For those of you who missed it the first time around, Phantasy Star Online is an action RPG that despite the lack of a deep or interesting story, is riddled with replay value. Each episode has four major dungeons and four difficulty levels. Once you create a character, you can choose to take on these dungeons alone or with a party of up to four people. The group aspect, especially online, is one of the game's biggest draws. Characters are lumped into three major categories, close attackers, ranged attackers, and magic users with individual choices blurring the lines between all three. The bulk of the game is made up of hacking and looting the dungeons looking for higher levels and better weapons for your character. This has an addictive quality like no other.

Action takes place from a third person perspective with semi-automatic camera movement. The L trigger quickly places the camera directly behind you, and this technique will be used quite often. That brings about the only chink in Phantasy Star's armor. You need to constantly tweak the camera because there is no lock on targeting this game ala Zelda or Dark Cloud. The gameplay is exactly the same as it was when it debuted on the Dreamcast, but now it feels a little dated. With all the time between ports the lock on targeting or strafing was something that I really wish was added. Maybe the developers intentionally left the system the way it was for the comfort of returning players. Even though I feel it could be better, the fighting system is still very sound. Attacks are done in combinations of three using weak, strong, or special attacks. There's some simple strategy involved with this since the weak attacks are fast but the strong attacks, which are slower, push the enemy back a step. Special attacks are characteristics of the weapon and do things like instant kill, add elements to the attack, or draw hit points.

Like I said, the leveling and weapon gathering is a very addictive experience. Monsters drop items, and dungeons are filled with boxes that contain even more. Logically, the higher the level you are playing, the better the loot. To be able to compete at the higher levels, you need to be stronger with better weapons, and thus begins the vicious cycle that will alienate family members and ruin your sleep schedule. Weapons come in a great number of shapes and size with a large variety of special skills attached. Spells on the other hand are somewhat limited in number but can be leveled up to a very high power.

The graphics weren't bad on the Dreamcast, but they haven't changed much in the port. Progressive scan is supported, but it would have been nice if they added a widescreen mode. This would have made two played split screen immensely more playable. Regardless of polygon count and other technical issues, I would still say the game looks beautiful and stands up to most any other game on the system. I credit this to the game's high artistic values and vibrant color scheme.

Above all else in the sound department, Phantasy Star has done an excellent job of implementing Dolby Digital surround sound. Sounds effects are programmed to emit from the correct speaker in relation to what direction you are facing on the screen. I know this sounds like the very definition of 5.1, but you'd be surprised how many XBox games don't truly take advantage of the capability. The music is so good, that I remember tunes that I heard years ago, and it brought back some good memories. Everything sounds right from the eerie drawn out notes of the caves level to the happy music you get from identifying a rare item.

There's really no reason to read any further. Phantasy Star Online is the definitive XBox Live game. Voice chatting during the game with people from all around the country, while hammering through the games dungeons and challenge modes, is an awesome experience. Buy this game now, and I'll see you online. And someone crack the whip over at Sega and get us a sequel to this game built from the ground up for the XBox.