http://www.psobb.com/index.php
The new PSO is out with an open beta period, sign up and play!
PSO is the anticipated MMO version of an extremely old sega series by the name of Phantasy Star, they ranged from 1-4 and were all considered to be masterpieces of technology at the time. (this does not include the Satellaview minigames released, or the Sega library console that was released and never ever talked about.)
One can easily find the roms online if you look for them, but because we're a bunch of legal pussies, we wont list a link on the site.
The entire story of Phantasy Star starts in the Algol system, it all begins on a now destroyed planet of Palma, the inhabitants were an race of intelligent people with amazing technology, all run by a big AI system called Mother Brain, I believe. The protagonist of the first game, Alisa Landale, has a brother who is leading the rebellion against the planets ruler, King Lasik.(pronounce Lay shick) Her brother gets killed, so Alis (as the four letter only game system calls her.) seeks revenge by teaming up with a huge burly god of a man, aptly named Odin. A cat, and an androgynous wizard named Noah/Lutz.
Alis succeeds and becomes queen of the planet. In the next game, the first one made for the Sega Genesis, unlike its prequel made for the sega master system, Phantasy Star 2, the story takes place on the same planet of the three planet system. This time a young man is the protagonist, along with the first furry in existance Nei, his elfin ear half monster pet girlfriend, he fights against the grand AI bi*ch, and wins, but not before the planet explodes and the group ends up just outside the star system, aboard a ship of "Earthmen," who consequently are white people as opposed to the japanese people native to the Algol system. The earthmen designed the big AI that ran Palma and diverted the course of histroy for the Algolian's presumably to make them weak and dependant on machines to conquer them and colonize the system. The group is then attacked by hundreds of the earthmen and presumably die saving Algol. (everybody generally assumes they fought to the last man and killed most earthmen.)
In the next game PS3, Sega innovates quite nicely, they make the first instance of choice in a game, you can actually make your own progeny in this game and they become your main character, there are three generations of characters, the game is aptly named "Generations of Doom". It all revolves at first around a prince named Rhys who attempts to marry an Amnesiac woman. The entire story takes place in a colony ship launched by Palma before/during the disaster, but you dont really pick this up til later in the game. After the third gen when you're some form of a half breed layan, which if you've ever played PS4, you'd know is a magic user, esper, as they call them. Then you defeat the evil traveling with the colonists and are contacted ironically by a 20th century earth via radio, this is where it ends.
In PS4, we are taken back to the Algol system, where the doomed Palmans (japanese people) are stuck living on Motavia, the desert planet a little closer to the sun, how this planet evolutionarily made a race of blue furred bipeds as the dominant race until the palmans arrived is beyond me. The story centers on a young man named Chaz, a hunter, and his mentor, Alys, not the same Alis as in PS1 mind you, its just a funny translation. Anyway, the group kills the main bad guy before finding out that it isnt the main bad guy, Alys dies, I cry, Chaz seeks revenge on the ultimate evil, and wins with the help of his friends from Motovia and Dezolis, the other planet, which spawned a tall race of green skinned comedy relief characters and a race of Palman's who can use magic, but are physically weak, like Layans in PS3, they are called Espers. You can actually make your final group in the end a groupd of: A Palman (japanese person.), A Cyborg (created by mother brain but serves humans), A Numan (like Nei in PS2, a furry), An Esper (a magic user, actually, an incarnation of Lutz from PS1.), and a Motovian (big blue furry guy, powerful weapon user.). When you win, you make Motovia back into a paradise for all races. (Theres also a statue of Alis Landale in one town, and the ship you fly between planets is called the Landeel.)
In the PSO's, the story continues as the Algol system is dying, the Palmans send out Colony ships to scout new places to live, succeeding in finding a planet called Ragol, they send two colony ships, the first one successfully colonizes, and when the second ship arrives, it explodes, this is all the fault of Dark Falz (the boss from PS2 and PS4, a malicious force that pokes its grubby mitts into the algol system every few thousand years. A poor translation of Dark Force.) who doesnt want the Algolians to succeed in spreading themselves across the universe. We beat his ass and win, 3 times.
In the inner circles of the PS fandom, theres been some evidence found as to why there is a Dark Falz on Ragol. A picture was compared of a monolith from PSO1 and PS4, they both had the same symbol on them, the first was etched on the monolith to contain Dark Falz, and the second picture was the pendant the incarnation of Lutz wears in PS4. It can only be assumed that this Dark Falz was sealed there by Rune (Lutz) before the group from PS4 was able to finally destroy the last vestiges of the force behind Dark Falz in PS4.
I have no idea what happens in this new PSO, but I highly reccomend trying out the beta for its own sake, just to see what kind of deep doodoo the palmans found themselves in this time.
Other Interesting PS news:
The Algol system actually exist, named Ghoul star in Arabic, and called the Devil star in european culture, this star system is much hated by ancient civilzations, no wonder we tried to destroy it by sending mother brain there.
Sega is releasing PS remakes in Japan, all the early games, only PS1 has screenshots out thus far.
PS and Final Fantasy are the same age in japan, but Final Fantasy is two years younger in the US, although Final Fantasy is more popular and has more games, PS has a more cohesive and steady story line.
Testtubebaby has Phantasy Star porn on his computer.