Phantasy Star Online

**Phantasy Star Online Episodes I & II** is an online hack-and-slash RPG produced by SEGA and Sonic Team for the Nintendo GameCube and Microsoft Xbox. It consumed countless hours of our lives as we grinded and never got to the level cap of 200. It was one our of first forays into online gaming.

Despite repetitive gameplay, technical issues, and confusing menus, this game became a staple in our gaming careers. It gave us a plethora of references, names, sound effects, and quality memories over the years. We played it on the go in the car with the help of a Gamecube car screen, at home, and everywhere else that we could.

## Notable Enemies

There were many notable enemies for us in PSO. Some of them were iconic because of their apperance, abilities, names, or very specfiic qualities.

### Dubchic

   The Dubchic, also known as the "Doob-la-chick" is an enemy that appears in the Mines. Over 10 years later, it still has relevance in our vocabulary.

Dooblachick has evolved to mean two or double in most cases, however more obscure uses can occur based solely on a word play.

> *"Did you see he hit a dooblachick off that pitcher?!"*
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### Rappy

The Rappy are a yellow bird/rabbit hybrid that had a chance of dropping decent items and weapons. They were very skittish and played dead. Their name quickly evolved to Ragamuffin instead of Rappy.

### Vol Opt

    Vol Opt was the boss of the Mines level. Nothing was too notable about this enemy besides one specific ability and sound. He would trap you and shoot a missle at you which would do a lot of damage. What made this stand out, was that it was a direct rip off of the Jetson's travel noise. It also was commonly associated with bubbing.

### Kermit

Kermit was every boss and enemy in the game. He also created the entire world, lore, sound effects, graphics, gameplay, enemies, and everything involved with game simply by opening his beak.

Notably, Kermit was each and every boss.

## Notable Weapons

### Diska of Braveman

When a rare weapon would drop, it would need to be identified. With little variance, any rare weapon we found usually turned out to be a Diska of Braveman. It is a thrown weapon that was pretty underwhelming.

## Geteminnagroup

'Geteminnagroup' is directly saying "Get them in a group". PSO was a game where you would encounter a set number of enemies in various areas as you make your way to the final boss. Typically we would refer to one of these areas as a 'room'. Within a room, the enemies were always dispersed. Since many weapons could attack multiple enemies at once, we eventually learned to corral the enemies into a small area. While corralling, we would usually say "Get them in a group" very quickly, which more or less turned into a chant of "Geteminnagroup, Geteminnagroup!". The second Geteminnagroup usually had more emphasis than the first.

## Crits

The critical stirke noise was a loud "PSSH" type of noise. When a player was hit by a crit, the noise would accompany us falling to the ground, and taking a large chunk of our health with it.

The noise has been incorporated into various things and situations in our everyday life.

## Online Play

### FSOD

The Frozen Screen of Death (or FSOD) occured mostly during online play, but could also happen offline as well. When the game would freeze, it emitted a very distinct sound, which can be heard in the attached video. It would continue indefinetely until the Gamecube was shut down. While usually harmless, if it happened during a load screen or saving, it had a chance to corrupt the save file. When the FSOD happened, it created heart renching terror until we saw if our game save file was intact.

Today, the noise and term are used in jest when something freezes up.

### Duping

Duping was incredibly rampant in PSO. In almost any given lobby, you would find people duping weapons, armor, MAGs, and items. The duping method was one of the most convoluted processes we have ever encountered, and can be seen below:

1) Make sure you have a Monomate and the items you want duplicated. Make sure you don't have over 49 Mesta with you.

2) Go to the shop and find the lady that tells you about the Tekkers. Talk to her and lead her over to the armor shop. Let her walk a bit towards you, then talk again. In this way you can lead her.

3) When she is close enough to the armor shop, quickly turn to the armor shop and hit A, then choose "Buy." The woman’s text will appear as well.

4) Now, select an item. Hold left, and hit A several times. The camera should switch to the Green item shop.

5) Now, there should be an item screen, and a Buy / Sell screen. If you hit the A and the Buy / Sell disappears, hit B once, then hit A -- it should be fine, if not restart.

6) Now, you should be able to walk around with the item purchase screen open. If you have trouble getting here, practice with it until you can walk around, then go to step 7.

7) Walk to the bank. For this trick to work, the buy menu should have your orange stripe moving as you walk, changing the selected item. Talk to the bank lady.

8) The Deposit / Take choice will pop up. Select "Take" and the take item screen will be behind it. If you move up and down, you can faintly see your line move. Hit A once and you will select it. A yes/no will appear.

9) Now, hit B, B, A. this will bring you to a Meseta / Item screen.

10) You can now walk around. Hit B once, to bring up the deposit/take screen, or if that was up already, don’t hit B. You should be able to walk around. If not, start over.

11) Now, hit start. Select both Item Pack and Deposit. Both will open.

12) Open them both. Hit A when selecting Item and Item to Open. Select the item you want duplicated.

13) Hit up and down, until both "No" and "Drop" are selected. Hit A. WARNING: If you hit "Yes" and "Drop" the game will freeze

14) The item will drop. Now, hit start to close off the item screen. Then, in your still open deposit window, hit your item, and then choose "Yes."

15) For more items, repeat steps 11-14.

16) Exit out all the windows when you're done duplicating. Then, pick up your items. Go to the bank, and withdraw the same items.

Duping could also be done offline, but we discovered while playing online. There were also what we can assume were hacked items to be the best they could possibly be. This may or may not have had effect on corrupted game saves.

## Legit Runs

Legit runs were done after we got bored of having the most powerful weapons available in the game with the best possible stats on them. The game provided no challenge and grew stale due to item drops never being an upgrade for us. Legit runs were save files that we only used what we could find or buy. No duping, trading with other characters/files, or hacked weapons were allowed. These runs were much harder and slower, however, they provided a great deal of entertainment.