VGFacts

This is a popular news site dedicated to PSO2 and PSNova that also has a google calendar for ingame events and maintenance, as well as several guides including help on registering on PSO2 for those who don't speak japanese and can't get past the captcha, as well as other various information. It seems to have information on previous titles and spinoffs(I mean the url suggests it was once a Phantasy Star Universe site at first sooo) http://www.bumped.org/psublog/

This is another reputable Phantasy Star news site(though it hasn't updated in a while) that contains as wealth of information on the online games aside from the phantasy star portable titles(and Nova, as it came out since the last update), but members of the forum probably have long past had that covered. http://www.pso-world.com/

In spite of the name, this is actually a database, not a wiki, dedicated spesfically to PSO2: http://pso2.cirnopedia.info/ the site is currently on haitus, but it should be back within a week or so. It seems to a site whose theme really goes with the "Waifu Simulator" nickname PSO2 has had.

Sadly I don't think I can find a reputable source behind that nickname or the reason it's called that (though from what I can tell it's because most of the cosmetic items are for female characters, and as one of the philippine admins of the SEA version of PSO2 has pointed out, the phantasy star games attract a lot of anime fans, and waifu was a term coined by western anime fans).

These are most likely not the only reputable sources for the PS MMOs, but they are the ones I get pointed to the most. I don't know what sort of reputation sites like http://www.pscave.com/ and http://www.phantasy-star.net/ have but they seem harmless enough, though the "Phantasy Star Ultimate" section of the later is fan-labor, I say this because it's not clearly labeled as such. Really the sections most relevant to this site on that one are the game pages and the "phacts" page.

Edit: BTW, don't trust the second fact on Lore in a Minute's PSO Fast Facts, they said that MMORPG Addicts' Anthem "clearly" references Ragol even though it's obviously on a ship lobby, and not on any single one of the planets in the franchise, certainly not Ragol anyway (it's one of the ships in the ORACL fleet in PSO2 by the way).

Based on observation, I'm just going to re-work how i was doing things with my trivia submissions and this thread, so here we go:

1. The Phantasy Star MMOs contain many references to other Sonic Team titles, including weapons such as the "Sonic Knuckles", which are actually Knuckles' gloves, armor auras, Chu-Chu Rocket themed Go Go Balls, several mag evolutions, cameos from sonic characters, background music for lobbies, player rooms and certain quests, and sonic anniversary lobbies.


A more subtle reference can be found in the christmas lobby music in Phantasy Star Universe and Phantasy Star Online 2. They contain what sounds like an instrumental re-arrangement of the credits theme of Sega Saturn version of Sonic 3D Blast, "You're my hero" as the christmas online lobby background music. Phantasy Star Online however, instead had an instrumental arrangement of "Jingle Bells".

PSU Christmas Lobby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zje5H2ihPgo#t=34
PSO2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY3MxkhaNhM
"You're My Hero": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKYXOobaceQ
PSO1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuM3kzlo5Ms#t=19
I'm honestly not sure if the sega references apply to any of the other lobby music in these games by the way. This was really the only one I noticed. Also I don't know if every version of PSO1 had that lobby, so for now let's keep it generalized.

Sonic Knuckles: http://www.pso-world.com/items.php?op=vi...&artid=138

An example of one of the armor auras: http://www.pso-world.com/items/psu/3/180...ment_aura/

Mags: http://www.pso-world.com/sections.php?op...artid=1016

Sonic cameo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIW0EOkiOhA

Sonic Anniversary Lobby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3f1rMPZVl8

PSO Go Go Ball, Music Disc, and Jukebox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sww572LC3Dw#t=852

PSU My Room BGM (they merged the jukebox and music disk mechanics): http://www.pso-world.com/items/psu/17/music_discs/

PSO2 My room BGM: http://pso2.cirnopedia.info/room_03.php

2.(I'm not even sure if I should separate the first one so I submitted this one as it's own trivia)
In the "Christmas On Ice" emergency quests, the kids version of "Dreams dreams" from NiGHTS into dreams is the background music.

Third year version of the quest: http://www.zippcast.com/video/3b8e637ddfe81251902

Here's the version for the first two years, judging by the upload dates, there's no goal difference between them though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I2c5myG4b0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMLV1nBaA4c And here is the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8-otnxm4-o#t=27

3. The name Agol (The Star System from the classic games) is a japanese anagram of Ragol (the main planet of Phantasy Star Online) and ORCAL (The Arks fleet in Phantasy Star Online 2).

The name of the star system in Phantasy Star Universe, Gurhal most likely shares a name origin with Algol, which is named after the binary stars of the same name, whose name was derived from "Ra's Al Ghul" (رأس الغول) which was phonetically scrambled in Gurhal's case.

http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=207392 I can't find any sites that I know are reputable saying that the name Algol comes from Ra's Al Ghul, and wikipedia cites a book as their source: "P. Kunitzsch & T. Smart, Short Guide to Modern Star Names and Their Derivations (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1986), p 49." though based on my research, most people seem to accept this as fact, and it should also be noted that the stars are collectively the brightest star in medusa's severed head as part of the perseus constellation (as well as being second brightest overall, which is why I'm guessing they were given the beta designation) ( http://www.constellationsofwords.com/stars/Algol.html this is fairly common knolwage as well, far as I can tell) , with a possible translation of "Ra's Al Ghul" being "Gorgon's head". As the source says, it's still possible that Ghurral is an anagram, and given the evidence, it's difficult to doubt that the word's origin has some connection to Algol.