Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis Is Fun, but Has Some Major Launch Issues

The long-awaited graphical overhaul of Phantasy Star Online 2, in the form of New Genesis, released about a week ago, featuring an open-world aesthetic and a major graphical engine overhaul compared to the original base game. However, while there are plenty of positives, I remember back to the beta, and the issues that plagued the adventure are still present now.

On launch day, it was almost impossible to log in. Nearly all four Ship servers were filled in a matter of minutes, though I think this is totally normal for a game on its first day with a substantial community already established. However, as the days passed, the game still had many issues that are hard to ignore.

Sega acknowledged the lagging of the servers, performing some emergency maintenance. Still, even after that 5-hour long period, issues such as frame skips, hiccups, and, worst of all, lag spikes persisted. So it seemed like the emergency maintenance didn’t fix anything. However, they did say they’ll continue investigating ways to improve the game server performance and acknowledged the current bugs and issues that are occurring, so I have high hopes that this won’t be a problem in the coming weeks.

As of right now, it’s got to the point where the lag spikes are somewhat tolerable if players manage to move to a Block in the server that isn’t totally loaded with players during the peak hours. (Fun fact,  Block 069 is completely full, even outside those.) I’ve gotten somewhat used to the spikes, even though they might be a hindrance sometimes, but that has nothing to do with the game being almost devoid of content.

The current LV cap is 20, and I’ve seen tons of players already hit that with little to no end-game content. The story arc that’s currently available ends before you’re even close to reaching LV 20. Sega did mention at one point in one of the Prologue streams that they will approach this new expansion in a slow, timely manner, as there was bound to be an issue or two with players who were transferring from the original Phantasy Star Online 2. An update adding new monsters to the field will be coming soon, but there’s not much here in terms of content.

Porting an old game to a brand-new engine takes time, and I completely understand that. I appreciate they were at least transparent enough to share the roadmap of what they have planned for New Genesis in the coming months. But I hope these issues get solved in the coming weeks to avoid killing any potential interest new players may have.