YMMV / Phantasy Star Nova

• Broken Base: The lack of online ruffled a few feathers among the Phantasy Star fans, especially given the fact that with the move to the PS Vita, it would naturally be able to support online, as opposed to the Portable series, which required you to connect your PSP to an internet connection via WLAN before you could go online. Some fans conjecture that online was deliberately removed because it would conflict with Phantasy Star Online 2, which is completely online.
• Event-Obscuring Camera: Due to the size of a Gigantes when locked on it can be almost impossible to see under your feet, making dodging the red circles indicating incoming fire all the more difficult.
• Game-Breaker: Assault Rifle pre-Level 100, due in part to two Arts: Glory Rain and Reflect Aegis. Due to Reflect Aegis making you practically impervious to projectiles, you can literally plop your butt somewhere in front of your target within lock-on range and spam Glory Rain, which is powerful to the point of being almost unbalanced, until it dies. Yes, this "strategy" even works against Gigantes. Understandably, both Arts got massively hit with Power Creep post-Level 100; Glory Rain was struck with Power Up Letdown, while Reflect Aegis needs to be powered up significantly to withstand projectiles from enemies in Super Hard difficulty.
• Goddamned Boss: Deefquone spams bombs and explosive fireballs far more often than its regular counterparts. It's far from a hard boss if you don't stand in the way, but the frequency with which it uses these attacks makes fighting it a very long drag.
• Most Wonderful Sound: "BURST!" and by extension, "CROSS BURST!"
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: Nova has a nasty tendency to be much harder than PSO2 in post-game, especially when they start chucking Demonic Spiders and That One Bosses at you willy nilly.
• That One Attack:
  • Ravegeist's fist pound. Due to the nature of the camera, it's difficult to notice the telegraph if you're fighting up close. The attack itself deals incredible damage and has deceptive range, and will usually kill even a Hunter with HP Ups if any of the fists connect directly.
  • Any time Altios fires its cannons. Which is a lot.
    • Altios also possesses an electric field that has a very high chance of inflicting Stun on hit. This is immediately followed up by what else but more cannon fire. If you play close ranged and you're unlucky enough to take a Stun to the face, consider yourself dead.
• Older Than They Think: Despite the game's relative obscurity even in the scope of the Phantasy Star series, a few concepts and ideas from the game were brought over to Phantasy Star Online 2.
  • The concept of "Cold Sleep" originates from this game, which was later used as a plot point in EPISODE 4 and mentioned in EPISODE 6.
  • This was the first game in the series to have an Extra Hard difficulty, which was added to PSO2 in EPISODE 3.
  • The "Tech Short Charge" Skill that Forces can get in this game was repurposed as a skill for the Phantom Successor Class.
• That One Boss:
  • Altios, an Underground Monkey version of Agrios, has a very nasty habit of spamming its main cannons incessantly, sometimes two or three times in a row. This has the effect of making it extremely difficult to take on at close range unless you can deal enough damage to destroy a cannon.
  • Vari Goldos from the Super Hard content update. Everything you hate about a regular Goldos, like extremely powerful punches, thorns, and shockwaves, but now with more health by the order of several magnitudes, insane defense values, and no elemental weakness.
• That One Level:
  • After entering post-game, you unlock a Quest where you have to eliminate an Erude. Problem is, you have to go through two waves of enemies first, while it's sniping you with missiles. The end result is a quest where you're nimbly trying to eliminate every single foe while tip-toeing around the giant rockets and Macross Missile Massacre salvos that typically deal One Hit Kills. Melee characters are in for a ride for this one.
  • One Gimmick Level in the updated post-game involves defeating an Altios, while being assaulted by a Coral Dragon, under 18 minutes. Not only is the time limit incredibly tight due to Altios being a Damage-Sponge Boss, the fact that it's already That One Boss is compounded by the fact that you have an extremely annoying Coral Dragon on your tail who will gladly backstab you when you're not looking and take out nearly all your health in the process.