Phantasy Star Online is one of those games that matters more to the historical context of gaming than it does to the gameplay itself. Phantasy Star Online showed the world that console-based online multi-player was viable. Sure there were plenty of examples of network games (meaning games that use a network) before Phantasy Star Online but Phantasy Star Online proved that it was entirely possible for 4+ players to play a cooperative Action RPG-style game experience in real time on a console-based system.
I love systems that are elegant because they solve real-world problems. Phantasy Star Online’s online architecture solved “How can we synchronize 4 players playing a real-time game on console-based systems with network connections that are unreliable?” Easily. Well architected servers, client-side prediction, and latency tolerances. The engineering that went into PSO’s netcode is game design.
## What does Phantasy Star Online actually do?
You make a player character; you kill monsters, you gain experience and better equipment, you complete quests with other players. That’s literally all Phantasy Star Online’s gameplay consists of. It is because of this that while the gameplay itself is nothing revolutionary, the revolution behind Phantasy Star Online was providing that same gameplay with other players in real time through network connections.
You log into a network lobby. Once in the lobby, you are placed into a server match with other players. From there, you can see available quests, talk to other players, and form parties. Once you and your friends have formed a party, you select a quest (a predefined dungeon with specific goals) and then you go kill monsters, get loot, complete objectives, and return to the lobby. Everything you gain as far as experience and items during your quest stay with you after you’ve returned.
While your character progression is satisfying, it is extremely linear. You gain levels, you get better equipment, you work towards getting better weapons and armor. On top of your character getting progressively stronger, the content itself gets harder as you play. Eventually you will hit the end-game which consists of farming for rare loot drops. Farming is essentially repeating the same dungeon over and over until you get the item you want. End game content in Phantasy Star Online is pretty much the same as playing the base Action RPG loop but with friends.
## The Technical Triumph of Providing Real-Time Multiplayer On Consoles
One thing that REALLY impressed me about Phantasy Star Online’s engineering was that this was 1999. Dial-up was the standard and even network adapters were OPTIONAL for the Dreamcast. The amount of magic that went into creating a seamless multiplayer experience on top of messy network connections is no small task.
In order to provide the best gameplay experience possible, Phantasy Star Online utilized client-side prediction to account for delays between the clients and the server. Client-side prediction allows your computer to predict where your character is and then confirm with the server that you are indeed where you think you are. This allowed for the client to provide you with as smooth of a gameplay experience as possible regardless of small differences in latency that may occur due to connection speeds.
Another way they took into account the limitations of network technology was how the developers structured the quests. Each quest has a defined start and endpoint and are specifically designed in a way that ensures you will not wander too far away from your teammates before disconnecting. Essentially Phantasy Star Online’s developers understood that true lock-step gameplay between multiple clients and a server is completely unfeasible, especially when taking into account network connection speeds and availabilities. Therefore they decided to design around the limitations.
The lobby system Phantasy Star Online uses allows players to search for other players, form parties, and view each other’s characters and equipment stats. Players are also able to send each other premade chat messages or simple chat with each other.
## Why Does This Matter?
Phantasy Star Online paved the way for any and every online console gaming experience to come for the next 20 years. WoW dungeon design seriously owes a lot to Phantasy Star Online. Today almost every console action RPG uses the same formulas that Phantasy Star Online created.
From a technical stand point Phantasy Star Online set the template for virtually every online action RPG that followed it. Client-side prediction, server reconciliation, and latency tolerances are now the standard of the industry.
Phantasy Star Online proved that gamers who played on consoles wanted to have online experiences. Players even had to buy a network adapter in order to play Phantasy Star Online on Dreamcast. The fact that Sega saw an opportunity to have online console gaming back in 1999 shows that they understood the importance and relevance of online gaming at a time where no other game developer did.
## Is Phantasy Star Online Still Fun?
Phantasy Star Online’s gameplay itself is still very fun. Killing monsters, farming for new equipment, and leveling up are all staples of Classic RPG Games. Playing through Phantasy Star Online by yourself versus AI- controlled enemies is still fun. Combat itself is fluid and enjoyable.
Graphically Phantasy Star Online hasn’t aged well at all. Characters are blocky and texture-less, environments are bland and boring, and animations feel lazy and clunky. However considering how far graphics have come since 1999 it’s hard to imagine these graphics standing up today.
Leveling up in Phantasy Star Online is also incredibly easy to understand. Within the first few minutes of playing you will more than likely know what you have to do to reach your goal. Levels also do a great job of pacing themselves. The game is never too difficult to progress but never feels too easy to play. Despite Phantasy Star Online’s core gameplay loop being incredibly simple the amount of quests and areas keep the game from feeling stale.
## The Online Experience That Perfectly Captured What Online Gaming Is All About
Playing with other people in Phantasy Star Online was groundbreaking in 1999. You were playing with three other real people in the same game at the same time. You could talk to your friends. You had to work with other players to defeat bosses. You could help other players discover secret areas. Playing with friends added a whole other dimension to the gameplay.
Even though Phantasy Star Online’s servers were shutdown back in 2007 playing online with other players proved that console gamers not only wanted to have online gaming experiences but that they thrived in them. Phantasy Star Online set the standard that every other online console game since has tried to achieve.
## Why Do the Discontinued Servers Matter?
The servers for Phantasy Star Online no longer exist as of 2007. This is important because Phantasy Star Online no longer has anything it sold to players when it was new. Without being able to play with friends Phantasy Star Online’s single-player becomes nothing more than a shadow of what made the game so good. This creates an interesting situation when you really think about online gaming and how fragile it can be. Online games by nature must have some sort of server to host the game on and all it takes is for that server to go offline for the game to essentially become useless.
Conclusion: Phantasy Star Online is a game that should be remembered for its impact on gaming and not for its gameplay. The gameplay of Phantasy Star Online is literally just your standard Action RPG gameplay (despite being in a multiplayer setting) that has been done better since Phantasy Star Online.
What is important about Phantasy Star Online is the technology behind keeping that gameplay synced on multiple computers, how the networks were architectured, and understanding that console gamers wanted this experience.
Phantasy Star Online was the beacon that showed other game developers what we can do on console hardware. It showed other companies that gamers on consoles yearned to play with each other. Phantasy Star Online laid the foundation for everything that would come after it.
If you know Phantasy Star Online you know why online gaming is the standard today.
Rating: 8/10 – Changed gaming forever but isn’t THAT good.
Samuel’s been gaming since the Atari 2600 and still thinks 16-bit was the golden age. Between accounting gigs and parenting teens, he keeps the CRTs humming in his Minneapolis basement, writing about cartridge quirks, console wars, and why pixel art never stopped being beautiful.
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