Immediatly from the theme song of this game, I knew I was in for a rough start. Any song that includes the words love, light, dark, and destiny used all within the same verse is pure trouble.
I shall be, to make note, focusing mostly on the single player aspect of this game. I will delve into the more popular function of the MMORPG of this game, but it'll be taken from my experiences with the BETA. Just a heads up on that.
Anyway, you play Ethan Weber, a percousious little 17 year old who enjoys hating the GUARDIANS and flying on his floating surf board...thing. However, that all changes when the planets surronding him, and on the station he resides, is attacked by an onslaught of commet like falling monsters labeled the SEED. After shooting a few baddies and saving a thug or two, Ethan decides he's going to join the GUARDIANS, putting aside his years of hatred of them. Go figure. During his profession in, essentially, mercs for hire, he meets some rather...well I can't say interesting, people as he and his band of misfits go out to complete missions and uncover mysteries. The story is much worse than this, trust me.
The characters are INCREDIBLY cliche. This is such cookie cutter anime style that it's literally painful to sit through the cinematics. It pained me, it really did, but I stammered through it just to get the story, and I wish I hadn't. The story is generic and predictable, just like the characters to the point of being stereotypical. The men are hot headed and powerful while the women solve their problems by flaunting their virtual assets and faint at the first sign of a boss. This is made all the worse as the story is told by the horrible voice acting and even worse dialogue. Again, painful, literally painful. Even the game doesn't like it's own story. You switch between plot lines so much that they all lose dramatic feel and intensity, and you just end up going through the motions with them.
The game will make any gamer skitzo, as in when you are watching the cut scenes, you want action - to actually play the game (the first 30 minutes doesn't even let you play really), and then when you get in the action, it becomes so tiresome you wish for the cinematics again. This repeats over and over, no matter how many times you learn your lesson.
Speaking of the gameplay, let's talk about that some more. It's very simple really. Hit monsters, they die, you get exp, repeat. That's really all it is. Every mission, from start to finish, is the same damn thing. Get from point A to point B while clearing rooms of the monsters in the process. You will need to collect keys to progress, but you get them by, yup you guessed it, killing enemies. Occasionally you'll have to decontaminate an area of the SEED, but that's rare and horribly dull. Most, if not all, RPGs keep themselves from getting too tired and monotonous by giving you a puzzle here and there. Not here. Just pure straight cookie cutter gameplay, and PSO can't even do that right.
Your team is absolutely useless. Most of the time they'll just stand there looking stupid as they sound and wont help at all. When they do join in the action, they are so weak - because you can't upgrade anything on them (though they do level up with you), they are pretty much better off just directing attention away from you so you don't get hit as much. Hell, you can't even heal them individually in the event you feel you need them alive (even though if they do die, they come back 30 seconds later with full health).
Graphically the game is pretty bad for the 360. There is just no excuse for this, port, remake, whatever or not, they could have done a hell of a lot better.
After getting through 4 chapters of this nonsense, you get Extra Mode. It's basically the main game without the story, voice acting, or stupid characters, meaning it's much much better than the story. It's just Online Mode for the anti-social or penniless to pay for online fee, or, like me, can't justify paying monthly for this train wreck.
In online, all you do is missions, or quests if you will. You can join parties already in progress or form your own and go into battle. You'll get exp and meseta (money) at a much slower rate than in the other two modes, making you have to suffer longer than you need to for some worthless upgrade. You get your own room that your friends can visit and you can decorate. Basic RPG elements of leveling up, making items, and upgrading current items apply.
A nice feature of the online mode is that you can do voice communication with your headset, making it much easier to communicate while not breaking up the action to do so. So no more dealing with illiterate players - now you can hear their squeaky voices and understand them , but not be happy about it.
I can't really find many redeeming factors in this game, and I'm not sure why this wasn't given a lower score by others. There is no multiplayer option from Extra Mode, which is inexcusable, and there are lag issues galore in the online mode.
The story feels tacked on to make the game feel more like your money's worth, even though most are getting it for the online mode. As bad as the single player is, they should have just left it out and stayed with just Extra and Online.
So, let's summerize (sadly):
*PROS*
-Moderately fun Extra Mode
-Decent upgrade features
-Extensive character customization
-Voice communication online
*CONS*
-Inexcusably bad graphics
-Horrendous voice acting
-Terrible sound track
-4th grader written dialogue and story
-VERY glitchy AI
-Noninteractive team system
-Painful game play
-Just plain bad
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