that out, required to play M&K lol) I have my R & T keys reversed, & my enter key as X.
OMG GLOWSTICKS! You saw this?!
Thank you so so much for not only your conversation in game and time spent with me but also your comment here too! It’s so so cool seeing you insights, many of which I completely agree with! The pacing of this game feels super weird for me compared to PSO. Your comments about the expectations to do Massive EXP gain missions is what someone said to me earlier too in game. It’s like it’s not normal to just level up slowly and take your time. It seemed to me like it was either no game or end game. As for the keyboard controller I’m afraid they are naturally just rough for a lot of these older games, hate to say it but the answer is always to grab a controller.
@@deployablelover :D
Yeah, agreed. ^_^
I did play a lot of PSO on the gamecube so I do understand the differences, just for whatever reason PSU had my attention the most at the time of it.
I have some poorly recorded video on my channel from like 15 years ago when I was a kid walking around my room being smug lol.. (not like that anymore) But you might get a laugh (poorly recorded) I recorded it with an ipod nano lol!
Keep up the content, I feel like as mentioned PSO2 turned into a turnoff for the original people who played it, so these 2 games have probably seen a slight influx of players since then.
The conversation I had felt like I was back in the game when it was on 360. Thanks for the convo! :D
Going to be playing this vanilla style, ignoring
additional content for the most part.
I played PSU when it first came out. Was there on the day the official server ended. I heard recently clementine was done (I remember when it was a fever dream), but I looked at the install instructions and the complexity of getting all these fan servers going (And how hard it was to get blue burst working) I figured screw it, PSU wasn't worth it. I want Sega to formally re-release these games and put them on Steam with real servers, real hardware support, and modern bells and whistles.
As much as I hear you I fear that a re release would only lead to a plague of microtrasactions, Pay to win mechanics and quick cash grabs
They would p2w cash grab it just like they did with NGS, which has barely any real content.
Blue Burst takes 5 minutes to get going.
as you mentioned, the jank of the private servers is why i gave up on it, setting up PSP2i on an emulator with all the necessary hacks is easier than it.
Psu, even in Clementine server isnt newplayer friendly. No one seems to help or talk much. No new player knows what to do, where to begin, where to go? Everywhere is empty. After a few random missions and many deaths, new players tend to juat leave and not return to the same experience even to try on a better day.
It’s 2025 and I just found out about clementine this week. So much fun. I ran into some nice people and I hope this game takes off. We need to reboot the player base in this game!
Downloading it now :)
We all went back to the original PSO.
I only follow the phantasy star franchise since the mmo PSO2, tried another title older one i dont recall the name, but the problem is that they dont do anything innovative or creative to blows players minds, the games feels its same formula over an over and expect it to work,
look at PSO2 NGS total different formula but they were too greedy for money they forgot to place the elements to make it work, like good story and variety of content, cause they have a gorgeous world, what did it happen 90% players left first 2 weeks cause there was nothing to hold them, i mean im willing to say we need a brand new dev team or leader and shutdown ngs and make pso3 if its not online fcking make it a normal game but a good fcking one cause the franchise needs to recover their players.
THERE IS ANOTHE PHANTASY STAR MMO ?
There’s also one on the Nintendo DS that gets forgotten
I think that the gunplay in PSU is superior to PSO2/NGS. With NGS it's set it and forget it. In PSU it's strafe based.
Old niche games will always struggle. It's not rocket science.
psu is great and all but ive always preferred portable 2 and infinity
Honestly wish I had spent more time playing these titles!
👍i play on Ephinea ^^
That’s awesome! Let me know your character name and I’ll keep an eye out for you! I also stream ephinea PSO every week so keep an eye out for that!
@@deployablelover DarkShino always same name i have 18 guys ^^
I stream it regularly I feel PSO2 and NGS are a major downgrade. played PSO2 in Japan for 8 years and in the West for a few more. In PSO2 you live in a metal closet and have no connection to the places you fight in. Where PSU you move across world areas and maps this gives a semblance of place. Both NGS and PSO2 have become cash grabs by SEGA there is no cash shop in PSU 2006 was the end of a golden age of gaming pre micro transactions. SEGA makes most its money selling Pachinko machines these days, and the new games are just as soulless. NGS had a chance to make it feel like a breathing world again, but its world is small and more mechanical, and micro transactions are more manipulative than ever.
The fun part in this, PSO2 is more close to PSO then NGS. Even PSU still follows parts of that OG PSO formula, but changed things a bit up.
If they used a "central hub" per planet with lots of shops, it would have the same effect as PSU did. BUT, they did this in NGS now and it's actually pain to play.
I loved how smooth combat felt in PSO2 and how varied locations and enemies were. Story, artstyle and music were also great. But monetization and every episode being not really connected to other episodes ruined my fun. And NGS was so garbage that i have decided to play earlier games even tho i have started with PSO2. NGS has the most boring and soulless monster design to date, classes are just a poor imitation of old titles and are not fun to play, world is big but devoid of any detail you are running just to kill yet another boring mob or mini boss with nothing worthwhile dropping.
In my opinion, PSU thought it was coller than in reality. The characters were boring, the storyline unninteresting and the mechanics were not as engaging. PSO2 felt right from the start. Even the characters were cooler at first. It was fulfilling to play and kill monsters, collect loot and change weapons during combat.
NGS sucks balls, but the people on it are so addicted to NGS's slop that they don't even know what an actual good game, much less what an actual video game, looks like anymore.
NGS barely even qualifies as a game. I've seen more content in a bucket a white paint than this damn game has.
I miss PSU so much.
It’s a cool little game isn’t it ☺️
I tried so hard to like this game.
I never liked pso2 its just to fast i like the slower gameplay of psu. also what that point of making a cool looking person in pso2 cause people cant see you anyways cause you move too fast, I'm talking more about pso2new gen
PSO2NG went overboard with everything and especially particle effects. I loved the feel of fighting bosses in original PSO2 you had to be careful otherwise you would die if you were underleveled and then when you got better gear and levels you could just stand there and wreck boss in few seconds you felt like your progress mattered you can't feel that with NGS everything feels the same there.
@@Dregomz02 Don't forget in ngs you cant kill a level 10 boss in one hit at level 75 you feel so weak and need to play with other people and its kinda hard to do that cause most people in that game are drama junkies I for real just started playing alone then just out right quit i just want old pso and psu
New Genesis is what cant keep players.
I hate universe. The split classes after playing pso really bugs me. I understand them but you're fully locked out of other weapons and abilities depending on your class. You can't be a hunter and use the basic pistols or techniques. Being able to at least use heal and antidote as a hunter or ranger was great.
No excuses, people should be playing the complete offline version first to get a full understanding of the game
People can do whatever they want.
No it’d be better for us to all learn together on the server tbh
@@silentslayergaming8469 Good luck with that method
Having this sort of attitude does no benefit to the growth of the community, if you want your game to grow then you need to willing to take people under your wing and help them so they have a chance of sticking around long term.
@dylanhughes6418 that is not going to help
psu was only great at is prime back in the day on the ps2 and 360 excellent community back then to 2005 to 2010 it die lol the clementine is trash the population is none existent and the social aspect is horrible just like base pso2 or ngs lol back then was way better u could make friends easy ppl use to talk being normal social individual unlike today bunch of weird antisocial freak . it will never be the same lmao i m glad i was there in the golden age to witness the greatness lmao therse was no freaking discord to ruin stuff up ppl use to talk in game for god sake miss that shit
We truly were living in the golden age and I firmly believe that. Gaming will never be the same as in the early to mid 2000’s.
@@deployablelover i agree for a fact
In some ways discord ruined the social aspect of gaming because everyone just hangs in their servers to communicate and form groups.
Phantasy Star is dead for me long time ago since they decided to make it into a MMO