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 i never found materials for it and the gear would've been outdated pretty quickly anyway.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!
Would you mind DMing me which stages you experienced as especially hard or listing them in the discussion tab? I made the maps so I'm numb to the difficulty and I'd like to know which maps cause the most trouble because I've gotten the difficulty spike criticism a lot; in the 1.2 versions Map03 was quite a spike and I had hoped to correct it with this update. Also, what do you mean with beginner traps and where do you see trial and error obstacles?
Map20 of course is supposed to be hard, I only put the easy route in after criticism (and I'm glad I did). I disagree that it's Kaizo though, I think the level is hard and quite precise, but I also think I made it fair. A good amount of people seem to have beaten it, too.
Thanks for playing!