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Phantasy Star Nova: Special Gameplay Features

The new Phantasy Star Nova demo hit PSN in Japan on November 13th. The demo is a retooled experience, featuring all of the changes tri-Ace and Sega made based off of the previous demo’s feedback. Ahead of the impending November 27th release date in Japan, I’d like to take look at some more features in Phantasy Star Nova outlined in this PSUBlog post, which had been authored before the new demo was out and takes a comprehensive look at various new media. Their writeup also confirms sidequests, called Promise Orders in this game. Fulfilling the Promise Orders from NPC’s allows you to get special bonuses like items and EXP.

To start, the new demo will feature a level cap up to 30 and introduces character creation, a feature unavailable in the older demo. Read on for more information, including videos!

Base customization was lightly touched upon in the recent nine-minute trailer. Players can customize a piece of land near the Delta Variant (the ship that crashlands on the planet Machia) crash site. It starts off in a sorry state, but by constructing facilities and adding decorative touches your base can look much more lively. Facilities provide different functions depending on which ones you construct, like item shops. Decorative options are aesthetic touches for those who desire something a little more than just utility. Form over function, perhaps. As you develop your base, it seems that the base becomes more populated and you can see more people walking around.

Horizontal space is allocated via a grid system, where facilities and decorations take up varying amounts of space. Objects placed in the base can also vary in how much vertical space they take up – for example, some facilities feature multiple vertical levels, a characteristic that is sometimes representative of more added bonuses to the facility’s capabilities. For a basic look at some base customization options, check out this video below. The tropical-themed base that shows up at the end of the video looks great, in my opinion.

The Cold Sleep Counter appears to generate characters with randomized features to be used in battle or in developing facilities around your base. Players will awaken from cold sleep a randomly produced character with a set class, level, and a few personality traits. The traits will  affect how a particular character behaves in battle or which kind of facilities a character may be inclined to work with. If you choose the right facility for a character, there should be special bonuses that can be taken advantage of when visiting the place. Here’s a video on the feature below. Each character costs a certain amount of in-game currency to wake up, and costs a different amount based on their archetype.

You can add Attachment Parts to weapons in Phantasy Star Nova. They have both a functional purpose and an aesthetic purpose. Each Part comes with an attribute boost, such as resistance against an element or damage boosting. When a Part is added to a weapon, its appearance can be tailored to suit the player by either enlarging, shrinking, rotating, or placing the item in whichever position the game allows. If you attach an elemental gem (a particular kind of Attachment Part) to a weapon, the weapon will change its color. There are six elements, just like Phantasy Star Online 2: fire, ice, lightning, wind, light, and dark. Here’s a video:

Credit goes to the above-linked PSUBlog entry at the beginning of the article for the featured image and information.

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