Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis

 PC
Metascore
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No score yet - based on 2 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
  1. Destructoid
    Jun 14, 2021
    75
    I’m not sure if New Genesis is going to live up to the nine-year-and-still-going-legacy of PSO 2, but it’s a start.
  2. RPG Fan
    Jul 22, 2021
    60
    I really, really wanted to love New Genesis. It has a solid and fun core, but the game fails to build on it and falls flat in the end. Those problems are compounded by the horrid lag and issues at launch, but what MMO doesn’t have issues at launch? I can’t totally fault them for it, but it seems they were unprepared. This game feels like it needed another 6 to 12 months in the oven before it was ready. In short, Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis is a potentially incredible and enjoyable MMO that is ruined by archaic gameplay systems, poor monetization practices, and a total lack of content. Hopefully, in the future, a lot of these things will be fixed, but at launch, New Genesis is what it is: a game released in 2021 that’s stuck in bad practices from 2012.

User Reviews

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User Score
2.9

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 27 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 27
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 27
  3. Negative: 21 out of 27
  1. Diwari1215
    Jun 21, 2021
    3
    Let me start by saying I have over 2,000 hours logged into PSO 2. I have playing PSO since the Dreamcast, and this franchise has always been aLet me start by saying I have over 2,000 hours logged into PSO 2. I have playing PSO since the Dreamcast, and this franchise has always been a staple for my friends and I. This time around we are all deciding to give up for at least a year on this one. It simply does not have enough content to engage us, or even really be considered anything other than a big open beta.

    It takes under 10 hours to get through all of the quests, and even less if you skip the cutscenes. In total there are around 20 total quests outside of Dailies and Weeklies. All of these are extremely mundane and boring, they all essentially boil down to "Go to X area, and kill Y amount of enemies"...not very exciting at all. There are of course additional challenges such as Towers and Cocoons, which are little more than glorified tutorials that award Skillpoints for your skill tree. There are 20 skillpoints in total, and the skills are usable on each class tree, meaning that cocoons and towers are worth doing only once, then it's just a matter of getting faster times....on tutorial missions.

    Once that is complete, the player finds themselves art about level 15 of 20 total levels, and the only meaningful way to level up is to grind the same enemies in the same regions for hours on end. No dungeons, no team challenges, no pvp, no extra lore locations, no real way to spend the time, just go and grind PSE bursts. And the carrot on the stick to encourage play is basically gearscore, or Light Level akin to Destiny or several other MMO's. Only in PSO 2, Battle Power (gearscore) just reflects your characters power. It's not a reflection of the player overcoming any difficult challenge, time trials, or boss fights, it's basically an indication of how much theyve just grinded. The "endgame" weapons and armor do nothing to even change the gameplay or flow of combat, everything is just ann increase to atk power so you can....I guess grind PSE Bursts slightly faster?

    The foundations for a GREAT game are there, but one could say that about a myriad different Betas out there. This game enters into a market where free-to-play MMOs are very common, and many come with worthwhile content, but at the moment, this game doesnt compete for our time. That can change as SEGA adds more, but with all of the server and economic issues that this game sees, I reckon that's a long way off. Come back to this one in a year, it may be a different picture by then.    … Full Review »
  2. TsukasaHiiragi
    Aug 11, 2021
    0
    Summary -

    NGS right now is basically an open beta/demo Pro's Significant graphics update over PSO2 Can be fun to play Scenery looks    Summary -

    NGS right now is basically an open beta/demo

    Pro's

    Significant graphics update over PSO2
    Can be fun to play
    Scenery looks amazing
    Satisfying combat

    Con's

    Severe lag issues
    Barely any content at present
    Prone to crashing and other major issues
    Heavy Korean style grindfest, think BDO but with no content
    Balance issues with some classes especially Melee
    Some enemies have a bit too much HP, making some battles boring
    Less than 20 quests/side quests?
    Daily/Weekly quests are SHARED, making alts useless baggage holders
    IP Block for JP server
    Bugged/Broken Daily quests
    Bugs and Issues all over the place
    Shady business practice

    8/11 Update

    Sega is showing on full display absolutely shameful business practices by literally reselling old costumes and accessories in new scratch cards at higher resolutions using new rig system forcing players to rebuy the same outfits.

    Gigantix Update

    This raid boss update is the worst content update I've ever seen, poorly designed in the extreme literally forcing players to sit around for hours for storms to appear for a level 24 boss to spawn that requires a full group of players to take down before it de-spawns, and can one shot everyone but everyone farms it through sheer desperation because of the general lack of content, and hopes to get a new weapon to sell on the market which is now completely locked behind a paywall.

    The biggest problems with New Genesis is *massive lack of content*, everyone who played the original PSO2 knows that Sega milked the game for the best part of a decade with releasing minimal amounts of content updates, and maybe once every 14 months a new story part and in between these slices of content, smaller mini updates coupled with seasonal events...then we come to the real reason, the AC scratch and collabs...this is what original PSO2 is, and was..but it still had a significant amount of content even at launch! The signs are already apparent that they plan on releasing content in a similar fashion with the next significant update for New Genesis being scheduled for winter, meaning the current content HAS to tie you over until then which is basically mindless grinding since the quests very quickly drop off which provide any respectful amount of exp so you are forced to into a truely mindnumbing boring grindfest that apart from the graphics overhaul adds surprisingly very little all across the board and even adds only 72 new armor/weapons from 1* to 4* Naturally, all these issues will be made worse when Sega develops content for the Japanese only server such as collab events and skips the global server entirely, this will happen.

    You have a 30 minute tutorial quest that you can't skip unless you finish it once, then thrust into the game with very limited amount of side quests that unlock as you progress though the story...which..there is about 4 story quests right now, and its spread out with battle power gates to actively prevent you from progressing until you hit the required amounts.

    What is sad is they literally killed PSO2 to push players into playing this game, which honestly if the content was acceptable in the first place, then it wouldn't be so bad but it isn't - NGS is gated in the extreme, with areas, quests and content being power gated and they force the player into a mindless grind to slow players down whilst they slowly release trickle amounts of content, this is very apparent once you've played the game for a day...you have already done 90% of the content currently available....except for one of the quests that tell you to find every single hidden red crate in the game.

    It's honestly a shame, because under the hood - the graphics, character design and sound/music elements are pretty solid, everything works. It feels like the New Genesis was put together in the past six months because there is just a massive lack of everything. Essentially, once you have played one class and finished all the story/side quests, there isn't *any* repeatable quests and once you hit 20 there isn't anything left to do except farm for souls or affix 4* gear or level up a new class and here lies the problem, without any quests except for a slice of daily/weekly quests which offer a tiny sliver of exp so you are literally forced, and repeat forced to kill the same set of monsters in the same areas until your fingers blister and bleed, I can confirm at least one blister on my finger right now....and since the daily and weekly quests are ACCOUNT locked, having any alts to do daily quests or to level up a different class....you can forget that and forces back into the grindfest.

    Character classes are extremely lacking, missing ability to level up PAs and skills and missing a huge amount of abilities, especially abilities that close the distance between you and your target making gameplay messy, some classes are very overpowered whilst others are underpowered and suffer.    … Full Review »
  3. AJCk19
    Nov 12, 2022
    3
    It needs a lot of "quality of life" changes, and I don't see why I would play this over something like Xenoblade Chronicles. Basically, if anyIt needs a lot of "quality of life" changes, and I don't see why I would play this over something like Xenoblade Chronicles. Basically, if any other rpg sci-fi driven single player game becomes a mmo, this game is in trouble.… Full Review »
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