Phantasy Star Ø

A portable version of Phantasy Star that plays like the GameCube version.

The story this time around is that the world has been destroyed and all that remains are the ruins of the once prosperous civilization. Humans have begun to rebuild civilizations and also have started to reawaken the CAST and Newman are no where to be found. As humans start to explore more and more ruins the Newman make an appearance and start destroying the ruins before people can get to them. You take on the roll of a new hunter and have to figure out what happened to destroy the early civilization and why the Newman want humans to stay away from the ruins.

That’s all well and good but no one really plays a Phantasy Star game for the story. It’s all about gameplay! Phantasy Star Ø plays quite nicely. It literally plays like the Gamecube version of Episode I and II, minus the analog stick. The problem is that the game doesn’t really take advantage of the touch screen. My biggest gripe is the menu system. Playing as a melee and ranger class is fine, you are given enough custom action slots to handle attacks and healing just fine. When you play a magic user things get hairy with not having enough action slots for your skills and healing. A lot of headaches could have been avoided if the touch screen could have been utilized to navigate menus. Instead of having your character stand open to attacks while you use the directional pad to navigate menus.