1. http://pso2.jp/players/
click big blue button to make SEGA ID
(another guide for this: http://bumped.org/psublog/phantasy-star-online-2-pre-open-beta-registration-guide/ )
Quote:
In the yellow bar, write your e-mail address. Click the blue button to the right.
Check your e-mail, goto the first link.
On this page, start entering info. Google translate will help, but it is in this order:
Birthday YYYY-MM-DD
SEGA ID name. 6~30 lowercase characters. This shouldn't be related to whatever you plan for your ingame character name but that probably doesn't matter.
Password + Pass-confirm (8~16 character limit)
Secret question and answer (1~64 characters)
Checkbox if you want mail from Sega

Click the gray button at the bottom when you're done. If you get a pop-up, go back and fix your fuck-ups.

Next page
Find Phantasy Star Online 2 (ファンタシースターオンライン２) on the list. Click the link/button underneath it, on the next page is the legal crap that noone ever reads. Click the first gray button then you should be set. The next page's button closes the window.

If you need to do a captcha, go here:
http://www.lexilogos.com/keyboard/katakana.htm
wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana
Look-up and match.

Alternative guide with pictures:
http://bumped.org/psublog/phantasy-star-online-2-pre-open-beta-registration-guide/


2. http://pso2.jp/players/
click purple button under that to download (the picture at the top of the next page is the link for the downloader). the downloader/installer is pretty straightforward from what i remember.
this might be helpful: http://pso2.jp/players/manual/setup/

3. you can create your character template in advance, and delete the character creator afterwards. theres a lot of shit.
Character Creator:
http://cc.pso2.jp/PSO2_CC.zip

English Patch (i havent tried this, but the link should be good):
http://psumods.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=99

if those links dont work, http://pso2.jp/benchmark/download/