What Makes PSO Special to You?

Did this topic on the DC-Talk also but curious what other people think about it too

Was playing PSO online on the Dreamcast today and heading on to Episode 1&2 on the XBOX for the first time in a while and it made me think, what captivates/ makes PSO so special to hundred's of people that still play it online today? It will be a different answer for everyone but to me it means two things. 1. Its just a fun well made game that allows you to do the same things again and again without it feeling repetitive with great graphics, great gameplay and amazing music (World With Me and Can Still See the light are amazing). 2. I think another major one is that PSO is a time capsule, it represents to many of us (its cliche i know) a world pre 9/11, a simpler time of our childhoods/teenage years where it was all about Amazing video games and the Disney Renaissance ect. The world contained in PSO is a place frozen in time, it has not really changed since it first came out in late 2000-early 2001 and the people in it while older have not lost the kindness or the friendships still contained on Pioneer 2 or Ragol. It in my opinion is the same way people feel about the world in Shenmue, a place from long ago with many fond memories and good friends that we may still keep in touch with or are just a distant memory. It also to me represent the end of the "Glory" days of video gaming where video games in just a year or two would fundamentally change in tone and philosophy in game design for the worse and is when many of us had to start to "grow up". I might just be crazy or a old fossil at heart but make a comment on what makes PSO special to you now and forever

I will leave it with a timeless commercial

 

I will never forget playing this game on Dreamcast and later PC and Gamecube. It's an amazing game and I've spent countless of hours on it. Having said that I find it hard to go back to it now after playing it for so long

 

Nothing, it's boring.

 

Segata is on his way

 

I remember the first month I got PSO on the Dreamcast, playing on dial-up. So many great memories and that title screen music is forever burned into memory!

 

Nothing, but then again I didn't have a DC when it came out. As a PC guy an online RPG just wasn't the novelty it was for the console peasants players... and apart from that it just doesn't seem to be a very noticeable game, imho.

 

I played this game for the first time in maybe 2010 or 2011, and on the Gamecube, local co-op only, so maybe I wasn't experiencing the game like a new player would have back in the day. I found it to be a pretty miserable experience.

Tankish controls, monotonous gameplay (line up with enemy, shoot, reload, shoot, reload, until the monster is dead, then line up with the next enemy), crude visuals with tons of pop-in, shockingly bad boss fight cameras, and horrendous menus. I was actually very surprised to learn it was such a popular game. Like, I must be thinking of some other PSO, and everyone else played a different one that was actually good. It's one of those things where you think everyone on earth must have disliked it, but then you find out it actually has a huge fan base.

I dunno. Maybe if I played it back when it was brand new and was playing online with friends I would have a different opinion of the game.

 

I felt the same way when I played Sonic Adventure and Shenmue for the first time. I was like surely they're not this shitty and boring throughout the whole game, right? These are supposed to be classics!

But they were. They were terrible.

 

Thank you. Someone finally agrees with me on this lol. I was never a fan of Sonic Adventure and Shenmue as I to found them pretty boring.
EDIT: And this coming from a huge Dreamcast fan.

 

Blasphemy!

Seriously though, this has a lot to do with playing those games when they were new and every little innovation felt like a breakthrough. I have that feeling about a lot of NES games that people are crazy about here.

 

Not to add to the fire but it always okay for people to have their own opinion. We all have different view's of games and what our tastes are, for example iv never cared for Ocarina of Time at all (outside of some music) how ever i make sure not to criticize people who enjoy their games. If you dont like PSO or Shenmue then that's totally okay! Some games require patience or is geared to a different audience so if you like your games then power to you (gives fist pump) Me and Familyguy may have different views but we are all Sega fan boys at heart!

 

To be clear, I was joking about the blasphemy part, .

 

You may say that, but how does it make you feel when I say Super Mario 64 is a shit-ass game, and actually mean it?

 

Dont worry im not a fan of it either. As long as you like Daytona then we are friends

 

Sorry if i was implying it, did not meant to be mean. It was i could sense where this topic was going so i just wanted to put it out there before it got out of hand

 

That's not how it was for me, personally. I didn't play Shenmue until 2002. I already had a Gamecube, and had played PS2 and Xbox games. So I was already used to seeing better graphics. That didn't matter to me. I knew almost nothing about it before playing it; I bought it on a whim. I had no idea what to expect, and I instantly loved it. I didn't plan on buying it, and I didn't have any huge expectations for it. But it almost instantaneously became a favorite of mine, and still is.

You could say that Shenmue requires patience – but I'm not particularly patient when it comes to games, and that was never a problem for me with Shenmue.

I personally think Shenmue is great, but if you think it's shit, that's fine with me. There are plenty of games that I think are shit.

 

I'm happy to read that . Shenmue is the first game in which I felt like a real investigator. The quest leading to the mirror felt like DaVinci Code to me, in the right way.

I still think that what I described is a factor though.

 

I did not experience Shenmue Back in the day, only around the 10th anniversary and loved it! Though i am strange as i find dial-up tolerable so might be crazy

 

Although I played Counter Strike 1.6 at LAN Cafe's back in the day, PSO was the first true online multiplayer game I ever played and it'll always be special to me for that reason.

We were going through a patch where my parents couldn't afford dial up for a short while so I took my DC to a friends house and we ran a 10 metre phone cable up the stairs and were immediately blown away, especially by the fact that we could communicate with people of other languages.

Great days.

 

Amazing story, Dial-Up was and still is awesome!