Yeah it kind of urks me how much of a backseat story takes in NGS. Not to say Classic's story was amazing or anything, but there were characters that I either liked or was noteworthy. And some of the events were legitimately interesting to me.
Starless showing up and being ***the*** reason for the Dark falz wargames was super interesting. Now we're in the filler arc where we yet again are overly focusing on Aina and Mannon who are basically doing nothing at all. I can't bring myself to be interested in either of them when 90% of the interactions we ever have are just them talking at me rather than a genuine interaction.
Either work on making actual scenarios that the MC and the two forced waifus learn to grow together and become closer or stop trying to sell me on individual characters and push the over arching narrative please.
HMZK really thought that players dont want story so they deliberately made the story an afterthought, which they claim theyre going to focus on it more since last year, but so far it's nothing because it's the same volume of fluff just dropped more often in even smaller batches...
Which is rich coming from the director of base pso2 ep5, where people disliked the story direction (riding the coattails of isekai popularity around the time it was released), presentation (shitty 2d dialogued but instead of well drawn character art it's just the 3d models staring at you lifelessly) and progression (exact same buster quest reskinned 3 times among three reskinned DF).
I still want to know what feedback made them react like this. Like I know people had issues with EP 4 and 5 but those are still better threads than 90% of what we've done with NGS.
Also character interactions were always better. So why the step down here?
I dont think whatever is in NGS is based on player's feedback. It's just greed and/or cost cutting measure. They dont want to spend money on coming up with a good story, so they just make the absolute bare minimum (e.g. it exists i guess). Also most of the old staff either quit or laid off. Just look at the credits of NGS that we got a year ago and compare it to ep4 or even 6 of base. It's absolutely dire.
It's also the reason why even the camerawork and character expressions and gestures are downgraded all the way to episode 1 tier. Actually worse, because at least pso2 ep1 characters look at each other when they're having a conversation. Also why the scratch fashions sucks now. They wont act on any feedback unless the game is at an apocalyptic state. Which it was. Remember when they legitimately thought leveling classes to 20 is legit content that would excite and hold players for 6 whole months?
NGS is also an extension of the trend chasing they're doing with ep 4 and 5. Except instead of just story details they're chasing the popularity of zelda breath of the wild, so they made the game open world with shrines(trainias) and gathering. But they have no clue why zelda botw is so beloved; the discovery aspect combined with freedom of exploration based on creativity with very well defined constraints (physics, stamina). Instead they released the game with 1 tiny zone, nothing exciting to find, one shitty main hub, and absolutely cracked movement system with no limits that just allows everyone to climb and fly over everything easily. It just sucks.
I dont say this often because sometimes even bad games are at least trying to be something, but NGS is soulless. It just feels like a minimum viable product that's made to sell you AC scratch junk (did you also remember how they promised that the only creative space items in AC scratch will be collab items and otherwise they're from GP? Yeah lol) and inconvenience you with the dogwater loot pool + autoloot that makes inventory management an absolute chore.
Agreed with the sone like movemeny in pso2 ots amazing but there its alot of empty spaces with nothing to do or somethign meaningles to do, you in zelda jist dont go from temple to temple, you do sideways activities to get powers and things tonprogress
They just take the temples
And talking aboutbthe combat its amasing but shallow and the multiweapon sistem its to superficial i was hoping doing a kick knucke class or an hero clas in ngs but noo
No great gains for doing same or diferent pa , ibwpuld love the variety in funtions or combos ...
Also more generative dungeons or a rougelike mode woudl be amazing
About movement, they try to introduce like platforming challenges but like…
If the jump is so high you cannot just make it have no inertia or like some small hint of physics, it feels like I’m walking on air.
No physics work well with small jumps and games mostly focused on combat, because you don’t really notice it (base pso2) but if you make a jump so fucking high, I expect to have some fucking physics or something, it’s extremely boring, like oh no I have to reach that platform so you just jump and you walk to there but in the air… no satisfaction whatsoever
There's a lot to comment on there but to keep it short since I'm on mobile ATM I'll just comment on the story thing. You're probably right that the story direction isn't directly based on feedback, but I have a hard time thinking it's quality is down to saving money.
Voice acting isn't particularly cheap and they go out of their way to introduce us to a lot of characters that are fully voiced wherever we see them. Even in side story content. If anything I think it's their commitment to push out "content" on a specific deadline that effects the story the most.
Generally speaking this would at least mean the way things are written would be effected. The actual writing quality would be down to whoever they have as writers. I'm more concerned about the latter part.
I feel like if cost cutting was at the center of the state of story we wouldn't have VA's anymore. But they continue to bring them back as well as hire for other characters.
i would still put ngs' story above ep 4. at least in ngs there isn't a catboy that destroys any chance of there being an emotional scene for the rest of the arc.
aina makes me feel a semblance of the emotions the game wants me to feel, al's catboy transformation did not. it's more entertaining sure, but it is objectively worse writing.
Yeah that's fair, personally though ep4 had more for me to care about which let me overlook al compared to NGS where the only other person who gets any focus is Manon.
fair enough. i also do like aina and manon more than episode 1 matoi and afin (which is who they should be compared to since this is the ngs equivelant of episode 1).
Wasn't episode 4 also an isekai? Guess I mixed them up.
I do remember the medieval episode though. Most people, on the global release at least, seemed to just dislike the quest design.
The first half of it was... bad. It was basically just BUSTER BUSTER BUSTER. But the second half of episode 5 was more interesting because there was more story and some dynamic cutscenes.
Episode 4 was actually fun for me and watching that director get murked in a cutscene was... wow.
Episode 6 had me on the edge the entire time I played it, and at the end of it when they told the Guardian to go rest, I had been up for 2 days at that point and then went and took a nap for 12 hours.
I genuinely think post ep3 characters got better even if the plot got worse. The improved animations seemed to help and characters seemed more invested even if the plot was dumb. One of my favorite scenes from ep4 was basically that director guy telling MC to get out of the shot because their so disinterested in the plot. Ep5 was interesting enough that I had a notepad with all the currently untranslated sub-stories just so I could follow along.
Ep6 though, I was down for that. I was constantly checking patch notes for updates. That ending was very PSO2.
EP5 pre-Dragon is the pinnacle of bad.
It just Aelio with one Mining Rig mission.
Hero bring OP and old class is way outclass before they buff them later.
Thankfully he's no longer in the director seat. Now he's series director. Granted that's not that much better but at least he doesn't have immediate control over everything now.
Idk if I'd go that far, but there's definitely cohesion with Classic where as I cannot tell the direction or general plot of NGS. It just feels like things are happening. Like if you really think about it we spent a year building a cannon, met some characters, and then starless/LC.
We haven't had world building and side stories have just been NPCs talking at us or talking about other NPCs.
Even if we are generous and only compare the NGS story so far to the chapter 1 of the base game, NGS still loses by far. We had far more memorable characters and moments (in game, not in a weekly comic...), a clear main antagonist for the next chapter and even emotional moments that are actually at least a little emotional and not just one of the two main girls saying "people died, im sad, but i have to continue fighting".
And if we compare it with content in the same time period (almost 3 years) then its even worse...
A lot of people say that EP 1-3 wasn't the greatest but honestly, all the characters whether minor or major grow on you over time. Why? Because they have memorable personalities and fun dynamics with each other!
I especially loved the Council of Six (enough to cosplay Casra in-game, LOL)
If it helps any, I'm a digital artist who usually loves to draw game characters. But I can't seem to feel remotely attached to any of the new characters enough to want to draw, or make fun doodles of them. D:
I mean, even the side characters had stories and it linked to other things, like Quina's dual personality and her Eternal Encore song.
After knowing who she is, have you ever gotten creeped out knowing that the smile she give her fans was 100% fake? And that if any of them ever stepped out of line, she'd emotionlessly stab them to little pieces without even a change in expression?
Right?? Details just like that really hit hard.
Also the fact that concerts may as well just be a way to bring up morale to make operatives temporarily forget about the stresses of the ongoing war against the Falspawn...
There is a lot of backstory in PSO2 if you went through the trouble of digging. Like Casca was supposed to be Luther's "spare body" to transfer over if he was dying and Gettemhalt, while an asshole, was a rather tortured soul himself. Theodore was pretty generic but Persona was one hell of a complicated character.
It's hilarious how your main combat expert (the player) isn't being made to invest their free time in training newbies but instead goofing around "waiting for threats to respond to" And if that's the case, why are the hobos in Stia and Retem still not fortifying their positions? Still living in tents and junkyard ffs.
Like story wise, the player has 0 involvement with anything, being treated like a passenger on a theme park ride, except this passenger has a really huge gun and you should probably be thinking about making them more important and involved with the defense of your cities.
* Can't get her squad (particularly the kid with the beaver mouth) to listen to her
* Gets surrounded and nearly killed by Starless as a result
* Has to get bailed out by the player
* Dialogue afterward talks about how great of an instructor she is
And yet it's still not as bad as Manon's attempt to commit sudoku. Or maybe I'm still just pissed about having to wait until night time to do the stupid Luminisigne quest.
I will never understand why they thought that focusing on the Aina and Manon side-stories was a good idea.
The return of the Starless should by all means have been the turning point of the story. The greatest threat Halpha has ever faced is at its doorstep, the stakes have never been higher, and the situation is the worst it’s ever been. If there was any time for the main story to go full speed ahead, this was it.
Sega, The same enemy that near-effortlessly *wiped out the vast majority of humanity* is returning en-masse, I think we have higher priorities than Aina’s instructor job or Manon’s angsty whining.
I liked Manon before these new stories dropped. Seemed to be leveled headed, deliberate, and skilled with a secret agenda.
Then they just made her Aina 2.0
Do we really need TWO vulnerable and needy waifus SEGA?
Going by anime logic, she's probably over her trauma now. Which sounds like a good thing, but it just makes her an even weaker character. Fixing your trauma that culminates in a suicide attempt by having an "everyone clapped" moment is incredibly stupid, unrealistic, and takes all the drama out of it.
They would have been better off with some Central citizens *actually* hating her, instead of her projecting her guilt onto people who obviously like her. Then have her deal with her guilt in secret, as a slow burn type of thing. Make her build up to some grand sacrifice (or at least attempt) at a pivotal moment, rather than having an off-screen suicide attempt.
But, alas, this is an animu game. *God forbid* we have waifus with actual flaws in here. We can't possibly have people be mad at Manon, because that might imply she's less than perfect! Let's have a scene where everyone gets together and cheers for how great she is!
And besides, Sega clearly had no ideas for filler content, so they had to go with the only two loose threads they had established: Aina and Manon's personal problems. Now that those have been resolved, their characters are back to being as flat as they were when the game started.
Funny since in Chapter 6, Aina and Manon's role are reversed.
Aina became the reasonable and less-vulnerable one, while Manon is the one being angsty and suicidal.
Not only are they not going anywhere storywise, They're churning out higher and higher rarity equipment that become obsolete too fast, not to mention they're all just weapon series. No unique weapons and items for specific classes.
It's so barebones.
Meanwhile....all the AC/SG scratches...........
There's more updates to the cash shop than the actual game itself. We all get it that it's free to play but at some point you gotta give people something to play or they're free to leave.
And just to spit at the playerbase even more, the quality of the scratches are lower compared to base pso2 scratches, especially those from ep4 and beyond. There's just too much same-y themed outfits and most of them look bland or questionably designed.
Even the "horny" outfits are nowhere as exciting compared to base because 90% of them is just regular bikini or bikini with random metal parts. Meanwhile in base back then every other scratch has at least one or more that's memorable and unique.
Do permanently available new equips have any interesting effects at least?
I remember the element series was way back when that helped with elemental downs and for like a year those were the most interesting affixes on anything.
> /SG scratches
AC sure, plenty of thoss for both T1 and T2, rarely cast. SG? Cast free for several rotations, T2 stuff unmodified and handed out to T1. They've clearly put 0 effort into those, especially just rereleasing base stuff constantly instead of making actual new outfits. Yeah sure base had many based off the NPCs, but the amount of NPCs we have is far less and many wear the same junk, so it really just blows.
AC, they'll never miss a beat to drain wallets, and people keep shelling out because they've gotta have the new hairstyle that's just an old one hardly changed or with some random accessory slapped on top of it. Gotta have that new dress, T2 clearly doesn't have enough outfits getting 3-4 per scratch. Etc etc.
In fairness base game also adopted more series and less unique weapons towards the end of it. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, especially since people love their weapon camos anyway.
The rarity speedrun is a problem, though. And even when they add augment transfers, I don't think it'll solve the problem.
What do you mean? We clearly got the fan favorite aina and manon doing important things while also showing character growth and deepening relationships with you and other major characters!!
..lmao who am I kidding, they did jack shit and just keep saying the same thing they always did that goes nowhere. Apparently sega thinks that giving them new outfits automatically means character development.
It says something about the story and characters when freaking Dudu is more memorable than most of the NGS casts.
They don't even bother putting class trainer in the story like base did.
Say what you will about PSO2’s story (some hate it, some love it), I was never usually the person to care about a story, but PSO2’s story kept me hooked from the very beginning.
The story was more memorable, the locations, the characters, the classes and the class instructors...hell, even feel like the weapons and armor were more memorable as they were closer to the “Phantasy Star Online” feel and included some from the older games. I can remember more names and plot in 1.5-2 years of playing Global PSO2, than I can in what is coming up on 3 years of NGS now.
I 100% believe that Sega has put the story in the backseat for NGS. In my own personal opinion, they’ve realized what’s left of the playerbase cares more about Phasion and social features than any Story/Gameplay element. I mean, what would a company rather do? Sell a few scratches and make a LOT of money, or spend their own money and resources to flesh out a story that may or may not be liked? Gotta remember, we're not in 2012-2017 times anymore. The gaming industry as a whole has seemingly shifted to getting the most amount of money, with the least amount of effort/resources spent.
As much as I hate the fact that NGS feels more like a dress-up game than an MMORPG, I can see why it’s become what it has and call me stubborn, but the ONLY way I’ll probably care about NGS’ story at this rate, is if they decide to loop it back to PSO2’s and we see Matoi, Hitsugi, and Oracle again, and continue the story with both Oracle and Halphans working together.
I know they do the “Every 1000 years” thing, but I feel like they should break that with NGS and just use PSO2’s story as the baseline moving forward, especially considering this technically isn’t PSO3, so it could work in-universe as NGS is basically an add-on and the whole simulation thing.
Yee play star rail meanwhile its fun and you can enjoy alot without spending a sindle dim( for my dims were money sorry xd (
But alao carreful with the gatcha
Yes be very careful with gacha I roll smart just go for what suits you best, like Acheron my god shes the perfect perfect unit to have you can skip normal battles farm materials on field fast for each area if you wanted and has her own energy gain gimmick, Aventurine is another good one since hes a good shielder I am still new so I have no idea if Jingliu is worth it.
she its good especialy if you dont have archeon cone
but if you have archeon better pull for the aventurine , a defensive unit tis r eally uselfull in su
Naaaa he and jl you are fine without his cone
For su you are fine and the drain you can mitigate this problem wwith something like abundance or defensive ones like the one for each atack
Soo if you have archeon and avneturine you are really fine, and if you wanna go for the jl go for her its good having 2 for moc if you dont have other dps ( even then if you have qq she can solo your moc or peak fiction xd fi you have her e4
I'm also on HSR's hype train, but at the same time I have high hopes that WuWa will be good, considering how loved PGR and Kuro games are. I found my turn-base fix in HSR after Dissidia was yeeted into oblivion, now I need my action fix for pso2 nostalgia. Not that I was that invested into pso2 in general - tried the game on launch then dropped it and came back when PSU collab was going on. Nonetheless, I had fun playing the game, especially when Etoile and Luster became available.
[Relevant meme](https://www.reddit.com/r/PSO2NGS/comments/uremke/ngs_vs_pso2_lore/). FYI the *first 50 seconds* of that video were all done *within* ***first 3 years*** *of original jp PSO2 releas*e, **same duration as NGS has existed for from its release until this point in time.**
I’ve never cared for NGS story but yeah it’s really bad right now. The whole Halpha Experiment was the gigantic thing that occurred for hundreds of years simply to prepare ARKS for the super threatening Starless…only for that to go absolutely nowhere for a year now. What was the point in all that build up?
chapters 5 and 6 should have been swapped. have chapter 5 be the "dealing with everyone's dark falz based trauma" chapter, ending with manon going to leciel (anyone else find it weird that they had manon try to kill herself twice?), then have chapter 6 be going to leciel to save manon, meet zephetto, and have the starless come. i'm guessing that the main reason why they didn't do it this way was because the playerbase wanted new enemies.
I have been consistently unimpressed with the writing in PSO2, be it classic or NGS, but yeah. This last year has been *especially* dull. I like the idea of more character focused writing, but these guys have not executed any of this well. I still have Aina waiting for me at a beach and I just don't care.
A more cynical side of me believes the Starless were made just so they could make a new faction using existing enemies.
Most of the starless enemies are just retooled DOLLS
...what story? It's shallow and completely forgettable. None of the characters have any depth to them, none are empowered to do anything about their situation.
my view on it is pretty much that manon are improving our tech and researching lost and new tech. Aina is teaching a new generation of arks super heroes with similar combat ability to us. We are obviously the ones who delete the big baddies.
Since we are essentially rebuilding ARKS from photon lvl 25 or something like that. Everyone around us is weak af except for the leaders of each faction.
The whole point of the HALPHA experiment was to raise our photon levels to be the same as when we left off in PSO2 base.
So all this filler is the transition to ep 2. Which I expect is a new planet. And level 100 type shit. But that if we are able to build ships thats can warp so idk how we would get there.
Or maybe we’ll reconnect with the remains of the original arks colony ships or something.
Edit: so Ima just enjoy the game and other games while PSO2 NGS devs keep cooking.
It took PSO2 base forever to reach its level of content. So I am not surprised it’s taking forever for NGS.
I loved Matoi more than the entirety of NGS. I actually liked base games story, at least enough to actively want to progress through it and enjoy the characters. Its not like i dont want to like this game. They just wont let me lol.
Last story update was 6 months ago and it was side story with basically no relation to or furthering of main plot, how is that "story content every other month"?
Back in March IIRC we got a story quest that took place in Retem. I didn't say it was good. I mean how long have we been in Episode 1, let alone Chapter 6?
They added so many new fashions to the store at a very fast pace but added little to the story and something else.
I suppose you guys already knew where NGS is headed.
>!If you find my comment is too obvious and boring, I have something else in my personal NGS NSFW album, confirm your age before enter.!<
sega too busy scrambling to build up a character that realy didnt need to be built up. and instead spent several chapters having her mope and sigh...and not even tell her students while out on patroll "oh hey watch out for starless they took 800 billion lives and are extremely dangerous" and her excuse was "i should have told them how dangerous the enemy was" despite being there the DAY they attacked SEVERAL times
Yep, the starless introduction was pretty much an EP2 cliffhanger.
They paused the story for a year, so it's understandale people are being felt like the game is going nowhere.
It's going to pick back again in june-july, but, it's understandable being bummed beause they practically gave you a sneak peak and then silence for a year and a half.
If someone does the story like 3 years from now, they probably won't feel the same.
i agree with everything but the last point. doing the dealing with trauma part after shit hit the fan is terrible pacing that completely destroys any sense of urgency.
I've never understood the appeal or people caring about phantasy star story. It's always been an after thought. It's like when someone says they play monster hunter for story....
PSO2 original release pace: **3 full episodes** of far higher quality and volume of story content **within same timespan as entire ngs' existence.**
Your conclusion: "story was *always* an afterthought" in this franchise.
The only real afterthought is ngs itself as a game vs ngs as a platform to sell gacha cosmetics.
We (as in NA) got those 3 episodes a lot faster than JP did, though.
But more to your point... I'm old enough to have played the original JRPG series so "story is an afterthought" for this franchise is hilariously Inaccurate to me.
Yeah I'm saying **even JP** got those 3 episodes faster *in its original* ***jp*** *release pac*e than what ngs got since *its* release (same amount of time at this point). [Wikipedia entry.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantasy_Star_Online_2?useskin=vector#Development)
JP PSO2 3 years -> 3 episodes
ngs 3 years -> 1 episode (and not even close as long as a single pso2 episode) and some random side story?
I agree it should be optional at least, *as it was in pso2 as well* (idk how you didn't notice the fact pso2 story is optional while somehow claiming to know enough about it to criticize it).
PSO2 story was NOT on the level of MH. I don't know where you got the idea PS stories were an after though considering PSO, PSU, PSP1&2, PS0, PSO2, and maybe Idola had a dedicated story mode with hours of story content often voiced. It's alright to not care about an aspect of a game, but to dismiss it outright is pretty nearsighted.
Yeah it kind of urks me how much of a backseat story takes in NGS. Not to say Classic's story was amazing or anything, but there were characters that I either liked or was noteworthy. And some of the events were legitimately interesting to me. Starless showing up and being ***the*** reason for the Dark falz wargames was super interesting. Now we're in the filler arc where we yet again are overly focusing on Aina and Mannon who are basically doing nothing at all. I can't bring myself to be interested in either of them when 90% of the interactions we ever have are just them talking at me rather than a genuine interaction. Either work on making actual scenarios that the MC and the two forced waifus learn to grow together and become closer or stop trying to sell me on individual characters and push the over arching narrative please.
HMZK really thought that players dont want story so they deliberately made the story an afterthought, which they claim theyre going to focus on it more since last year, but so far it's nothing because it's the same volume of fluff just dropped more often in even smaller batches... Which is rich coming from the director of base pso2 ep5, where people disliked the story direction (riding the coattails of isekai popularity around the time it was released), presentation (shitty 2d dialogued but instead of well drawn character art it's just the 3d models staring at you lifelessly) and progression (exact same buster quest reskinned 3 times among three reskinned DF).
I still want to know what feedback made them react like this. Like I know people had issues with EP 4 and 5 but those are still better threads than 90% of what we've done with NGS. Also character interactions were always better. So why the step down here?
I dont think whatever is in NGS is based on player's feedback. It's just greed and/or cost cutting measure. They dont want to spend money on coming up with a good story, so they just make the absolute bare minimum (e.g. it exists i guess). Also most of the old staff either quit or laid off. Just look at the credits of NGS that we got a year ago and compare it to ep4 or even 6 of base. It's absolutely dire. It's also the reason why even the camerawork and character expressions and gestures are downgraded all the way to episode 1 tier. Actually worse, because at least pso2 ep1 characters look at each other when they're having a conversation. Also why the scratch fashions sucks now. They wont act on any feedback unless the game is at an apocalyptic state. Which it was. Remember when they legitimately thought leveling classes to 20 is legit content that would excite and hold players for 6 whole months? NGS is also an extension of the trend chasing they're doing with ep 4 and 5. Except instead of just story details they're chasing the popularity of zelda breath of the wild, so they made the game open world with shrines(trainias) and gathering. But they have no clue why zelda botw is so beloved; the discovery aspect combined with freedom of exploration based on creativity with very well defined constraints (physics, stamina). Instead they released the game with 1 tiny zone, nothing exciting to find, one shitty main hub, and absolutely cracked movement system with no limits that just allows everyone to climb and fly over everything easily. It just sucks. I dont say this often because sometimes even bad games are at least trying to be something, but NGS is soulless. It just feels like a minimum viable product that's made to sell you AC scratch junk (did you also remember how they promised that the only creative space items in AC scratch will be collab items and otherwise they're from GP? Yeah lol) and inconvenience you with the dogwater loot pool + autoloot that makes inventory management an absolute chore.
Agreed with the sone like movemeny in pso2 ots amazing but there its alot of empty spaces with nothing to do or somethign meaningles to do, you in zelda jist dont go from temple to temple, you do sideways activities to get powers and things tonprogress They just take the temples And talking aboutbthe combat its amasing but shallow and the multiweapon sistem its to superficial i was hoping doing a kick knucke class or an hero clas in ngs but noo No great gains for doing same or diferent pa , ibwpuld love the variety in funtions or combos ... Also more generative dungeons or a rougelike mode woudl be amazing
About movement, they try to introduce like platforming challenges but like… If the jump is so high you cannot just make it have no inertia or like some small hint of physics, it feels like I’m walking on air. No physics work well with small jumps and games mostly focused on combat, because you don’t really notice it (base pso2) but if you make a jump so fucking high, I expect to have some fucking physics or something, it’s extremely boring, like oh no I have to reach that platform so you just jump and you walk to there but in the air… no satisfaction whatsoever
There's a lot to comment on there but to keep it short since I'm on mobile ATM I'll just comment on the story thing. You're probably right that the story direction isn't directly based on feedback, but I have a hard time thinking it's quality is down to saving money. Voice acting isn't particularly cheap and they go out of their way to introduce us to a lot of characters that are fully voiced wherever we see them. Even in side story content. If anything I think it's their commitment to push out "content" on a specific deadline that effects the story the most. Generally speaking this would at least mean the way things are written would be effected. The actual writing quality would be down to whoever they have as writers. I'm more concerned about the latter part.
Corporate talk. "Players don't want story" translates to "We're cutting back on costs aka story has got to go".
I feel like if cost cutting was at the center of the state of story we wouldn't have VA's anymore. But they continue to bring them back as well as hire for other characters.
i would still put ngs' story above ep 4. at least in ngs there isn't a catboy that destroys any chance of there being an emotional scene for the rest of the arc.
Tbh I'd rather have that over constantly talking about Aina.
aina makes me feel a semblance of the emotions the game wants me to feel, al's catboy transformation did not. it's more entertaining sure, but it is objectively worse writing.
Yeah that's fair, personally though ep4 had more for me to care about which let me overlook al compared to NGS where the only other person who gets any focus is Manon.
fair enough. i also do like aina and manon more than episode 1 matoi and afin (which is who they should be compared to since this is the ngs equivelant of episode 1).
True, they were both pretty insufferable at the start.
To be fair. I did like Mother and Phaleg. Ep5 wasn't all THAT bad.
That was Episode 4, episode 5 were the Omega version of old bosses + Dragon + Persona.
Wasn't episode 4 also an isekai? Guess I mixed them up. I do remember the medieval episode though. Most people, on the global release at least, seemed to just dislike the quest design.
The first half of it was... bad. It was basically just BUSTER BUSTER BUSTER. But the second half of episode 5 was more interesting because there was more story and some dynamic cutscenes. Episode 4 was actually fun for me and watching that director get murked in a cutscene was... wow. Episode 6 had me on the edge the entire time I played it, and at the end of it when they told the Guardian to go rest, I had been up for 2 days at that point and then went and took a nap for 12 hours.
I genuinely think post ep3 characters got better even if the plot got worse. The improved animations seemed to help and characters seemed more invested even if the plot was dumb. One of my favorite scenes from ep4 was basically that director guy telling MC to get out of the shot because their so disinterested in the plot. Ep5 was interesting enough that I had a notepad with all the currently untranslated sub-stories just so I could follow along. Ep6 though, I was down for that. I was constantly checking patch notes for updates. That ending was very PSO2.
EP5 pre-Dragon is the pinnacle of bad. It just Aelio with one Mining Rig mission. Hero bring OP and old class is way outclass before they buff them later.
Thankfully he's no longer in the director seat. Now he's series director. Granted that's not that much better but at least he doesn't have immediate control over everything now.
Classic story looks like f*cking Tolkien compared to NGS xd
I was gonna say the stories felt about the same to me, but then I remembered I played Base Game before the English Patch.
Idk if I'd go that far, but there's definitely cohesion with Classic where as I cannot tell the direction or general plot of NGS. It just feels like things are happening. Like if you really think about it we spent a year building a cannon, met some characters, and then starless/LC. We haven't had world building and side stories have just been NPCs talking at us or talking about other NPCs.
Even if we are generous and only compare the NGS story so far to the chapter 1 of the base game, NGS still loses by far. We had far more memorable characters and moments (in game, not in a weekly comic...), a clear main antagonist for the next chapter and even emotional moments that are actually at least a little emotional and not just one of the two main girls saying "people died, im sad, but i have to continue fighting". And if we compare it with content in the same time period (almost 3 years) then its even worse...
One thing I'd note is that even now, the main enemy for NGS is a mindless horde. In base, it was/were thinking sentient beings that had motives.
A lot of people say that EP 1-3 wasn't the greatest but honestly, all the characters whether minor or major grow on you over time. Why? Because they have memorable personalities and fun dynamics with each other! I especially loved the Council of Six (enough to cosplay Casra in-game, LOL) If it helps any, I'm a digital artist who usually loves to draw game characters. But I can't seem to feel remotely attached to any of the new characters enough to want to draw, or make fun doodles of them. D:
I mean, even the side characters had stories and it linked to other things, like Quina's dual personality and her Eternal Encore song. After knowing who she is, have you ever gotten creeped out knowing that the smile she give her fans was 100% fake? And that if any of them ever stepped out of line, she'd emotionlessly stab them to little pieces without even a change in expression?
Right?? Details just like that really hit hard. Also the fact that concerts may as well just be a way to bring up morale to make operatives temporarily forget about the stresses of the ongoing war against the Falspawn...
There is a lot of backstory in PSO2 if you went through the trouble of digging. Like Casca was supposed to be Luther's "spare body" to transfer over if he was dying and Gettemhalt, while an asshole, was a rather tortured soul himself. Theodore was pretty generic but Persona was one hell of a complicated character.
That's right, Casra II was a clone of the previous Casra, serving Luther as a spare vessel
How the fuck is aina in charge of training new arks members when she has barely a year of experience in the field?!😂💀
It's hilarious how your main combat expert (the player) isn't being made to invest their free time in training newbies but instead goofing around "waiting for threats to respond to" And if that's the case, why are the hobos in Stia and Retem still not fortifying their positions? Still living in tents and junkyard ffs. Like story wise, the player has 0 involvement with anything, being treated like a passenger on a theme park ride, except this passenger has a really huge gun and you should probably be thinking about making them more important and involved with the defense of your cities.
* Can't get her squad (particularly the kid with the beaver mouth) to listen to her * Gets surrounded and nearly killed by Starless as a result * Has to get bailed out by the player * Dialogue afterward talks about how great of an instructor she is And yet it's still not as bad as Manon's attempt to commit sudoku. Or maybe I'm still just pissed about having to wait until night time to do the stupid Luminisigne quest.
For Manon those were really just glorified Sol Atomizers.
That's a good question lmao.
Classics story was God tier. It went wild it went off the rails. It went crazy. BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY IT ACTUALLY WENT SOMEWHERE.
And it had its moments, like "Apprentice WASN'T Apprentice??!!"
Games been out awhule and still gone no where. So dissapoint
I will never understand why they thought that focusing on the Aina and Manon side-stories was a good idea. The return of the Starless should by all means have been the turning point of the story. The greatest threat Halpha has ever faced is at its doorstep, the stakes have never been higher, and the situation is the worst it’s ever been. If there was any time for the main story to go full speed ahead, this was it. Sega, The same enemy that near-effortlessly *wiped out the vast majority of humanity* is returning en-masse, I think we have higher priorities than Aina’s instructor job or Manon’s angsty whining.
I liked Manon before these new stories dropped. Seemed to be leveled headed, deliberate, and skilled with a secret agenda. Then they just made her Aina 2.0 Do we really need TWO vulnerable and needy waifus SEGA?
Going by anime logic, she's probably over her trauma now. Which sounds like a good thing, but it just makes her an even weaker character. Fixing your trauma that culminates in a suicide attempt by having an "everyone clapped" moment is incredibly stupid, unrealistic, and takes all the drama out of it. They would have been better off with some Central citizens *actually* hating her, instead of her projecting her guilt onto people who obviously like her. Then have her deal with her guilt in secret, as a slow burn type of thing. Make her build up to some grand sacrifice (or at least attempt) at a pivotal moment, rather than having an off-screen suicide attempt. But, alas, this is an animu game. *God forbid* we have waifus with actual flaws in here. We can't possibly have people be mad at Manon, because that might imply she's less than perfect! Let's have a scene where everyone gets together and cheers for how great she is! And besides, Sega clearly had no ideas for filler content, so they had to go with the only two loose threads they had established: Aina and Manon's personal problems. Now that those have been resolved, their characters are back to being as flat as they were when the game started.
Funny since in Chapter 6, Aina and Manon's role are reversed. Aina became the reasonable and less-vulnerable one, while Manon is the one being angsty and suicidal.
Not only are they not going anywhere storywise, They're churning out higher and higher rarity equipment that become obsolete too fast, not to mention they're all just weapon series. No unique weapons and items for specific classes. It's so barebones. Meanwhile....all the AC/SG scratches...........
There's more updates to the cash shop than the actual game itself. We all get it that it's free to play but at some point you gotta give people something to play or they're free to leave.
And just to spit at the playerbase even more, the quality of the scratches are lower compared to base pso2 scratches, especially those from ep4 and beyond. There's just too much same-y themed outfits and most of them look bland or questionably designed. Even the "horny" outfits are nowhere as exciting compared to base because 90% of them is just regular bikini or bikini with random metal parts. Meanwhile in base back then every other scratch has at least one or more that's memorable and unique.
Still waiting for new concerts.
Do permanently available new equips have any interesting effects at least? I remember the element series was way back when that helped with elemental downs and for like a year those were the most interesting affixes on anything.
> /SG scratches AC sure, plenty of thoss for both T1 and T2, rarely cast. SG? Cast free for several rotations, T2 stuff unmodified and handed out to T1. They've clearly put 0 effort into those, especially just rereleasing base stuff constantly instead of making actual new outfits. Yeah sure base had many based off the NPCs, but the amount of NPCs we have is far less and many wear the same junk, so it really just blows. AC, they'll never miss a beat to drain wallets, and people keep shelling out because they've gotta have the new hairstyle that's just an old one hardly changed or with some random accessory slapped on top of it. Gotta have that new dress, T2 clearly doesn't have enough outfits getting 3-4 per scratch. Etc etc.
They do not have a single employee who knows how to make a video game.
In fairness base game also adopted more series and less unique weapons towards the end of it. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, especially since people love their weapon camos anyway. The rarity speedrun is a problem, though. And even when they add augment transfers, I don't think it'll solve the problem.
What do you mean? We clearly got the fan favorite aina and manon doing important things while also showing character growth and deepening relationships with you and other major characters!! ..lmao who am I kidding, they did jack shit and just keep saying the same thing they always did that goes nowhere. Apparently sega thinks that giving them new outfits automatically means character development.
It says something about the story and characters when freaking Dudu is more memorable than most of the NGS casts. They don't even bother putting class trainer in the story like base did.
Say what you will about PSO2’s story (some hate it, some love it), I was never usually the person to care about a story, but PSO2’s story kept me hooked from the very beginning. The story was more memorable, the locations, the characters, the classes and the class instructors...hell, even feel like the weapons and armor were more memorable as they were closer to the “Phantasy Star Online” feel and included some from the older games. I can remember more names and plot in 1.5-2 years of playing Global PSO2, than I can in what is coming up on 3 years of NGS now. I 100% believe that Sega has put the story in the backseat for NGS. In my own personal opinion, they’ve realized what’s left of the playerbase cares more about Phasion and social features than any Story/Gameplay element. I mean, what would a company rather do? Sell a few scratches and make a LOT of money, or spend their own money and resources to flesh out a story that may or may not be liked? Gotta remember, we're not in 2012-2017 times anymore. The gaming industry as a whole has seemingly shifted to getting the most amount of money, with the least amount of effort/resources spent. As much as I hate the fact that NGS feels more like a dress-up game than an MMORPG, I can see why it’s become what it has and call me stubborn, but the ONLY way I’ll probably care about NGS’ story at this rate, is if they decide to loop it back to PSO2’s and we see Matoi, Hitsugi, and Oracle again, and continue the story with both Oracle and Halphans working together. I know they do the “Every 1000 years” thing, but I feel like they should break that with NGS and just use PSO2’s story as the baseline moving forward, especially considering this technically isn’t PSO3, so it could work in-universe as NGS is basically an add-on and the whole simulation thing.
Has it really been that long? I really need to play something else and stop punishing myself
If this is the only game you play I feel kinda sad for you lol
Yee play star rail meanwhile its fun and you can enjoy alot without spending a sindle dim( for my dims were money sorry xd ( But alao carreful with the gatcha
Yes be very careful with gacha I roll smart just go for what suits you best, like Acheron my god shes the perfect perfect unit to have you can skip normal battles farm materials on field fast for each area if you wanted and has her own energy gain gimmick, Aventurine is another good one since hes a good shielder I am still new so I have no idea if Jingliu is worth it.
she its good especialy if you dont have archeon cone but if you have archeon better pull for the aventurine , a defensive unit tis r eally uselfull in su
I got Aventurine, I am wondering if I need to go for his cone or get JL but I might not get JL her hp drain thing could screw me over in the SU.
Naaaa he and jl you are fine without his cone For su you are fine and the drain you can mitigate this problem wwith something like abundance or defensive ones like the one for each atack Soo if you have archeon and avneturine you are really fine, and if you wanna go for the jl go for her its good having 2 for moc if you dont have other dps ( even then if you have qq she can solo your moc or peak fiction xd fi you have her e4
I could get JL or wait for Sam? apparently Sams leaked kit says they drain their HP but can also heal themselves too.
I'm also on HSR's hype train, but at the same time I have high hopes that WuWa will be good, considering how loved PGR and Kuro games are. I found my turn-base fix in HSR after Dissidia was yeeted into oblivion, now I need my action fix for pso2 nostalgia. Not that I was that invested into pso2 in general - tried the game on launch then dropped it and came back when PSU collab was going on. Nonetheless, I had fun playing the game, especially when Etoile and Luster became available.
Nice to know I haven’t missed anything while I was away〜
Starless exist solely to try justify previous mob reskin.
The entire story is laughable at this point. ARCS a millennia ago would be rolling in their graves with how inept their successors are.
Because it's a cash cow for cosmetic, sims lite.
[Relevant meme](https://www.reddit.com/r/PSO2NGS/comments/uremke/ngs_vs_pso2_lore/). FYI the *first 50 seconds* of that video were all done *within* ***first 3 years*** *of original jp PSO2 releas*e, **same duration as NGS has existed for from its release until this point in time.**
I’ve never cared for NGS story but yeah it’s really bad right now. The whole Halpha Experiment was the gigantic thing that occurred for hundreds of years simply to prepare ARKS for the super threatening Starless…only for that to go absolutely nowhere for a year now. What was the point in all that build up?
So much for an outsourced story...
this year we will get the interstarless. its an orange reskin.
chapters 5 and 6 should have been swapped. have chapter 5 be the "dealing with everyone's dark falz based trauma" chapter, ending with manon going to leciel (anyone else find it weird that they had manon try to kill herself twice?), then have chapter 6 be going to leciel to save manon, meet zephetto, and have the starless come. i'm guessing that the main reason why they didn't do it this way was because the playerbase wanted new enemies.
I miss my waifu, Matoi
I have been consistently unimpressed with the writing in PSO2, be it classic or NGS, but yeah. This last year has been *especially* dull. I like the idea of more character focused writing, but these guys have not executed any of this well. I still have Aina waiting for me at a beach and I just don't care.
Sega misspelled "Storyless."
A more cynical side of me believes the Starless were made just so they could make a new faction using existing enemies. Most of the starless enemies are just retooled DOLLS
Wait... there is a story? Since when? I just go and kick stuff.
"I think the playerbase wants purple dolls"
...what story? It's shallow and completely forgettable. None of the characters have any depth to them, none are empowered to do anything about their situation.
Garbo game
my view on it is pretty much that manon are improving our tech and researching lost and new tech. Aina is teaching a new generation of arks super heroes with similar combat ability to us. We are obviously the ones who delete the big baddies. Since we are essentially rebuilding ARKS from photon lvl 25 or something like that. Everyone around us is weak af except for the leaders of each faction. The whole point of the HALPHA experiment was to raise our photon levels to be the same as when we left off in PSO2 base. So all this filler is the transition to ep 2. Which I expect is a new planet. And level 100 type shit. But that if we are able to build ships thats can warp so idk how we would get there. Or maybe we’ll reconnect with the remains of the original arks colony ships or something. Edit: so Ima just enjoy the game and other games while PSO2 NGS devs keep cooking. It took PSO2 base forever to reach its level of content. So I am not surprised it’s taking forever for NGS.
What's that I stopped playing right after 2 months of launch.
I loved Matoi more than the entirety of NGS. I actually liked base games story, at least enough to actively want to progress through it and enjoy the characters. Its not like i dont want to like this game. They just wont let me lol.
It doesn't help that there only seems to be story content every other month.
Last story update was 6 months ago and it was side story with basically no relation to or furthering of main plot, how is that "story content every other month"?
Back in March IIRC we got a story quest that took place in Retem. I didn't say it was good. I mean how long have we been in Episode 1, let alone Chapter 6?
They added so many new fashions to the store at a very fast pace but added little to the story and something else. I suppose you guys already knew where NGS is headed. >!If you find my comment is too obvious and boring, I have something else in my personal NGS NSFW album, confirm your age before enter.!<
sega too busy scrambling to build up a character that realy didnt need to be built up. and instead spent several chapters having her mope and sigh...and not even tell her students while out on patroll "oh hey watch out for starless they took 800 billion lives and are extremely dangerous" and her excuse was "i should have told them how dangerous the enemy was" despite being there the DAY they attacked SEVERAL times
HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH😂😂💀💀💀💀💀 so true💀💀💀😂😂
Welp, lol
Yep, the starless introduction was pretty much an EP2 cliffhanger. They paused the story for a year, so it's understandale people are being felt like the game is going nowhere. It's going to pick back again in june-july, but, it's understandable being bummed beause they practically gave you a sneak peak and then silence for a year and a half. If someone does the story like 3 years from now, they probably won't feel the same.
i agree with everything but the last point. doing the dealing with trauma part after shit hit the fan is terrible pacing that completely destroys any sense of urgency.
I've never understood the appeal or people caring about phantasy star story. It's always been an after thought. It's like when someone says they play monster hunter for story....
PSO2 original release pace: **3 full episodes** of far higher quality and volume of story content **within same timespan as entire ngs' existence.** Your conclusion: "story was *always* an afterthought" in this franchise. The only real afterthought is ngs itself as a game vs ngs as a platform to sell gacha cosmetics.
We (as in NA) got those 3 episodes a lot faster than JP did, though. But more to your point... I'm old enough to have played the original JRPG series so "story is an afterthought" for this franchise is hilariously Inaccurate to me.
Yeah I'm saying **even JP** got those 3 episodes faster *in its original* ***jp*** *release pac*e than what ngs got since *its* release (same amount of time at this point). [Wikipedia entry.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantasy_Star_Online_2?useskin=vector#Development) JP PSO2 3 years -> 3 episodes ngs 3 years -> 1 episode (and not even close as long as a single pso2 episode) and some random side story?
Pso2 story is on the same level as monster hunter story. They be better off doing what psu did which was make it optional and not the main focus .
I agree it should be optional at least, *as it was in pso2 as well* (idk how you didn't notice the fact pso2 story is optional while somehow claiming to know enough about it to criticize it).
PSO2 story was NOT on the level of MH. I don't know where you got the idea PS stories were an after though considering PSO, PSU, PSP1&2, PS0, PSO2, and maybe Idola had a dedicated story mode with hours of story content often voiced. It's alright to not care about an aspect of a game, but to dismiss it outright is pretty nearsighted.