Prerelease:Phantasy Star Online 2
This page details prerelease information and/or media for Phantasy Star Online 2.
 | This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes. |
 | To do: Quite a lot really.
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Contents
Timeline
2008
- Unknown - Conception and early development on a follow-up to Phantasy Star Universe.
2009
- Unknown - Early builds are created.
2010
- September 16 - Phantasy Star Online 2 is officially unveiled for a 2011 release in a trailer for Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity shown on livestream at the 2010 Tokyo Game Show.
2011
- April 24th - The first trailer with gameplay footage for Phantasy Star Online 2 is posted on the Japanese Phantasy Star YouTube channel.
- August - First wave of Alpha testing is carried out.
- September 15~18 - The game is playable at the Tokyo Game Show. Another trailer is posted showing more of the game, some new areas and a glimpse at some of the game's pre-rendered cinematics.
- September 30th - The game is delayed to 2012.
- October - A second Alpha test was announced.
- December - More features not previously seen are unveiled.
- December 23rd - The game's opening cinematic is revealed.
Pre-Announcement Build
During a developer stream, the developers showcased an early version of Phantasy Star Online 2 from 2009. This early build features a lot of major differences compared to the final game though it's very likely a lot of these elements are placeholder. Music and Sound Effects are taken directly from Phantasy Star Universe though its unclear how many of these are a part of the prototype or were inserted into the video (as the music does linger through various transitions).
The video starts on a drastically different title screen from what is present in the final. A different version of the game's logo is present and the game's background and UI have an orange holographic appearance which is present throughout all of the game's interface. In addition, all the menus present throughout this prototype have a very different layout. Lastly, the font in these menus is reused from Phantasy Star Universe's title screen.
No character selection screen appears to be implemented and the character creator appears to be very rudimentary at this stage. The only selectable base characters are Newman Male, Human Male, Human Female, and CAST Male.
The video fades to the game's lobby which has a drastically different layout consisting of a linear hall with a quest counter at the end and two doors. We also see the game's HUD which has the previously mentioned holographic orange and aesthetic and a layout similar to that of Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst with the Action Palette at the bottom right of the screen, a hotbar close to the bottom centre of the screen and the player's health and status at the top left of the screen. The icons used for weapons and items are reused from Phantasy Star Universe.
The video then transitions into an early version of the Urban District area with bright skies, modern-day styled roads as opposed to the final game's metallic roads. In addition to this, there are more trees decorating the environment and street signs appear undamaged. There are also several chunks of the Urban District which aren't present in the final game such as a major park area that is used in the Shader Playground testing area. With that said, the damaged cars and the various Falspawn enemies are identical to those seen in the final game.
Towards the end of the video, we see the Dark Ragne boss fight inside the stadium. Dark Ragne has a different intro animation; several Falspawn scatter around the arena as Dark Ragne crashes through the roof of the stadium and lets out a roar accompanied by various electrical effects. Dark Ragne itself differs in this prototype, having a more saturated appearance and doing several attacks not present in the final game such as electrifying parts of the floor and shooting small spider-web-looking projectiles. The arena wherein this boss is fought also has a lighter appearance overall and includes a different-looking floor texture and more detailed decorations to the arena.
In the "Phantasy Star Online 2 Episode I & II Materials Collection" artbook, several concept arts depicting these prototype elements are present.
Concept art of the Lobby depicted in the prototype video.
Concept art of the version of the Stadium Boss Arena depicted in the prototype video.
Closed Alpha 1
The most notable difference of this prototype from final is easily the UI. In particular, the icon styling. PSO had a rather unique UI design and so the decidedly generic look of the direct in name sequel's was displeasing to fans. In response, a drastic redesign was done before the second Alpha release that more closely matched the precedent of the original game.
A condensed version of the large icon sheet with the blank space removed for easier viewing.
Another difference that's become more notable since the release of PSO2:NGS. Originally, the forest apparently had these 2 moons, the larger one seemingly filled with machinery. These were removed for the final game. In NGS a larger and smaller moon of comparable sizes are similarly placed. Notably, in NGS, while the moons bear no obvious artificiality, the main antagonists of the game are mechanical (as of launch and to writing) and the world itself seems to have machinery just below the surface.
An example of how the moons appeared in the Alpha
The moons' texture in the files
Closed Alpha 2
Closed Beta
Early Localization Effort
While the Japanese announcements of the game's release were happening, very little news was available in the West with most coverage mainly coming from fansites translating the Japanese announcements. The first time the game would get any sort of acknowledgement outside of Japan would be during an interview Dualshockers had with (at the time) Phantasy Star Community Manager, Aaron Webber, wherein he stated that he wasn't aware of any news concerning any sort of international release. Despite the vagueness concerning an international release, files relating to future localizations were found in the second closed alpha.
Phantasy Star Online 2's Global release would finally be announced on July 9th 2012 with an estimated "early 2013" release announced. At PAX Prime that year, Phantasy Star Online 2 would be playable alongside several other Sega games. This demonstration consisted of two displays with a character creator demo and four with a fully playable demo.
The character creator demo is not well documented but it is known that its a localized version of the offline benchmark used to test how well the game runs on PC. Interestingly enough, the title screen features the logo used in the Japanese version of the game rather than the Localized logo which lacks the Katakana text at the bottom.
The playable demo appears to be based on the released version of the game. All four booths are connected together to form a party with each booth having a pre-made character representing one of the playable classes and named after PSO1 characters; Ash, Saligun, Bernie and Rupika. Much like the Tokyo Game Show demo, players go through Forest 1 before heading inside a cave and ending up in the Caves where they confront the Vol Dragon. The localization featured in this demo was further along but was still rough in some areas; either as a result of the setup used during the demo or said text not being translated or implemented yet, any text that is stored on the server-side such as Item or Weapon names appears blank during the demo and some text such as enemy titles isn't translated yet with 暴君Rockbear being an example.
Overall though, the demo provided a first-glance at what the 2013 version's localization would be like.
| Japanese Name | 2013 Localization | 2020 Localization | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forest | Greenscape | Forest | "Greenscape" is used in the Official Soundtrack. |
| Volcanic Caves | Cauldron | Volcanic Caves | "Cauldron" is used in the Official Soundtrack. |
| Campship | Gateship | Gateway Ship | "Gateship" is used in the Official Soundtrack. |
| Oodan | Woodan | Udan | |
| Aginis | Agnis | Agnis | |
| Gulf | Galph | Grulf | |
| Fangulf | Phongalph | Phongrulf |
Lastly on an interesting note, the demo featured the Japanese voices. A statement from GM Edward stated that at this stage they didn't know if they'd keep the Japanese voices, Dub them to English or remove voices altogether as had been done with Phantasy Star Universe and Phantasy Star Portable 2.
