I have never had anything to do with phantasy star online before.. and still don't. So I have no idea how well anything is ported over from the original, what adjustments have been made, etc.. that didn't stop me from enjoying this addon a lot though.
Combat takes some getting used to, but it gives a more tactical feeling, along with the satifaction of building up a big chain for big damage, it's pretty great. dodging is useful, both in mobility and avoiding attacks and allows for some clutch moments, but luckily not the end-all-be-all tool for every situation, positioning is still important, so it overall manages to have a good mix of both. I also like how the npcs scattered around the hub have something different to say after every mission.
And multiplayer, I only got to play with one other person, but the experience for that has been positive as well. you get to keep your own gear, can share items and overall feels pretty synergistic. and multiplayer support is just always fun.
There are some things i'd like to critique though. To start with something minor, the Jump Pads early on feel like a relic of development, given how we not only never see them again after the early missions, but also see them replaced with springs later on.
The coffee shop felt rather... useless, until i was pretty late into the game. i never found materials for it and the gear would've been outdated pretty quickly anyway. Having a limited inventory of 60 also feels a bit redundant, because consumable items are stacked and have their own limits anyway, so it's kinda just for gear you find. And I know we could have more space, the storage exists after all. The fact you can just send anything at any time there anyway makes it less of a consideration on what to bring, but just an inconvenience to bring more items to sell.
The length of the Missions also blows up a looooot later. From beating a mission in 10 minutes at first to later on get an S-Rank after almost passing the 1 hour mark in a mission.
A bigger point for me would be how poorly some things are explained. And if there's a place in the game that explains it, i have no idea where that's supposed to be. for example, elements. weapons, some skills and even armor can have elements and enemies have elemental weaknesses as well. But for a long time, i wondered if it even did anything. Testing the same attack on 2 different enemies didn't feel any different, despite one of them being supposed to be weak to it. Did i do extra damage, does it have an extra effect, do the elements even work?.. They do, but i didn't really feel it until i went all in with elemental damage. And the elements on the armor are even less transparent, because.. what kinda damage do the enemies even deal? how do i know? do most of them even deal any? Is it even supposed to be a damage reduction? And besides the elements, the game fails to explain other minor things like the how technique-based weapons allow you the freedom to choose for yourself what attacks build chain and which ones break it. my coop parter also didn't know about a lot of things, until i told him, like how units work, how you can quick-switch weapons with the corresponding weapon buttons (doing it via the manu is pretty clunky after all), that you can level up your weapon proficiencies or that you can buy new skills at the shop.
Lastly.. there's a bunch of endgame gear to grind and unlock, but.. for what? there's no endgame to speak of. nothing feels like it was meant for this equipment, even though max level is where you really start unlocking all your possibilities, all the variety and some extra rare gear. but you can beat everything in the game with much less. so what's the point in even grinding anyway, particulary the last few levels don't feel like they're really meant for fun repeat play. i guess the Arena kinda fulfills that, but it's limited and not enough, especially since it's pretty much the same every time and lacks the usual stage gameplay. No cool post-game stages, enemies or bosses for my shiny gear. But i suppose, it all boils down to.. i just want more.
I know the negative section is a bit longer, but don't let it fool you, the issues are overall relatively minor compared to how this is has been a very fun experience for me, it's a great Addon with lots of effort behind it. I had a lot of fun with it and am certainly looking forward for more!
To go point by point...
-Yes, jump pads are relics of v1.x, however, I didn't change the level design of these earlier maps as there was nothing inherently wrong with them and remaking them would've taken time that was better spent making on the new stuff.
- The café shop lets you exchange rare weapons from the fields for the weapon types of your choices and eventually fuse all of them into a stronger weapon. It also has exchanges that act as a pity system for rare drops in hard mode.
Also worth knowing that you can get items to "limit break" weapons from the café which boost their stats closer to the strongest weapons, which lets you keep using the ones you like the Potentials of.
-Inventory space is more of a holdover from how things are in the source material rather than specific consideration being put into it. I don't actually have anything more to add to it but it's maybe something that'll be taken a look at eventually.
-Mission length is intentionally much higher starting with the ver.2 content. Missions before then were very easy to complete without putting much thought into bringing anything, whereas the longer ones means players prepare a bit more and also make use of telepipes every now and then. 7-2 is of course intentionally the longest mission.
-Weapon / Armour element is indeed not explained anywhere and kind of relies on general gaming tropes of "hit weakness for more damage". Every enemy does actually deal elemental damage, the element being the opposite of their main weakness (Fire <-> Ice, Elec <-> Earth, Light <-> Dark), and matching armour element with enemy attacks' will reduce damage.
With that said, I'll look into adding ways to tell which element dealt damage to the player as well as some extra visual flair when hitting enemy weaknesses.
Overall, I'd like to add some tutorial missions to explain both basics and advanced concepts with more numbers at some point but it unfortunately isn't in the cards yet.
- The lack of postgame is something that is being adressed in the next update which will add a new difficulty level to all missions (and new non-story missions) where strong equipment and mechanical skill is *expected* of the player.
Right now, it's true that equipment (especially 10 and 11-star rarity gear) outscales the difficulty curve set by late hard mode.