Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom

"The Underappreciated Classic"

Phantasy Star 3... I have many fond memories of this game in my childhood. Slowly walking through that long desert trying to find that cave. Slowly walking through those castle mazes. Slowly walking through that final dungeon. You get the message. This game had SO much potential it's not even funny. It could've easily been one of the greatest RPGs period, of any series. Instead, it's place in history will probably forever be (especially with the current direction of Sega videogames) in relative obscurity. Let's see why.

Graphics: Actually, they're really fairly good overall. For what they did that is. They clean, well drawn and some of the images are quite detailed. Unfortunately, the enemies have very little animation and the battles take a Dragon Quest style 1st person view. It has rush job written all over it. If this game had more animations and more varied backgrounds especially with that art style already in place, it easily could've been a 9 or 10. 6/10

Sound: Nothing much to say here. Most games of this era didn't have spectacular sounds. The bigger issue with most is how annoying are they and will you be shutting off your TV in order to save your sanity. The answer is mildly irritating if played in long doses. 5/10

Music: There's some really great songs (ok 1 great song) although I liked the ending theme too. If there's one song that could really carry a soundtrack, it's the intro song. Seriously, if you ever play this game, that song is amazingly expressive. It really set this grandiose, epic tone that reflected the great story line and probably contributed to setting the game up for a fall... Expectations were raised from this song. Otherwise, the songs in the game aren't so spectacular. They're passable. (intro-10/10) Overall: 6/10

Gameplay: Ahh this is where probably the biggest flaws came in. PSIII was such an obvious rush job. Each town has about 3-5 people with very little to say. As mentioned before, there's a lot of walking in this game, and it is SLOW. The characters and the storyline are never really fleshed out well at all during the gameplay. Most towns have pretty much the same tilesets throughout the game and battles are pretty repetitive.

This category saddens me because this game had so much potential. It just needed to feel more... organic. Everything was so mundane, and so dead about the story. Despite there being multiple "worlds" and generations, there's probably less than 50 townspeople in the entire game. Also, the battles can pretty much all be won by choosing the same all out attack button, over and over again. Actually 99% of them can be won this way except for the final boss who you'll have to stop to heal for. I think you get the picture.

The one saving grace? Choosing brides and ultimately making major storyline decisions. There are four endings to this game and while they're not on the level of Chrono Trigger, they're more varied than say those "hundreds" of endings on Star Ocean 2. 3/10

Storyline: Generations of Doom. That says a lot doesn't it? Honestly, this game had an amazing storyline going for it. Yes, it was a major departure from part 2, but as an individual game, it was one of the greatest, most original ideas I've seen. You have two races that bitterly hated each other for centuries, a wedding interrupted by a freakin dragon, and a prince out to rescue the princess and that' only the 1st generation. It's cliche up till that point, but it's really when you learn the entire story, the major plot twists, and how certain actions from the first generation set certain things into motion later that you see how deep the story really was for its time. Seriously, the only thing holding it back was the lack of real effective story telling through most of the game. There's so little dialogue, actions explained, cut scenes, etc. You really have to piece it all together with the bit of information given to yo casually here and there throughout the game. (10/10) (storytelling 2/10)

Overall, the game deserved better treatment from Sega. It still does today. If there's any game that should be remade (completely from the bottom up in every single way except storyline) this is it. How many RPG stories span several generations, give you the power the choose the direction of the generations, and ties the generations together with a epic story? None that I know of and this would be it. With proper execution--graphics, battle system, character development, actual town interaction--this could be a helluva game.

Still, to think of what could've been is not the point of this review. If you're looking from a game to pass the time and have a somewhat different kind of story, this is for you. 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/08/07