The North American launch of Phantasy Star Online 2 was a disaster, thanks to the Windows Store. While some players were able to play without problems, many had frustrating issues with the game constantly re-downloading, not working for some mysterious reason, or suffering from unbearable lag while playing with other players in the PSO2 hub area. Microsoft and Sega haven't finished fixing everything yet, but players aren't waiting. They have already updated a custom launcher that completely bypasses the Windows Store and fixes almost all of PSO2's major problems.

The program is called "PSO2 Tweaker" and is a must-have for anyone already playing or thinking of starting. With the latest update, PSO2 Tweaker can now install and keep PSO2 up to date without having to open the Windows Store. It also includes a number of useful options to replace the original launcher, such as more fine-grained graphics settings.

For years, PSO2 Tweaker was the de facto way for North American players to play PSO2 on Japanese servers. pso2 Tweaker was created by Arks-Layer, a group of PSO2 fans, and includes a skill tree calculation tool, a specific It has provided a wealth of useful tools, including an event tracker that notifies you in real time when quests appear. Since its North American launch, however, the tool's development team has been working hard to improve it so that it will work on North American servers.

Using the launcher is mostly intuitive, but not entirely foolproof, as it requires Windows developer mode to be turned on so that the custom launcher can download the necessary files and link to the Windows Store. Note that PSO2 uses an Xbox Live account, so there is no need to open the Windows Store.

Reddit contributor 'synthsy' has published a step-by-step guide for those who are confused. If you are already playing PSO2, it is best to reinstall the game using a custom launcher, but synthsy's guide includes some experimental steps you can try by copying and pasting the Windows Store installation.

Aside from avoiding all the ugly problems that plague the Windows Store version, PSO2 Tweaker also allows you to tweak graphics settings without having to load the .ini file. But the main reason to use PSO2 Tweaker is that it fixes the annoying lag that makes anything you do in the player hub a pain.

PSO2 is free to play and the launcher can be downloaded here. You can read my first impressions of the game here, but as I continue to play, I find myself enjoying it more and more.