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Phantasy Star is a series with a heritage every bit as long and grand as the JRPG behemoth that is Square’s Final Fantasy. With Phantasy Star Portable, the series sees its 18th entry. After making visits to the Dreamcast, Gamecube and Xbox 360 in MMO form it now lands on the PSP in the form of a mission-based RPG very similar to Capcom’s Monster Hunter series.

Phantasy Star Portable carries on the Phantasy Star Universe storyline. You begin as a freshly graduated Guardian – protectors of the galaxy from the return of the SEED. You are assigned a cutting edge robotic partner named Vivienne, the most advanced of the race know as the CAST. Your mission is to investigate some appearances of SEED infecting small areas of Gurhal in order to prevent their return. This begins, what feels like, a very long journey through a selection of story missions and side missions as you level-up and collect better equipment and combat the various infections that you are sent to deal with.

As with Monster Hunter, there is a very clear need to grind away and improve your character and equipment to deal with the larger SEED-infected creatures that you will encounter. Where Phantasy Star Portable diverges is that your character will level up and become stronger as you progress through the game, which allows for a more traditional RPG gameplay dynamic. This reduces the need to rely on building up your equipment.

The differences from Capcom’s portable hit will both win over some Monster Hunter fans and alienate others. While some players will be attracted by the more traditional RPG features of Phantasy Star Portable, others will miss unique gameplay created by the weapon building facets of Monster Hunter. There is plenty of opportunity to upgrade your weapons but because of the character improvements there is less need to explore it in order to gain an advantage over your opponents.

The game itself has some interesting themes. As you progress through the story it becomes apparent from your interactions with older CASTs that your companion is no ordinary CAST. Vivienne begins to develop emotional responses to events that are much more advanced tan any other CAST and this adds an interesting twist to the storyline that you don’t always find in games.

Graphically, Phantasy Star Portable is very impressive and does push the PSP’s processors to it’s limits. This does result in some irritating distance pop-up from time to time but the levels are structured in such a way that it is avoided or at least not so noticeable for the most part.

A disappointing omission from the game is online multiplayer. This was one of the strengths of the original Monster Hunter game and it is something that has been a heavy feature of the more recent titles in the Phantasy Star series as well. There is the ability for local multiplayer for up to four players but in the UK and Europe, the multiplayer aspects of the PSP have not proved as popular as they have in Japan. Here in the UK finding friends to play Phantasy Star Portable with does prove very difficult. This is a great handicap for the game as the multiplayer mode is enjoyable and is actually much more fun than the single player mode. This is enjoyment that is made woefully inaccessible due to the lack of online mode.

Phantasy Star Portable sadly doesn’t quite measure up to Monster Hunter.It plays well enough and will satisfy both Phantasy Star fans and Monster Hunter fans who fancy a break. It is lacking in the vital online gameplay that would allow it to sit comfortably alongside Monster Hunter as an example of how good a platform the PSP actually is. For this reason alone, Phantasy Star Portable will be resigned to a passing niche distraction rather than getting the full attention that its grand heritage deserves.