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Learning a lot more about PSO, including the topic on this forum "Educate Me on PSO", I'm surprised that Episode II hasn't been released by the fan community.

Episode I & II was released on GC and Xbox, with 4 additional levels and story mode (the Episode II of the title). However these new levels were accessible in PSO version 2 on the Dreamcast exclusively in the Battle/Challenge modes.

As these levels already exist within version 2, would it be possible to retrofit/modify a copy of version 2 to become Episode 2? The majority of the assets already exist on the disc, with the possible exception of the Pioneer 2 hub replacement. If the Seabed Lab isn't available there's no reason Pioneer 2 couldn't be used as a shell for those mission areas instead.

I guess, as a layman, what I'm asking is if this is possible (however improbable or difficult) and if not what is the issue preventing it from being possible?

At the very least, could these levels not be added to the online side of the transporter on Pioneer 2 so they are playable in regular mode?

I'd love for the community to have Episode II released as a new DC title, it'd be excellent to give the online community more to do. Even if it means burning/buying a new game disc for those areas.

There is no way to add those levels to the "main game" (even online) without changing stuff on the disc. I certainly wouldn't say that "most" of the content of Episode II is on the disc, as what is there (just spaceship/palace) is certainly not "most" of Episode II by any stretch. The enemy models/textures and all don't exist, neither do the new items and all that kind of stuff. There's far too much that'd have to be added, and no way for the server to do that work on its own.

The palace and spaceship levels can be used in quests (although, you need to patch the game with something like the Sylverant PSO Patcher disc in order to have proper music in those levels outside of battle mode), which is about the closest you'll get to Episode II on the Dreamcast without someone spending a LONG time working on a mod (plus all the assorted extra stuff that'd need to be taken care of on the server to make it happen as well). Simply put, in all likelihood it's not likely to happen, unfortunately.

VR Temple and VR Spaceship use different enemies from the Battle areas of Spaceship and Palace, and while the enemy assets exist on the disc, they are not allowed to spawn in the Battle areas, and the Battle areas have different maps from Episode II, so Episode II quest layouts don't work in Spaceship and Palace.

As BlueCrab said, Central Control Area, Seabed, and Control Tower don't exist at all, and neither do the three new classes or any of the new items, so the closest you'll get to playing Episode II on the Dreamcast is my quest Prospective Horizons that takes place in Spaceship and Palace.

I'll look for that quest, Ives. Sounds great.

Yeah I'm not very knowledgeable on programming so wasn't aware of just how far removed some of the shared assets are, nor how many were missing. It would still be awesome for someone to do a demake of just Episode II's content (not necessarily the new characters, just the levels and story) but as it stands it's a way off dream.

Thanks for the explanation though guys

Moving content between versions is still a pipe dream, as nobody has documented PSO's model formats to the point where they can be exported from one version and imported into another.

https://gitlab.com/mrb0nk500/pso-gc
Looks like there's an Episode 1 & 2 decompilation going, although it hasn't been updated in some time.. With all the recent amazing Dreamcast porting efforts going on, I would kill to see the GaneCube/Blue Burst content ported to the Dreamcast in some form! v2 could definitely use some more to do, lol

The one who would make it possible for me to play the dc version episode I & II I would kiss and pay a three-digit amount