Before you start reading, click play on this Youtube video – you don’t need to watch it, just have it playing in the background as you read. I know it’s not the Phantasy Star Universe ending, it’s actually from Phantasy Star Online, but I chose this one instead as the PSU ending music is awful.
Well, last night was the last night. Jane, Donk, Siri, Mood and myself had one last PSU session. Those of us who didn’t already have it got the final Achievement, and I luckily got a Rare mission earlier in the day. I ran Sleeping Warriors for old times sake, so we could run Phantom Ruins once (just so we could say we had done it all if nothing else).
It all started with the PSU Beta. Loads of people tried it, even those who never ended up getting PSU. Powers, Garly, Tiarny, Aaronayl, Stu, along with some of the regulars who did end up in Gurhal for real, Orca, Stellar and Crimson. At one point I couldn’t join the RF party as it was full! That never happened in the real PSU.
Some of the events were great. Operation: Firebreak was the first and I wasn’t quite up to my elite status by then, soldiering on a dozen levels below the cap, trying to make ends meet. The going was tough early on in PSU, most money went on Scape Dolls as back then if you died in a mission and had to be revived then you ruined the final rewards for everyone else. This was an Orca speciality. Seeing a fire element Gohmon for the first time and thinking “…hold on, Gohmon are ice? Aren’t they?”, as they instantly killed you with a fast ‘n’ fierce Foie. The 1up Cup was another highlight, and probably the last “actually fun” event we had. Finding that Jane and I couldn’t really survive as a twosome in Gurhal for much longer, we sent out a plea to popular British gaming forum rllmuk, and thus we met Donk-Bot, and came to know, understand and respect his deep, deep love for bacon.
Stopping now and thinking about it has made me realise just how many people I’ve got to know whilst playing PSU.
In the early days it was Stellar, Crimson and Orca. The five of us would take arms and muddle through as best we could, marvelling at Stellar’s stories of how he bought loads of Chicotite for 500 Meseta each and sold them on for massive profit. Crimson and I would take the late shift, playing into the wee hours. One defining memory of PSU will always be Orca’s obsession with Diga. Or “DIIIIIIIIIIIIGGER” as he put it. Hexx joined in a little later and I was always amazed he could watch Eddie Izzard DVD’s while playing PSU.
As I mentioned earlier, eventually it was just Jane and I playing every night, and we were having some difficulty playing high rank missions with just the two of us. Asking for help on rllmuk opened up a whole new cast of characters that joined our adventures. Strawdonkey, the bacon loving stat-whore who would happily pay through the nose for marginally better equipment. He also sent me a keyboard so I could type stuff, he is a generally all round great guy. Siri the ever cheerful, who can still baffle me with total randomness to this day. Marcface the grumpy troll. Willei, Corleth and Kiskio. Raff, the Fortegunners Fortegunner. Ryan, who was the only person I knew who had a Spread Needle. Siri eventually coaxed Moodmon back to PSU and when together, they conjured up some astonishing mental images: Laia Martinez falling over in a wheelchair being a prime example. Strangely, I also met people who didn’t play PSU: Hank Wangford often joined our Xbox Live party while we were playing PSU and he was playing something else, just to chat about stuff.
I don’t know where to start with trying to explain the in-jokes. Maybe I’ll just mention my favourite ones along with some of my favourite moments.
1st rule of Phantasy Star: Don’t get surrounded. Singing “It’s a Copernia” to the tune of Love Machine by Girls Aloud. They call it Olpad; It is a gemstone. Dam-noob-barta. I blame Stellar. I’m immune to Megid. Naked Thursdays (although they never really took off). Can I have your stuff? Sam Kenaydee. Pay me for heals and buffs. Wynter’s hat. Chippy Chips. Discy Discs. Rare-rare-rare-rare-rare. “He’s just gone for a quickie with Sam”. Shit-kikami. Crimson forgets to fill up his weapons. Crimson forgets to buy Trimates. Crimson uses orange server select crystal to fill his weapons and ends up in his room. DIIIIIIIIIIGA. AWWW TOKKY. The various ‘Fests being PSU-free zones. Scape Doll and Gourmet Cake boards. Hunting for Crea Doubles. Synth failure noise. The Blackbull saga. Event pose 5. Guardian Heroes. VEST VULC MERC. PLZ DO NOT BAN ME. All my family are dead. Donkpedia. wat the hell tim. The Jabroga song. Shut up. Here are some Boomas covered in piss. MRRGH. Why don’t you buy… A Psycho Wand? Phil NOOOOOOOOOO. Bruce’s Sexy Dungeon. Roundroundroundroundroundroundroundround. Everyone spamming “1up”. Everyone spamming “Happy Birthday Sonic!”. Everyone spamming “EH DONK”. “Dear Sega Team…”. Poor dog. Looking at peoples equipment. New content. ROLLBACKS. Gacha Rinsing Co. and the Great Gurhalian Cup. “Hey guys, don’t do that”. Guntechers. Picking up Kerselines in random games. Give me all your monies. ADMIRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL. Bacon. Walking on Sunshine / Cock in your ear. Leaderboard Face. I R INTELIGANT. Tornado Dance. Can I have 30p?
Probably my favourite, which I started doing very early on, was doing the male Nanoblast action on people who were sitting down. For those of you who never played PSU, it basically looked like I was rubbing my arse in their face. I did this A LOT. So much so, that I’m actually surprised no-one ever reported me for it. I loved seeing peoples reactions, be it immediately getting up and running away, to telling me to fuck off, to people sitting there, moving their head around and saying “Oh yeah!”. Great fun.
Here, have a boatload of pictures from our time on PSU.
In the end though, the interest just waned. For all of us. I promised myself I wouldn’t go into the bad points in this post, so I guess all that’s left to do is say goodbye, and mention that if you want more stat-waffle, stupid situations, impenetrable in-jokes, and more old pictures, then you should check out the PSU Archives on the forum (this no longer exists, by the way).
All that remains now is to cancel the subscription.
As Hal would say:
See you on PSU2.
Argh! I did get it, but I didn’t have a credit card! Mere days ago I realised that the debit Mastercard I now have would allow me to get a licence. But, reading this, what’s the point now?
Ah well, back to Bayonetta 🙂
Far, far too late buddy! Hope you’re enjoying Bayonetta… The thread on RF is what, 6 pages long now? I’ve still not read it from the point when the game came out for fear of ruining something.
Thanks for the message! 🙂
It made me sad to read this it really did. Everytime I think of the early days I think of the great things that you mentioned, and the fun we had. Like a warm feeling in my stomach. Awww Tokky. Dont blame Stellar, blame Orka!! I can still remember the day I got this game. I sat in my car and actually read the manual twice before driving home to play it. The first few months were so fun and new, and the initial updates were good enough to keep the interest but I think it was the players themeselves that kept me playing for as long as I did. If it weren’t for you guys I doubt I would have seen it past the first few weeks. I had a great time playing with everyone I played with (I can only remember Orka, Lady T, Tokky, Crimson and Donk-bot, everyone else was after my time!) and I don’t regret the time I put into it.
I think I just got distracted by other things in the end. Still it was a great way to pass the time for at least a year (can’t even remember how long I played) but real life started to edge in and it snowballed from there.
I know I’m not around anymore (in any capacity, game or otherwise) but I do like to drop by every now and again and see how you guys are. I wish you all the best in whatever you’re doing! For me, its back to sorting out my mortgage….
Peace out Mr T.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for the message. I kinda wrote this for you guys as much as I wrote it for myself, it was such a nice time of my life, and reading your comments make me feel like writing this was worth it. It was good times, wasn’t it? Songs of Battle, Foods of Battle, cheese and biscuits and all that stuff I forgot to mention – stuff that wasn’t even related to PSU, but made it such a good time.
I remember ordering the US version a month before the EU version came out, waiting for it to arrive and thinking “I hope this isn’t shit”, it had a lot to live up to after PSO.
It’d be awesome to see you and Crimson at another RF meet at some point, you’ll always be welcome.
Love you Stellar x
What you wrote was well worth it in my eyes. I read it once and I couldn’t take it all in. Too many memories coming back all at once! I had to go through it slowly and hell, I just read it again!
I haven’t had a feeling of “hey, wasn’t that a good game!” feeling in a while. And by you writing about what we said and did in that game brought back all those memories to me. And boy it was a good game. Coming straight from Uni and rushing to get the Xbox set up to play. I’m sure there is a lot of stuff that we both don’t remember that happened and made us all laugh, and I’m happy you managed to remember the amount you did to put in your blog.
It was very good times Mr T, something I’ll remember fondly for some time yet.
Love you twice as much back Mr T! I forgot to mention on my previous post but say hi to Jane too for me!!
I hope you put the Youtube of the PSO music on whilst you read it, it makes it all the more emotional!
I still laugh about it thinking back now. “1st rule of Phantasy Star: Don’t get surrounded.” Still one of my favourites. And Orca and his Megid immunity. So funny! Oh man, that time Jane said something about re-aliving someone and I got so confused and we ended up not talking to each other for the rest of the night, so funny.
Jane says hi back by the way, I forgot to say in my reply that as soon as she got in from work that night I said “Stellar left us a message on the PSU thing!”, and she dropped everything to come and read it, she was very pleased.
When is PSU2 out???
PSU2 should be out next week!! I wish. Or Chromehounds 2! All those realistic light effects! You’d be in heaven! Actually all joking aside, I’d love a Chromehounds sequel!
Yeah, the first rule of Phantasy Star often got forgotten about, with one of us diving into battle without thought of any possible deaths that may result from it. I still play the music every now and again. Mostly the original PSO music that I have on my Ipod, cheers me up at work sometimes! And it is not a “PSU thing”, its a PSU nostalgia epic super post! 🙂 Just read it again for that warm feeling! What are you playing nowadays anyway?
Thanks for the birthday wishes. It just feels like I’m gettin old now though. 18 and 21 have gone, and they were the good birthdays. Now I’m 23 and I’m struggling to get up those stairs!!
How is Jane? She still getting on ok without catching too many exotic virusus?
How is the house anyway too? 🙂
xx
Oh man, Chromehounds. I played it late last year for a bit, those real-time headlights still amazed me. Servers are down now though, sadface, it really needs a sequel.
I’m playing through Resident Evil 5 (not quite as good as 4, but still pretty fucking awesome to be honest), just slowly picking through all the games I missed out on while I was playing PSU! I’m looking forward to Lost Planet 2 – The co-op looks fun, like a cross between Monster Hunter and Halo, with a dash of PSU style character creation and levelling thrown in for good luck.
Man, wait ’til you get to 30… It’s proper downhill from there!
Jane’s good, working hard. She loves living here, being nearer her Mum and Dad, and her nephews. The house is… interesting. There’s a few posts where I moan about it, but overall it’s pretty good. Why do I only ever mention the bad stuff? Maybe I should do a few posts explaining the good bits of living here!
x
Hey Toxic, long time no see! Or chat rather, although I can see you on your pictures on here, so….ah never mind.
Main reason is – bought a house, moved out and had no net until now, you don’t know what it’s like without the internet (although you probably do)! I was like a crack addict that had a stash taken away by the cops at the last second because of the quickness of the move. Back now though woop!
Where were we…..Resident Evil! Yeah, it was no where as near as good as 4, 4 had the fear factor again for me although it wasn’t really a horror game, but gave me the chills just as the first one did. Resi 5 had the same scares and jumps as 4 and was nowhere near as scary second time round, but was still great fun! Need to get the Gold edition at some point! Lost planet 2, that isn’t out yet is it? It’s on my lovefilm list so I’ll be playing it at some point, but depends on the demand for it. Just finished Uncharted 2, which I would recommend if you haven’t already played it!
I know what you mean about the house, I could rant on and on about how things were different between when viewed and when we moved in, but on the whole we’re happy here. So that’s a postive! Plus neighbours are nicer than last lot so thats also a plus. You getting on ok with the house still?
Just about to comment on the e3 post! It will make more sense reading that there than here so I’ll post it there.
Did I see a mention of possible little toxics soon??
x
PS – We also have Lips, and we have found out we can’t sing. Not a note.
Bought a house, eh? We’re like proper grown-ups and everything now! 🙂 Yeah, not having the internet is a pain in the arse – How the hell did we ever live without it?
Speaking of Resident Evil 5, I picked up the two DLC episodes the other day, one of them is set in a mansion that is pretty much identical to the one in the first game! Brings back so many memories, it’s awesome. Lost Planet 2 is out already, I saw Crimson playing it the other day but I can’t afford to get it at the moment, which is a shame. By the time I get around to it everyone will have moved on to a new game. I like the look of Uncharted 2, but again, money issues and a lack of a PS3 combine to prevent me from having that kind of videogame fun.
We’ve settled in a bit more now – work has been done to fix certain bits and bobs, and tensions are at an all time low and there are no major problems, so it’s all good. There will be little toxic babies soon, I promise – not just yet though, I need to get a job first, which is proving tricky!
Lips is awesome! We can’t really sing either, but it’s a great way to spend a Friday/Saturday night with a few beers, pretending we can sing!
Tell me about it 🙁 So many responsibilites its unreal! And it seems things fall apart at the wrong times ¬_¬
I played Lost Planet 2, god damn it was awful, slow, buggy and very unfair. And this was on easy….(or I’m rubbish). It’s a shame as the demo was actually ok! Don’t get it!!!! Uncharted 2 though – play it if you ever get chance! One of the best games last/this (unsure :D) year! I’m loving little XBLA things as the moment, going through the Metal Slug series, Earthworm Jim downloaded ready to go, and Dead Rising 0 just out. I need to get the DL packs for Resi 5 when I get my copy back, need to pick it up for a couple quid if I spot it 🙂
We’re finnnnnnally settled too now after a few months. Now we can both sit back and actually enjoy our new houses! How’s the job hunt going? I’m aware that I’m repling to this message before I read the rest of your recent posts, so this may be addressed somewhere, so excuse my rudeness 🙂
Sam has started downloading the song pack things so we can sing some new songs. Help me please! I don’t wanna sing!!!
Dead Rising Case 0 is great fun. I’ll probably buy it closer to the time I get Dead Rising 2, play through it first then move on to the full game.
Job-hunting is not great. Most people don’t even acknowledge they’ve got my CV and/or application, it’s shit.
Just sing, man! It’s great fun after a beer or two.