All right! I beat the final boss again and watched the ending this time. Vivienne repels the bad guys with the power of her heart (no, seriously) and reseals the SEED in the void, where they will lie waiting until the sequel. After all that drama, my character and Vivienne wind up homeless and unemployed, making their living as armed robbers and extortionists that roam the galaxy in search of the Illuminus. And that’s the good ending.

New free missions opened up after I cleared the game. I did one, but it’s better to leave on a high note than to play so much that the game gets stale, so it’s time to quit. Final thoughts on the whole experience:

Why I liked Phantasy Star Portable

The story-mode was short and sweet. My save game file says 25 hours, but at least 60% of the time was spent doing free missions. Not every game has to be 99 hours and 99 minutes long to make a good impression.

Game flow is easy to understand. See monster. Kill monster. See terrorist. Kill terrorist. There’s only one major twist in the game, and they don’t go around hyping mysteries they don’t intend to tell you about until the final dungeon.

The challenge level is just right. For me, anyway. The last dungeon had some tough battles, but nothing I couldn’t handle. At the same time it was never so easy that I got bored or frustrated.

Very kind to people who suck. Like me. Offers free missions to grind on if you need to. I did each one once, did a few twice and I was at just the right level to take on the final boss. Enemies also drop tons of weapons and useful healing items, and almost every boss has a healing and recovery station right outside its door so you can get into fighting shape before taking them on. Story missions also give you regular chances to go back and save and outfit yourself before continuing.

Fast loading times. Normally I take fast loading for granted, but I appreciate it doubly this time because I’m playing Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 4 at the same time. Even with a data install it still loads like mack truck on every new scene.  PSP manages to do waaaaay better without taking up precious space on my memory stick. This must be…love.

Accommodates a variety of playing styles. I forget the exact number, but there are about 5 races and 10 classes you can choose and a LOT of weapons and skills you can give them. You can use magic, guns, fight at long range, fight ultra close-up, focus on speed and accuracy, tank your way through, all of the above, it’s all up to you!

I stuck to just two classes (Hunter -> Fighmaster), but I got to fool around with various weapons and change my style as the game got tougher and tougher. Started out with a single sword, moved on to twin swords, dabbled around with greatswords and guns (useless) and finally finished the boss off with double blades. In a single dungeon I would use the greatsword to clear out small mobs, twin swords to take down tough single enemies and double blades to do damage very quickly to the bosses. If I’d had more time I would have liked to experiment with axes and claws as well. Normally in multi-weapon games (e.g Rune Factory) I just pick a weapon and specialize, but there are so many types of weapons in PSP that it seemed a shame not to play around a little.

No annoying characters. There were some who could have been annoying if they’d been given the chance, but none of them hung around long enough to get on my nerves. Vivienne’s heart-fetish is so corny it’s cute, and Helga the bad guy is so cheesy and over-the-top that she’s actually funny.

You get to play dress up! Enemies drop money and sellable items like water, so I was rich. Rich! With nothing else to spend the cash on, I turned on my inner coordinator and decked my character out in a variety of fashionable duds. No self-respecting adventurer would be caught dead repeating an outfit. Not on my watch!

Why Phantasy Star Portable is not very good

Very much a spin-off (of Phantasy Star Universe and Ambition of the Illuminus). This is a good thing if you’ve played and liked those. Otherwise you’ll feel a bit left out as they go on and on about who did what when. The story is skimpy enough that I was never confused, but they took a lot of things for granted.

Might be too easy for some. If I found it “just right” then it’s bound to be too easy for the more hardcore kind of player.

No deep story or complicated plot. I liked this about it, but anyone looking to play a typical RPG will be disappointed. It’s an action game first with the story very much tacked on at the end.

No engaging characters. I didn’t dislike anyone, as I said, but I wasn’t crazy about anyone either. Except maybe Vivienne, she was kind of sweet. Since the protagonist is actually mute (and not just pretending) this time round, his/her interactions with other characters are extremely limited. Mostly he just gets talked at instead of talked to, so it was hard to develop affection for anyone.

Battles can get messy. It can be hard to see what your character is doing when the screen is full of characters and enemies executing all kinds of flashy moves. There were many, many moments when I didn’t know what was going on. I just tapped the triangle and square buttons like mad until something died.

Occasional slowdown for busy battles. A little irritating, but not so bad as to be unbearable.

Stupid visual-novel choices. I must have done something right, since I got the “good” ending, but there was frequently no way to tell which the “good” choices were, and no easy to go back and redo them if you thought you’d done something wrong. Consider the choice in the screenshot on the right. What’s the difference?!

Visuals are very dark. I thought it was my PSP that was on a low brightness setting, but looking at the screenshots I took, dang, that’s a dark game. On the plus side, the game itself isn’t depressing at all, it’s fairly upbeat.

Little variety in the missions. They’re highly monotonous and always play out the same way. Enter dungeon, beat up monsters to unlock keys, open doors, go to next block, go through three or four blocks in the same fashion, beat dungeon boss, end of mission. The exact same pattern for Every. Single. Mission. A little more variety, e.g. escort missions, rescue missions, timed missions, search-and-recovery missions, would have made things much better. Not that I didn’t enjoy myself, but there’s definite room for improvement on that score.

And so on, and so forth. I’m going to order Phantasy Star Portable 2 and give that a go as well, once a little time has passed. I can’t stay stuck on the same game forever, so it’s time to move on. If nothing else, it’s given me the courage to try games I normally wouldn’t bother with because “they’re not my type” so I’ll try to be a little more adventurous in the future.