You can also make sure you always keep your friends in shouting distance too using the Partner Card system (Similar to PSO's Guild Card feature) which lets you always see when your friends characters are online and whereabouts they are. You can also contact them through an in-game mailing system to chat with them should they be on the other side of the Gurhal System as you!

Teaming up with a set of friends means you can always stay in contact until you or they leave the team, even if they're not in the same place as you! You can check their progress, health, level, etc. and play through missions together in a maximum team size of six to make everyone in the team level up a bit quicker in those harder areas.

Missions see loads of new enemies in loads of new areas. As already mentioned, there are three different planets to explore, with missions on each of them, so putting them together with missions available in the Guardians Colony, there's enough to keep yourselves busy with for more then a long time! The futuristic feel with seriously improved SEGA Dreamcast graphics (In comparison to Phantasy Star Online) mean that the landscapes and enemies have an amazing look to them and create a much more exciting atmosphere as you're running through it all slicing and dicing your way through to the finish line of the missions! Landscapes are also much more open than before with enemies also able to run through each room's door - So you can't run and hide so easily from the enemy this time! When choosing your missions as well you can look up and set lots of mission rules, such as item distribution rules which set the way the item drop feature works to either finder’s keepers or whoever gets there first!

Playing through the game, there's hundreds of new weapons and techniques to utilise so the game never feels repetitive, each with a different look to another. Each weapon can also incorporate a couple of special moves of which can be customised to your liking. Weapons use PP to utilise their special moves as the Photon Points enable special striking techniques to your weapon. But once they're gone, they're gone, so make sure you use them sparingly! (Unless you've got some Photon chargers on you that is!). Your character can also equip two weapons at the same time as well to make switching between weapons much quicker and easier! However, you can only hold certain one handed weapons in one specific hand, so make sure you're getting exactly what you want before you buy it! Once in your inventory you can equip your weapon combo to your 'Action Panel' which allows you to hold a certain amount of items and weapons/weapon combos in a quick menu of which is always available to you during mission play. Simply a press of one or two buttons and you can use your item/change your weapon combo in a flash!

While shopping through the Shopping Mall you may get a bit bored of weapons and decide to spend your money elsewhere! How about in the room decoration shop?

Phantasy Star Universe has a new 'My Room' feature which see's every player have his/her own apartment of which they can come into to relax during intense gaming sessions. Not only that but within your room you can also chat with your Partner Machinery, another new bit to PSU, which gives you lots of help assistance, a bit of item storage space should you be overloaded with items yourself, and also to which lets you utilise yet another new feature, the item production feature! Yes, you can now also build your own items/weapons in PSU! Simply by equipping a board for whatever item/weapon you would like your PM to produce, and storing the items it needs to produce the item/weapon, you can produce yourself whatever you need for absolutely nothing!

You can also personalise your room with decorations and theme's (Of which can change the entire look of your room!) that  can be purchased in the shopping mall. But wait! There's more - Within your room you can also now overcome the annoying element of swapping items between your various characters held on your account using a common box. You simply store your item here, log out, log back in with another character, and approach the common box and equip! Most definitely a handy feature that everyone got a bit tired of asking friends with help for in PSO! But that's not all, as in your room you can also set up your own shop! Feel like you're getting ripped off when selling your items back too the retailers in the shopping malls? Well then sell it yourself by setting up your own shop! Every room has a vision phone which lets you setup your own shop (Item required) or browse other player’s shops. Finally in your personal apartment, you can also change your dress code, changing any part of your clothing to which your character has in his/her inventory.

Clothes can also be purchased in the shopping mall as... hold on, i haven't even talked about the character creation aspect of PSU yet!

Every player when they first log into their account in game can hold up to four characters. When you first make your character, you can choose their name, and then customise them like never before! Everyone will remember PSO's limited clothing options... well PSU has completely scrapped that system and implemented something completely different and excitingly new! You can change your characters eye height & colour, hair style and colour, nose & mouth shape, height, width & depth (For the larger characters!) et al! When choosing their clothes, you can customise both their undergarments and main clothes (I.e. tops, bottoms and shoes!). You can also customise their style of voice including pitch!

This time characters do not have an ID based on their name, alike in PSO where their ID affected that characters enemy item drop rate when playing through quests. You can choose your character to be of a certain race, I.e. Human, Newman, Beast or Cast, and then in game choose whether you want your character to be a ranger, force or hunter. You can even change your characters type mid-game so you can choose what style you want your character at any stage in the game! Getting bored of being a hunter? Then change it while keeping all your characters current stats!

The fact of the matter is that Phantasy Star Universe is amazing. It has so many new features that you'll forget about half of them as i probably have while writing this very in-depth review! So let's move away from features and talk about the game overall.

PSU's gameplay is definitely not something to be sniffed at. It's so smooth! Combo's fit together smoothly and perfectly so that anyone watching you play would think what you're doing as a four or five hit combo is actually just one move. With such large open areas as well you'd be forgiven for thinking it'd take longer to complete just because of this factor, well yes, think again! Characters can move much quicker and they don't slow down when you're near an enemy.

Controls are perfect and they can also be customised to suit your preference. I was playing the PC version using an Xbox360 control pad and it was pretty flawless in doing so! If you don't have a control pad to play the game with though you may feel a bit out of it just using a keyboard. Every button does something a bit different depending on where you are in the game (I.e. in a lobby or in a mission), but it doesn't confuse you at all when you're playing the game as it just comes naturally to those who call themselves a gamer!

The graphics in PSU as I’ve already briefly mentioned are amazing. It's a big leap up from PSO's Dreamcast graphics and all around the game they're just much smoother. The graphics give the game the atmosphere it's going for and they're perfect because of that! The Guardians Colony has a huge water feature in the middle of its main lobby which just looks magnificent and will make you want to stay there for a fairly long time before you move on and start a mission or go back to your room - It makes chatting there such a beautiful thing, you may not wish to play the main game but instead admire the games surroundings, although it's nothing compared to the planets graphics! Parums outside world is much greener and with the cityscaped background all around you it once again captures the scene perfectly while staying with PSU's main futuristic theme. But then there's Neudaiz, where the graphics are really stunning. When you first land on this planet exploring its theme, the graphics are incredible. Neudaiz is a really peaceful, very oriental planet and you can tell it's going to be one of the more popular places of which everyone will want to meet up with other players when playing online! Looking around this city, it's beautiful and you may start to dream about it at night!

The audio content is also just as powerful in PSU as the graphics, and just as perfect! How does Sonic Team do it all the time?

The main theme tune to PSU is entitled 'Save This World' and is amazing from start to finish! It'll make you watch the intro FMV on the game's start screen for a few times for sure, while in game, the backing music in every place you go to from the shopping mall to the mission scenery & to the lobbies to your room, it's all just perfect and so amazingly made! The music in Neudaiz perfectly complements the graphics to it's relaxing feel with a very peaceful composition, while during the battles of a mission in the Guardians Colony, the music suddenly shifts to a very 'action & emergency' kind of feel as if you've got to hurry quick before it's too late!

The audio in any game, to me particularly, is a very important element and really gives the game a perfect finishing touch if done in the right way, and once again Sonic Team shines with probably the best in game soundtrack I’ve ever heard! It'll definitely make you want to go out and import the official soundtrack from overseas.

The experience of playing online really depends on your internet connection speed. If everyone's at a high speed of connection, mission gameplay will be flawless, however a couple of people at a slower speed and you may wish to rethink your team strategy. Luckily though Sonic Team have implemented the online aspect of the game so that other people’s connection speeds won't affect your characters rate of play, just theirs! Overall it feels just as amazing as Phantasy Star Online or any other great MMO feels when you play it online.

So all in all, PSU is definitely something you won't want to miss out on! As far as how PSU could be improved... well, I’m having a hard time thinking of features PSU's missing. I think Sonic Team's done everything you'd need for a great gaming experience, and come out with one that definitely equals the greatness of Phantasy Star Online, if not betters it!

Phantasy Star Universe is released for Xbox360, PlayStation2 and PC on 24th November 2006 (24th October 2006 for America).