14 DAY TRIAL // 
I've noticed that lately, SEGA has been reviving some of its greatest hits when it comes to releasing new PSP game material. From Valkyria Chronicles II to the newly released Phantasy Star Portable 2, one might actually get the impression that SEGA is running out of ideas. Fortunately, this is not the case and from what I can tell, this new strategy is just a way of giving gamers exactly what they want: a classic, addicting and refined gameplay experience with an up-to-date visual performance, guaranteed to satisfy even hard-core gamers.
Story Following the same narrative path as the original game, with the Seed being a constant menace to the existence of the Gurhal System, Phantasy Star Portable 2 is now focused on a new enemy, The Ancients. Also following the personal drama of Amelia, your ever complaining partner possessed by one of these Ancients, you now, once again, have to stop the destruction of your people.
With lots of cinematic cut-scenes that come with pretty good acting, you will get to venture off into the solar system and take on missions where mainly all you have to do is explore and fight bosses. This is the only way you can progress through the story, although there are three more mission types: open missions, tactical missions and trade missions.
Because it's an action role playing game, the story itself is stretched over multiple chapters and acts, but you don't have to despair because it's fairly simple to follow. Most of times you forget about it and you're more focused on not getting your behind kicked. Exploring the jungle or a cave has that effect on you!
Gameplay The first thing you need to know is that you'll be using all the buttons on your PSP. Each and every one of them has a specific command that you'll learn about and make use of while playing throughout missions, which makes it a lot easier to learn instead of playing through your ordinary tutorial prior to the game.
Before starting the story campaign, you will have to go through the character creation part, which can more accurately be described as advanced character creation. Here you can add your own personal touch to anything, from eyebrows and hair style to the color of your shoes and outfit. Not to mention that you can buy new clothes anytime you want to from an in-game shop.
A key feature is that you can add up to four members to your party. So when you're in trouble, all you have to do is hit the Community menu to add new members (for both multiplayer and story mode) and you can also view advanced details on them by viewing their own Partner Cards. Having all the party slots filled out, you will significantly increase your survival chances when taking on bosses (mainly that big dragon).
The RPG nature of the game lies in the way you can upgrade both personal skills and weapons after earning enough points. After each battle you will be given a detailed statistic on how many points you've earned and use them to upgrade your weapons and armor. Apart from these, there are also character points, which will aid you in increasing your character's class abilities. For instance, you can be a level ten character and a level two hunter at the same time.
At first, I wanted to stress out that there are too many RPG elements. Probably most of you would have went “Really?”. On second thought, you can never have too much role play. After all, customizing as many attributes, skills and God knows what other elements is what a role playing games should be all about. The addicting nature of a RPG lies in the ability to create your own unique individual, sort of a virtual warrior alter ego of the gamer, if you must.
As for the hand-to-hand combat system, it seems fairly capable. Allowing you to use both ranged weapons (grenade launchers and blasters) and melee weapons (two handed swords and shields) the fighting experience is very diverse and unique to each player. I've personally used the two handed sword more than ranged weapons, which is great because it deals a lot more damage, but at the same time you have to keep an eye on the health meter because you'll also be taking a lot more punches as well.
Each map comes with three exploration stages at the end of which you will have to fight it off with a boss that can vary from a fire breathing dragon to a huge knight-like warrior that can either stomp you or smash you with its oversized sword. The only way you can defeat them is by using the Dodge Roll system as much as possible and releasing as many crushing blows as you can (power attacks). Also, it wouldn't hurt to heal once in a while!
Phantasy Star Portable 2 is a classic RPG in the sense that it's all about exploration and gaining as many experience points as you can. For instance, you can play the non-story missions as many times as you want too at various difficulty levels. The idea is to fully make use of your skills, weapons and your party members so that you can progress through the story.
At the end of each mission, you will return to Clad 6, and report your accomplishments to a small military group called Little Wing. Here, you'll have your own quarters that you can decorate and also explore the trading opportunities that involve buying and selling of weapons and armors and also upgrading them prior to undertaking a mission.
Just like any good old fashion RPG, you can interact with characters and learn more about the story and how to train your skills or you can simply wonder around and search for NPCs (non-player characters) that can unlock new missions in your Mission Terminal. Chit-chatting is fairly common in all role playing games, but it can be useful sometimes, especially if you''re interested in fully understanding your purpose in the game.
Audio and Video With very good in-game weapon sounds, monster growls and soundtrack, I couldn't help noticing that sometimes party members will start voicing out all types of things from a battle cry to actually congratulating you in achieving victory. Even most cinematic scenes are acted out and not in a bad way either.
As for the video and graphics aspect, the cute anime look certainly did the job and it definitely suckered me into a gameplay addiction spree. The environmental settings are not bad, although a little more detail could have went in them, but I guess this is compensated by a really crisp and smooth character detail. The attention given to the enhanced visual aspect of the characters is probably due to the advanced character customization feature that I've talked about previously.
Conclusion What more could you want? A pretty good story sequel, lots of carefully added and useful RPG elements, very addicting gameplay and graphics; you do the math. Personally, I'm not really that keen on RPG's, but this time around SEGA even convinced me that with some cute anime characters and a strong RPG core you can turn anyone into a RPG freak (myself included).
