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So you're tired of waiting on SEGA to deliver PSO to North America or Europe you say? Well, it's your lucky day because you don't have to wait. In this guide I'll teach you everything you need to know to get started in PSO2 which will include the following:- Registering a new account with SEGA JP- Downloading PSO2- Installing the English Patch
(And any required patch you may need from now to the future)- Launching PSO2 and where English people are found- Nifty Guides (External resources) to help you along the wayBest of all, it's all free! Yeee~ Let's get started!
1. Registering a new account with SEGA JPBefore starting tip: It's helpful to use Google Chrome's native translate to English extension or to download one for your browser of choice.You'll need to go to
http://pso2.jp/Then where you see something that says SEGA ID, click on that. It may look like this:
Now you'll need Google translate to translate the following page. Most likely (depending on when you register) it will just ask you for your email address. Enter your email address and check off 「SEGA ID利用規約」「『ファンタシースターオンライン2』利用規約」に同意する。Then click on the blue button that says 規約に同意して送信 (located next to the email input field). You will go to the next page where it will say that it sent you a confirmation e-mail. Simply click on the url or paste it in your address bar and then proceed through the registration. Copy and paste what you need to know the translation for in google translate, it's pretty straightforward and once you arrive to the hiragana captcha, you'll need to cross-reference a hiragana chart (we've got plenty around Jappleng) or if you're good you can use this as motivational practice to learn hiragana to complete the captcha ;)So how do you type in Japanese? If you have Windows Vista, 7, 8/8.1, or 10 you can simply add the Japanese keyboard. To do this you'll need to go to Control Panel -> search for language and click on Change Keyboards > click on Change Keyboards > click Add > Check off Japanese Microsoft IME. Click okay and you're done! You'll see a little icon at the bottom right of the taskbar that says [EN], to change it click on it and it'll become Japanese! Make sure that it's set to hiragana. You'll know if it is, if you start typing and it's not in hiragana. If it's not in hiragana click on the icon (likely "A") as shown below and select Hiragana.
At this point you can now type in hiragana. If you didn't want to go through all of that, you could have copied and pasted hiragana piece by piece but you're on Jappleng and you'll need it anyway for your studies ;)
2. Downloading PSO2Thankfully, the Japanese version does not IP block unless there's abuse from that IP. Because of this we're not using the SEA version which requires a VPN or proxy and it's a real pain to download and play. Not to mention they are very strict so Japanese edition here we come!Go back to
http://pso2.jp/Now click on the icon that looks like it would download. It should look like this:
If the design changed, look for something that has the same katakana symbols on it. Next, you'll need to download the downloader.exe file. Click on
Once that's done, you can open downloader.exe and install the game. It's over 16gb so it will take a while. Even though my download speed is 50mbps, it took about 4hrs because their server is kind of slow.
3. Installing the English Patch (And any required patch you may need from now to the future)Now comes the fun part, making PSO2 English. So the first thing you'll need to do is download the PSO2tweaer.To do this go to the Arks Layer website and download it there:
http://arks-layer.com/(Notice: You'll require Microsoft .NET Framework 4 to use this. The link to the update can be found on the same page)Once downloaded you can open it
(only once PSO2 is done downloading!) It will ask you what directory your PSO2 game is installed in. I'm using Windows 7 64bit so it's located in C:\Program Files (x86)\SEGA\PHANTASYSTARONLINE2\pso2_binIf it says it didn't find it, then perhaps you're using a 32bit version of windows. If that's the case then you'll need to use C:\Program Files\SEGA\PHANTASYSTARONLINE2\pso2_bin\data\win32
For the future: If there are no errors but the game is still Japanese, either you didn't properly patch it or the directory wasn't set right.Now, assuming you weren't warned to update anything right off the bat, you're presented with a window with two sides. The left side allows you to remove certain things to the game. The censor patch as far as I know is a ip table that they block. I would not recommend removing the intro video as it breaks the game for me for some reason and it might do it for you too. To restore what you removed you can click on any of the boxes on the other side of it. They're not different options, they are simply add / remove. On the right you'll see a web page for support. Basically if a new patch by SEGA releases, the game needs to be re-translated again. Usually this happens in less than a day and the status on what you can patch will be written there.
If you launch the game now, you won't see it in English because you didn't patch anything yet. Assuming that it tells you it's okay to patch, click on the circle at the top left of pso2tweaker application and click on Install/Update patch > English Patch. You may have to do this twice the first time around like I had to. Then go down the list and install all the English patches except for English Story (old method).
4. Launching PSO2 and where English people are foundYou can now launch the game via pso2tweaker (and only through it or else it will patch the game in Japanese). The game should be mostly in English now. Some parts may still be in Japanese but 95% of it seems to be in English.Once in the game, you can login with the account you made earlier and create your first character! I would strongly recommend creating a character on Ship 02 as most of us that speak English are found on that ship.The game will have you go through a tutorial and eventually you'll be on the Pioneer ship where you'll get to meet many that speak English. If there aren't that many people you can go to a teleporter that changes channel. Pick one that has the most people in it ;)
5. Nifty Guides (External resources) to help you along the wayAfter getting used to playing the game and completing some of the basic missions, you may want to familiarize yourself with the more detailed things the game has to offer such as clothing, items, Fun Points, the casino etc... PSO2 is fairly big and you'll need all the help you can get to master it. For that I recommend the following.
http://www.bumped.org/psublog/ - A great Website that explains what's coming up on PSO2
http://pso2.cirnopedia.info/ - English Wiki, really detailed and incredibly valuable
http://pso2wiki.net/ - It's Japanese but a great reference.
Disclaimer:By installing the English patch, it technically breaks their Terms of Service agreement and may result in your account getting banned if they find out. However, if you don't mind that idea and want to give it a try anyways, you're more than welcome but don't blame me if you do spend real money and eventually get banned. So far I haven't heard of this happening but it could happen. I am posting this guide up because SEGA seemed to have refused to release such a magnificent game. I hope that if they see enough English players on their server, they could perhaps hurry it up with their North American release.If you liked this guideIf you liked this guide and you're not already a member of Jappleng University, please consider being a member. It's free, there are NO ADS, a lot of the content is community driven and we're in the process of becoming a non-profit organization for the greater good. It's more than just guides, or news about Japan. Jappleng is everything relating to Japan including teaching Japanese for free, cultural editorials, travel guides, we have our own social network called J-Spot and so much more. Hopefully we'll see you on PSO2 JP!
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