Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II is more than just a game; it's a hidden historical document revealing the untold heroism of Rivers Cuomo, the frontman of Weezer. In a secret mission during World War II, Cuomo, along with his bandmates Weezer, Smartypants, and Sorry!, were enlisted to cull local wildlife, but their funds were tragically squandered on random purchases. Unbeknownst to the public, Cuomo, having honed his combat skills in the virtual realm, single-handedly ended World War II by defeating Hitler. However, a conspiracy involving farm animals distorted the truth, blaming Hitler's demise on suicide. This revelation adds a fascinating layer to Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II, making it a 9/10 for its inadvertent historical significance and blending of gaming and secret war hero narratives.

This game is my favorite of all time. I have such good memories playing with my friends, breaking a box and asking my friends "what's a tri-grinder", the first time running into a hildebear, and the first game I played with truly epic bosses. The music and the atmosphere are great, the animals are so interesting, and it's really cool running into one of the rare enemy variants and getting a rare drop. This is a game best enjoyed with friends and I was lucky enough to have great friends as a kid to play it with!

I've had this game for a very long time, it took me years to finally want to go through it, I knew it would be a long task, so I kept holding it off, well I finally got down to beating it and I gotta say I enjoyed the game a lot compared to when I played it years ago.

While the story isn't anything great, this is the game that got me into the Phantasy Star series, thanks to this game I would eventually play Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst, Phantasy Star Portable 1 and 2, Phantasy Star Zero, and Phantasy Star Online 2, all games I love for one reason or another.

The setting and the music oddly holds up very well, if it weren't for the graphics, I don't think this game would even feel old other than the combat being a tad stiff but still fun.

I played through the game solo and as a RaMar, or a female Hunter class and stock to only pistols and rifles, so that's where my experience with the game sits.

Honestly, I think the game's flaw resides in the fact that because this game is two Episodes, they both follow two different ways of playing through a story.

Episode 1 see's you playing the game like an MMO, you get a list of quests that basically have you studying a planet where a missing ship had reportedly landed. While not all quests have to be done, I feel the game doesn't tell you or properly let you know that the quests aren't required, the do help you get money and act as a good way of teaching you some of the game mechanics, but if you're willing to grind you really don't NEED to do them, but you also will miss out on story.

Episode 2 sees you pretty much dungeon crawling, no real objectives other than search this new area and fin the boss and beat them, it makes you feel closer to a mercenary as you look deeper into the aftermath of Episode 1.

I can honestly say I enjoyed Episode 2 a lot more than 1, but I could never suggest skipping 1 for many reasons.

Overall this was a great game and better than I remember back when I played this in the early 2000s.

Man I love this game. By todays standard it’s Kano but man back then it was so fun!!!! Honestly it still holds up for me. You play as a group of bounty hunters tasked with discovering a mystery on a newly colonized world. What happened to the crew that arrived before? Why are the monsters hostiles and mutating? It’s up to you and the hunters guild. The fun thing about this game was that it’s 4 player couch co-op. You and three of your buddies can customize your own character and venture off on a hack and slash adventure! Back in the day you could also take this baby online. Make sure if you g eat this game that you get it with its original case ad it has a code you must put in in order to play the game. Great music. Great atmosphere. Absolutely love this game.

God i love this game. I love the whole look and feel of it, the soundtrack, the bright colours, the sci-fi weaponry, the character creation screen, all of it.

I crave this aesthetic, i wish there was more of it.

I was lucky to have to got to play the split-screen local multiplayer of this growing up with my friends on the gamecube, and the game takes on a whole different difficulty. The game is designed more so that everyone brings their own characters and save-files, and then gathers up to take on a dungeon etc. But played split-screen with only one copy of the game, everyone essentially has to get by on minimal resources, be that meseta, items, experience, everything. It makes a game that can be quite chilled out and fairly easy going at times into something extremely difficult, but very enjoyable.

One of the things that really makes or breaks an action RPG for me is speed. It's what made Diablo and its various clones so successful. Phantasy Star Online has a significantly slower pace and it can be really to its detriment. The graphics and music are nice and unique, something that you don't see hardly any of in the sphere of Diablo like dungeon crawlers. If you're playing on consoles its fun to play in splitscreen. This is a "you had to be there" kind of game. I never got a chance to play this online back in the day and played a little of the PC version on a private server, but I can tell that it must have been mindblowing. There's a lot of early Monster Hunter DNA in here too. Worth checking out as a historical artifact if you've got no nostalgia attached to it.