While SEGA announced that it was bringing the English version of Phantasy Star Online 2 way back in 2012, it obviously didn’t come. Last year PlayPark, a South East Asian company announced it was releasing Phantasy Star Online 2 in that region and in English. The issue? Well, they where IP blocking any foreign players that tried to play the game.
This continued and it was just announced that they have dropped IP blocks. That means if you want to just download and play Phantasy Online 2 without doing all the English patching! You can just head here, register and download. Please be warned that the SEA server is behind one years worth of content compared to the Japanese servers.
[Update] It seems that they are starting to block users once again. If you want to play you can always use the PSO2 Tweaker and player on the Japanese servers, which is the best version of the game. [/update]
[Source: Nichegamer]
Ad:Related posts:
Phantasy Star Online 2 to get a balancing patch soon
SEGA announces Phantasy Star Online 2 anime TV show
SEGA has no plans to release the PS4 version of Phantasy Star Online 2 outside of Japan
Phantasy Star Online 2 teases Guilty Gear Xrd collaboration
Phantasy Star Online 2 to feature NieR: Automata DLC
Why don’t they just release it in the west? About time they did, it’s already near 3 years old.
Like it says in the article its translated and release by PlayPark, a company outside of SEGA. I honestly believe that SEGA America was going to bring it over (they announced it at Pax 2012) and SEGA Japan signed a deal with this South East Asian company to have the English version exclusive to them (since they are paying to translate). I remember when their version was announced they boosted ‘The only English version’ or something like that.
But that’s just my opinion on the matter.
My understanding was that PSO2 not coming to the west was all about unfortunate timing. It was released right before SEGA changed its focus toward European and American games (right before they bought Relic) and PSO2 was just an unfortunate casualty of an attempt to pull away from Japanese games.
A deal with PlayPark wouldn’t block a Western release. At most, PlayPark might own their translation, but that doesn’t stop SEGA from retranslating it and sending it to other places. There have actually been deals like this where companies pay to have a game or book translated for one territory, then use “find and replace” to create a new interpretation that can be sold in other territories.
I think at this point, they’ve looked at it, thought “no one wants to play a 3 year old game at this point, and the people who REALLY want to play PSO2 have already figured out how to do it” and decided it wasn’t worth the money. Our best bet to see it come west is through a third-party company like Nexon.
PSO2 was still a good fit for the digital content/PC strategy.
Its just that Sega didnt have resources in the west for an MMO game.
The SEA server has had the IP block taken off before but they brought it back after 2 weeks so it might not stay for good.
I’m surprised people are still playing this dead-end grindfest. I played on JP servers since the game’s original release up until december 2012 when I realized the game offers no variety whatsoever. Can’t believe that something this shallow and monotonous can survive this long.
The variety comes from the boss mechanics and the challenges to not to die in the “super” hard dungeons. Many people also loves playing “doll” by customizing their characters to a certain extent. There are a lot of costumes and hairstyles and other make up items for you to (buy and) use, one thing that SEA server limits greatly by binding the costumes when it is equipped, making the costumes’ price on the auction very high. While the routines might get monotonous after you hit high-end, it is not as shallow as you claim. At least it’s got good story line.
Too bad you stopped at Dec 2012 where the contents are still not that many.
funny thing is… i’m playing on sea server and didn’t see any of this “costume bind” things,
I just downloaded and installed and I am still getting the 103 error that I am blocked.
Same errors any suggestions?
As far as I recall, boss mechanics were all pretty easy to get down especially since attacks are usually telegraphed with at least a 1 second long animation/charge up. Then you get a couple missions to kill the same boss a couple times. And then you get a mission to kill the same boss in X minutes. And then you get a mission to kill the same boss in very hard mode. And then you want a rare drop that boss gives so you run to the boss and kill it a million times only to get the infamous meseta ring 90% of the time. Winning in connect 4 when against yourself feels like an accomplishment compared to the grind that is PSO2. Bosses might be somewhat creative, but they’re still just bosses and the mechanics aren’t cryptic at all. Bosses are just one element of the whole thing. I felt the game was incredibly shallow and grindy and so did my friend with whom I played with since the start, who quit one month before I did.
I did like dressing up my character though.