As we continue our journey through the classic franchise in the name of Extra Life, we finish another entry from the Sega Genesis era, and probably the one that both has the least fans and the least audience to have played. This is not without good reason, however as it is also clearly the outlier that it takes little time to see was not even originally supposed to be a Phantasy Star game. Still, does it deserve the reputation it has? Or is all the hate just because this game is so different. Well, it may get harsher then it deserves, but... that doesn't change this is the lesser game of the set.
Story: 1000 years ago, under the leadership of the brave Orakio, the good people of Landen along with other worlds he ruled fought off the witch Laya and her monster hoards in a war that expanded across the known realms. It was a brutal and savage war in which the final battle literally left no survivors. The only ones in question are the two leaders themselves as their bodies were never found. And while the legend lives on, the two peoples have broken off connections between their realms. Over time, the worlds even forgot about each other.
But this would all change one day. Two months before this game begins, a young woman washed up on the shores of Landen. She had no memories of anything before she woke up on that beach, but it doesn't take long before she and Rhys, the prince of Landen fall in love and set to be married. Unfortunately for the young couple, history, even unremembered history, has a way of biting back, as so happens on this tragic day when a Layan monster crashes the wedding, kidnapping the girl (now going by the name Maia) screaming how no Orakian will ever have her.
In rage, the prince sets forth to chase down the monster that would take the love of his life, sparking the beginning of a multi-generational adventure which will uncover the past of these two people, the truth of that legendary war and how it really ended, as well as the very nature of the worlds and just what fate might doom it.
The story overall will be told in three acts, one for each generation it takes place over as you follow the family line. But it will actually vary from playthrough to playthrough as one of the first RPGs where your decisions can have some absolutely major effects on the game itself, if in very distinctly defined moments. No you will not choose if you spare or kill anyone or anything like that: like most RPGs of it's time, the path you are on is linear in that sense. But it's also forked, as with each generation, your hero will choose between one of two women to be his wife and the next generation will be played out as the son of the couple.
As such, I honestly can not tell you everything that can or will happen when you play because as noted, each potential child has a different plot of their own with different heroes to join them, different villains to fight, and a different pair of potential love interests to lead to a new setup when you reach the next chapter. And while the last act will basically have the same end location, whoever you end the game with will decide the fate of the worlds in one of 4 potential endings.
Overall, the setup is very ambitious for it's time, and the total story is actually really good, but I can't say the same about some of the moment-to-moments. There are some moments meant to be dramatic which frankly fall flat to a comedic scale. They are few, far between, and won't ruin the overall plot, but it will that moment.
8/10
Graphics: This is a game that strikes an entirely different look then most of the franchise it comes from. Where most Phantasy Star games carry a very anime-like aesthetic, this third entry takes to a more "realistic" approach as you might see in classic western-based RPGs, well as far as the Sega Genesis might allow. The world is a little darker, made of cracked store paths or grasslands that look like if the space could be spared on the cart, it would be waving around your character's feet. Medieval style castles will lay out in immaculate brickwork, and more. Just expect a darker hue for the more "normal world" look.
The people who inhabit the world will be a bit more colorful as you will generally play a party lead by a prince of whatever kingdom your previous generation inherited the throne of and at least two constant allies (Androids you will have join you during the initial generation). They still fit the style of "more realistic," but it takes on a tone you might between classic fantasy and Victorian in style. And since most of the people actually walking around the map are humans, you will find this holds true for them including soldiers, commoners and other royals. Later in the game, some tones will shift to expand on the more science-fiction side this franchise is known for (well besides robots and cyborgs as you will run into those pretty early, obviously) but the style won't change so much as what you see done with it. However these will not really be the real highlight of the game's look, since for how good they look both due to other parts being designed to stand out far more and, likely due to limits of space in the cart, they tend to be heavily recycled, making a lot of places blend together.
Nor will conversations, unfortunately. When it comes to functionality, Phantasy Star III pretty much went there first when it comes time to tell the story. If it's not an important scene, you won't be so shocked to see a blue box with white text appear since this basically gets the job done. In a far more significant moment, the screen will goe black only to fill the whole screen with that same blue color and populate with just a few small portraits (and occasionally a picture to display a big event like the marriage to end a generation) and that same text window in dark gray with the same white text for whatever is going on.
This same style also is used for stores, inns, and everything else noncombat you will interact with (albeit with a different color scheme). It feels like these were sacrifices made to absolutely blow the player away between the opening scenes, but still fit the limitations of what a Genesis cart could hold back then and still shine a light on the combat, but once you see that combat screen, you understand completely why.
There isn't a single enemy that stands out in a bad way. All of them are large, well detailed, and frankly look amazing, ranging in size and number to truly never get dull to see. From the birds (clearly made in response to Final Fantasy II making Chocobos) to insanely giant robotic orbs of destruction, everything just looks brilliant. And the backgrounds in these moments stand up to support these images very well as well! From the metal caves that link realms, to the grassy plains, to desert, and many others, the locations you will fight in are all very well represented and look every bit as gorgeous as the combatants you will face, if not acting as the primary focus.
No, if there is a weakness in the combat scenes, it is, once again, the interface. Everything reads fairly well and the icons are pretty easy to understand. However, seeing which of your characters is involved with the current action happening can be a serious issue. It can sometimes not be clear which of your characters an enemy does damage to. This isn't a huge issue as you can get a good idea of how to respond after a round and correct either way. But it get's a bit more serious when you are trying to plan your turn. Due to the highlighted character only being noted by their name flashing to a second color that remains pretty close to the main one, it can be tough to identify who you are selecting to command. It is a real shame because these screens, which you will spend a large portion of the game looking at, are absolutely gorgeous. But that doesn't matter when a simple color choice in the UI basically screws the pooch this bad... yeah, an absolute disappointment.
6/10
Sound: Where I found myself looking at the visuals of this game as a mixed bag of insane highs many 16-bit games could only dream of reaching and insane lows that actually get in the way of the game to a degree (something I've rarely seen in my entire life of gaming, I might add), the soundscape is a lot more leveled out, and infinitely better for it. Now do not get me wrong, this is an old console-based game from an era when CD-ROM was still just a dream most gamers were unaware of doing more then carrying music albums like a "tiny" record player. As such, you would be insane if you expected this cart-based game to have ANY voice acting at all.
Nor are there going to be a lot of sound effects in the title. In fact what is here in sounds is incredibly basic. You will have the "boop" of your button press when you select menu items or search an area or talk to an individual or even when clicking between text boxes, but it's all the same "boop" and just an undertone so you know you hit the button. You will have the basic fzzs, booms, and whirs of various actions in combat, but nothing is going to wow you here either. It doesn't sound bad or even primitive, it just sounds basic like most turn based RPGs did at the time.
No the standout, and one that will stick with you for a while after shutting down, is the soundtrack as it would appear a LOT of work went into this in quality, if not quantity. You will not get a lot of different tracks while playing. In fact there is exactly one song played for when you are in a town, in a dungeon, in a shop, and in the outside world. They all sound good, if clearly carrying the grit the Sega Genesis chiptunes were known for, carrying either the energy of a shop with wears to sell, the sleepy feel of a small town, or even the unease of dealing with someone who can see more then they should (yes the game has future tellers... never used them while playing so don't ask me what they actually do). But I did not mention combat in that list... and for good reason.
When you are in combat, you will generally here the same four tracks through the entire game, but this is the earliest game I think I've played where which one you hear reflects how hard the round you are in is going to be, changing tone from metal grit, to hype, or even to "oh shit we are gonna die" as the game thinks your odds are gonna be. It sets the tone and tension of the moment to moment in battle absolutely brilliantly and I absolute commend the devs for thinking about how to use such a key and memorable part of a turn-based RPG so well. EXCELLENT job.
I'm also gonna make special notice of that overworld tune. True it never becomes a new song, but it varies in other ways that seem somehow even more impactful. When you start the game as Rhys, it is frankly underwhelming as you basically have two midi instruments playing a rather adventurous jaunt for you to wander the landscapes looking for where to go next on your quest to find your beloved Maia, but it won't be long in your journey before you meet your first companion: an android that has been on standby for 1000 years named Mieu... and then the music changes. Suddenly there is another tone with Rhys' making that main melody a little more rich and little more full. It was a unique way give the game a feel of getting that much closer to your goal, and every time a new party member joins up, you get that much closer to the full orchestral (well as orchestral as midi music can be) and grandiose tune to match how far your hero has come to completing their individual journey. It's one of those details most game devs would never think of, so it stands all the more here where it was done 35 years ago and just one more way this admittedly limited soundscape stands above and beyond MANY bigger ones.
8/10
Gameplay: Phantasy Star III is through and through a console-style JRPG of it's era, and as such there are specific things you will expect from it. You will basically play from a bird's eye view as you navigate your various parties through both friendly and dangerous territories of various terrain and the contents of both will be fairly stock to the genre: towns and friendly castles will generally be friendly places where you will run into NPCs you can talk to, shops to equip yourself with, and an inn you can heal up and save at.
Most of these will behave exactly as you would expect a JRPG of it's time to would. For example when you buy anything you will have to answer who will carry it, but if they can't use it, the shop owner will warn you before letting you waste your money. It is up to you, however, to understand if what you have is better then what you are looking at spending your cash on. You will also have to deal with each character having their own inventory and plan accordingly. Thankfully these tend to be very spacious so it's less an issue and more of an occasional inconvenience when you decide it's time to upgrade your gear.
However there are two rather unique shops you will find in basically every town: a nurse and a magic shop. The first is always upstairs when you enter the church, and you will want to remember this. Where the church will resurrect dead party members as one might expect, they don't always handle healing status effects like "poison" and we will get back to that later. But if you need it healed and nothing else will do, the nurse will take care of you.
The magic store, however will not sell you magic. What it will do is rebalance it. You see in this game, magic users have a couple of "schools," they will know from the moment they join. They will never learn new spells so much as the power granted to each school increases as they level up, and that is what these shops offer. You select your character, select a school, and you will be show an "square" where you can adjust how much of it is taken up by each of the four spells. This will in turn say how strong the spells will be on the field and will be represented by the numbers you see next to each spell when looking at them in the character menus.
While out in those fields, you will now have the additional event of random encounters for most of the combat you will see and, again, for the era, you should expect, and this is where a lot of the meat of gameplay will take place. The battle will open up to show you what you are up against and a window showing your party by name, HP, and Technique points (TP). It will also give you four icons in the far right which explain what you can do with icons making up their own nice looking square. The key icon, when highlighted, will turn as that is your command to just let turns run. For the most part this is only if you are facing weaker enemies you don't care about and want to wander off for a moment. However below it you also have a key with a 1, saying to play out just one turn (what you will use most often to initialize the turn).
Next to this you will have a button with 4 icons which will let you setup the commands of your party, showing the four buttons it will offer for each: a sword to attack, a shield to defend, a treasure chest to select an item a character is carrying to use, or and a staff to use a spell. Finally you can try to escape with the running guy's icon. These basic controls will literally give you the ability to control all your choices before pressing "play" to continue the fight and see what happens. It is simple, but elegant, and if not for the color complaints in the graphic section I would have called it absolutely fantastic. Still I do have to make a specific complaint about the combat of this game: status effects. In my entire time playing this game has only used one on me, and it is quite possibly the most infuriating mechanic I have ever seen in a turn based RPG: poison.
Now you know how poison normally works: your character is poisoned and then every turn in combat and every (or every so many) steps you take on the map they will take damage until you cure the effect, usually in the form of using an antidote item, casting a spell, or healing up in a town. This game turns this on it's ear in ways that will absolutely destroy you if you are unaware of it. For starters, poison does NOTHING like other games. It will never damage you. What it does is prevent any healing effect from working. Once a character is poisoned, they are on their own. As for healing, you best stock up on those antidotes while away from town because unless you balance the spell for this (ANTI) is an all or nothing spell, so if you didn't balance it as the dominant healing spell (rendering your actual healing power just about useless) you can count on it just not working 90% of the time. This makes for a rather infuriating balance as there are many enemies, especially in the lower ranks of minions you fight, who absolutely love using this effect on you, making that little level 1 enemy you can walk over at the end of the game still an infuriating encounter since if they get to strike first, you just about know you freed a slot in someone's inventory. In short this one effect will not kill your game, but it's anger inducing like few other mechanics in games to date.
But overall, this is a very solid, if basic RPG in the moment to moment gameplay while you wander around the worlds. It's nothing special, but it overall works pretty well.
6/10
Bugs: Once again, we have another game that ran absolutely perfect. From start to finish, it ran like a top.
Digital Rights Management: The question of if this game has DRM is answered with both a "yes" and a "no" a the exact same time. Yes in that the default virtual room launcher indeed uses Steam as DRM, but No in that the Simple Launcher is DRM free. On top of this, however, this is ultimately a ROM and emulator: you can play the ROM away from the launcher and in any other emulator you wish if you desire, and while I haven't tried this, it's supposed to be as simple as renaming the file to a .bin before loading up the game in the emulator of your choosing.
Overall: There are a few reasons why Phantasy Star III is seen as the black sheep of the classic quadrilogy of games. From the gameplay really offering little other RPGs of the time would not already have, to the music tracks being countable on just about one hand, to even some visual choices that are shockingly basic and even make combat hard to read what you are doing, this is clearly a lesser entry in the series. Add to it that the game's story was clearly shoehorned into the big picture of the series and it becomes obvious why someone would think like this. Nor can I really argue with the conclusion since out of those four games, it is probably the one I would choose last too.
However that does not make it a bad game in it's own right. When you boil the games down it really is a competant RPG of it's day that really saved it's ambition for the storyline and how the game might follow it instead of the (for the time) overly established mechanics of the franchise. This was one of the first games I have ever heard of where you will be given a chance to fork out the story, not just changing what happens as you play, but even where you will go in the realms, what you will see, or even what bosses you will encounter with different choices completely changing almost everything for the following generation.
It is a curious game if not the best of it's class, and something still worth your time playing. Just don't pick it over anything else in the classic set.
Score:
System Requirements:
- Intel Pentium 2.0 Ghz
- Anything that supports Direct X 9.0c with 32 MB of VRAM or more
- 2 GB RAM
- Windows XP
- 50 MB hard drive space
System Specs:
- Ryzen 5 5600G running at 3.9 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Windows 11
- PDP DX Wired Controller (Crimson)
Source: Unfortunately this game is no longer available as Sega has delisted the Mega Drive and Genesis Classics collection it was a part of from all stores.
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