"Unusual Design Lifts PSIII But Still Can't Overcome"

Phantasy Star III suffers the same failings most RPGs do. Namely, it's a slave to its "story" and the player is blocked into doing what facilitates the story rather than having the freedom to play as they want. This is a problem with most RPGs and the reason most don't have much replay value or much of anything else to offer that any other has.

First, let's look at the "story" in Phantasy Star III. Cliched stock characters (a prince, a mysterious princess to rescue, dragons, et cetera, et cetera) don't really offer anything we haven't seen before. The curious mixing of medieval and futuristic technology isn't too well developed and more of a gimmick than anything. Basically, nothing really has a purpose other than appearances. What the genre most often exhibits, and this is no exception, is a good degree of ignorance about everything. Cliche, stereotypes, and poor understanding of social (who acts like characters in these games? No one except children, and foolish ones at that), scientific (cyborgs are treated as machines), cultural (where do we begin), and economic (anytime you have to kill monsters for money, it shows a lack of thought on the part of the designer) theory forms the basis for how RPG game worlds are designed. One has to wonder if the same 10-year old made them all at decades ago.

What Phantasy Star III does offer is "generations", three to be precise. You play one character, then follow one of two lines of descent from that character, and again for a third generation. This is an intriguing idea, and one with incredible potential. Unfortunately, it's just a gimmick in PSIII. There's no real sense of realism to the circumstances or characters' personalities. They're cardboard and just there to move the cliched story along.

The setting is similarly flat. The first of seven "worlds" you'll explore is perhaps the best of them all though another is semi-well-done. The problem is that they all suffer the same shallow design. There's no sense that they're in the game for any purpose than to visit at a certain time. To get to these different worlds, you have to travel through mazes/dungeons which are so pathetically cliched. Why? Why can't game designers come up with a shred of creativity?

Is Phantasy Star III worth playing? Yes, it's worth playing once, maybe twice. The endings are all pretty much the same because of the blocked-out format of the story. You really can't go or do much unless you follow the story (for example, even if you journey to a lake early in the game, you won't encounter a cyborg there until after you visit a local village and discover you need a cyborg to gain access to a boat). Like most RPGs, this limits the replay value incredibly. The "generations" gimmick adds some interest to the situation, but alas it's poorly done as well. It's a shame more RPGs looked to inferior games like Phantasy Star and Final Fantasy instead of to superior works like Pirates! and Starflight for their inspiration.

Control: 5
Game-play: 5
Graphics: 5
Sound: 8
Originality: 6
Replay Value: 5
OVERALL: 5

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 11/21/05