"Very disappointing...What could have been incredible turns out to be slightly below average"

Every classic series of videogames has a moment of inaptitude, a moment where one wonders why indeed the series is considered to be the cream of the crop amidst a harvest frequently filled with dull repetitive 3D-platformers, Doom clones, ''Xtreme'' sports, and yes even uninspired examples of my favourite genre, the RPG, which when done right, is nothing less than pure art. Phantasy Star 3, a game released in 1991 as the third game of Sega's critically acclaimed Phantasy Star series, has many innovative ideas and quite a few things going for it, is far better than such ''classic'' offerings as Mario is Missing, Sonic Spinball, Megaman Soccer, or even Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Unfortunately PS3 can easily be compared to Betrayal in Antara (a CRPG released in 1997) in the sense that it did a fairly grave injustice to a classic series, and that it is definitely not an example one might like to look upon when discussing what makes a well-designed, enjoyable RPG.

Graphics (3.5): Unfortunately, PS3 has rather poor graphics. After some nice intro graphics, you are treated to what is mostly the work of a four-year old on an Etch-a-Sketch Although the character designs are well done and the world map, the castles, and the towns sport decent graphics, repetition is unfortunately the name of the game. There are about 5 or 6 different dungeon designs (a couple pallet-swapped cave designs, one castle dungeon design, and a couple ''techno-tower'' designs), a number that could be excusable if they were not extremely bland and boring to look at like in PS3. Even the towns, though they have fairly good graphics, are limited to a ''normal'' and ''winter'' design. Then there's the battle graphics. Blech! Don't even get me started on the battle graphics. You never ever see your characters on the screen. The only indication of their existence is a cheap looking sword slash, claw swipe or a couple other things that don't even look like weapons that appear on the screen to indicate their attacks. The spell graphics are even worse. For example, the Gra spell is show as a squiggly line going over the enemies head, something that would have been laughed at even in the days of the original Dragon Warrior. Finally, the enemy attack animations look so bad, that one would think that Sega gave a two-year old it's animation equipment and told them to design attacks for some fairly decently designed but ludicrously pallet-swapped monsters. An enemy called Titan twiddles his thumb to attack, and an enemy called Loon flaps his wings to attack. Other brilliant designed attacks include the flapping of wings in the air, the opening and closing of a mouth, and a slightly less pathetic ''dance in a circle'' attack. Please notice that in none of these attacks, do your characters or the enemies make physical or magical contact with each other. Overall, PS3's graphics are pathetic, and fail to even come close to equalling the graphical quality of its predecessors.

Music (6): Phantasy Star 3's music certainly redefines the word mixed-bag. Some of the themes, such as the theme song, Laya's theme, the first castle theme, the wedding theme, the town theme and the world map theme are beautifully written and composed. The opening theme and Laya's theme, which are so beautiful that they have managed to draw a tear from my eyes, along with the wilderness theme, which is an innovative and excellent piece, are amongst the classics of videogame music. From here on out though, the music seems to free-fall down into the toilet. The battle theme, which one hears quite often throughout the game, is a pathetic mix of about 4 different 3 second songs that change according to the pace and outcome of the battle. This would have been interesting if it weren't for the songs are insult to one's ears and flow terribly together. The dungeon and the regular castle themes, which both had great potential to rise to amidst the best of videogame music loop after about 4 seconds and constantly repeat themselves into the listener is ready to pull a Van Gogh on his or her ear. Then there's the wretched battle sound effects, which Sega somehow managed to make even worse than those annoying little battle sounds in PS2. It's a crying shame...A few more classic songs and some half-decent sound effects, and we'd have Uematsu-calibre material here.

Gameplay (4): This is definitely a case where Sega definitely deserves an iota of credit just for trying a couple revolutionary ideas. First off, the game takes place over the course of three generations. Rhys is the main character for the first third of the game, and after accomplishing his goal, is given the choice of marrying one of two women. The woman he marries determines who his son is and what kind of adventures his son has. The second son then can marry a choice of two women, and the third son ends up finishing the game. An equally innovative idea brought to PS3 is the world design. Instead of having multiple planets (a great idea in its own right) like the rest of the series, PS3 has 7 world domes that are interconnected via various caverns or (later in the game) by Laya's Palaces. Each world consists of a few towns, a slightly different world map theme, and some caverns and dungeons. Unfortunately, each innovation suffers from a serious flaw that hurts the game. First of all, despite the fact that there are 4 different quests to go on, depending on who you marry, each path has a sameness to it and ultimately, you end up doing pretty much the same quests with each character. The dome idea also suffers greatly due to the fact that the worlds are small, and lose the epic feeling that graces most RPG worlds, and secondly, travelling through the repetitive, enemy-filled caverns between the worlds becomes so tedious that you may feel like ripping the game out of your Genesis/Megadrive and flushing it down that dirty sinkhole (enough with the toilet imagery all ready). The gameplay is dragged even farther down by one of the worst battle systems to ever to hit this genre. Besides the graphical and sound problems plaguing the battle system, which have already discussed, the battle system does not fix any of the flaws present in its predecessor, and in reality, is even more annoying. When you get into an encounter, you will either be surprised or be able to prepare an attack. Instead of the typical turn-based or ATB system most RPG gamers are used to, this game features a pathetic variation of the typical turn-based system. First off, menu with 4 options is displayed. One allows the user to change your battle options from the default (all attack), another allows you the user to run away,. another makes allows the characters fight it out for one turn, and yet another makes the characters fight until a button is pressed to return to the menu. This, as one can tell, is a very clunky variation of the typical turn-based system which would be a lot easier to use if each character was given an individual menu from which to select their actions, and that menu automatically appeared after each turn. Luckily, Sega had the sense to move to that system for the sequel. My final grippe here is the magic system. Instead of learning spells by buying magic (some of the FF games) or learning magic as your characters level up (the other PS games, the other FF games), magic users are instead given up to four groups of four spells (it's always the same four groups), and can go to a special Technique Distribution Shop to allocate a certain amount of power to each spell, from a ''pool'' of power points for each group. This could have been good, accept that spells are controlled in groups of two instead of individually, and, obviously, because 16 spells in an RPG are simply not enough, especially when the vast majority of them are useless. Overall, Sega took the goods and the bads of the PS2 game engine, overhauled it for the worst, and added a dash of repetitious gameplay to stifle what could have been an extremely fun and innovative game. It's a shame PS lost it's edge to FF at this point with the release of the incredible FF4 the same year this game was released.

Challenge (3): Ugh...Not only did Sega maintain all the monotonous levelling up of PS2. They also sucked away the rush of discovery and the exciting, challenging dungeons, and replaced them with dungeons that could not have even made the cut in PS4 both in terms of challenge (which the latter was also lacking) and fun (which the latter fortunately had in spades). It's a shame when a boss can be beaten by pressing the attack button a million times (something which despite PS4's relative lack of challenge, could not be done in that game) to a point where even FF7 or (gasp) FF8's bosses appear challenging. Overall, Sega, with PS3, has almost humorously reversed PS2's malady of being insanely difficult by making the game veer far to the easy side.

Story (7.5): Well, Sega deserves a lot of credit for attempting to make an incredible story. First off (for those wondering how this game ties into the rest of the PS series), the game takes place on the Alisa III, one of the ''World Ships'' that escaped the planet Palm/Parma/Palma as it exploded during PS2. You begin as Prince Rhys, whose fiancé, Maya, is kidnapped by a dragon just as their wedding is beginning. Rhys then goes on a quest to rescue his girlfriend and along the way, goes on many adventures and discovers some of the truth about the world's past. When Rhys accomplishes his goal, he can marry either Maya or another woman he encountered (I won't say who, but you'll figure it out rather quickly) on his quest. Afterwards, his son, and then his grandson, go on adventures of their own, eventually learning the truth about the world on which they live, its history and civilization, and about a great evil being, thought to be destroyed over 1000 years past, and set on destroying not only Alisa III, but the entire universe if it is freed. Ultimately, although the plot is slightly different depending on who you marry, the grandson's quest leads to destroying this being and saving Alisa III and consequently, the universe. Overall, an involving, fairly original story that would have been even better if the dialogue was more interesting and if the characters were better developed.

Replay (5): Well, there are some things to like about this game, so you ''phanatics'' out there may definitely want to be it with all four characters and see each different storyline and ending. But for the most part, once will be more than enough. So unfortunately, I cannot give more than an average score for replay value.

Overall (4.5, which rounds up to 5): Overall, what should have been a great game ends up being nothing more than a slightly below average game that may be tolerated by some. There are two major reasons for this. First off, the game was well ahead of its time, and had Sega tried a game of this calibre towards the end of the Genesis' life or on the Saturn, it could have been very successful, and secondly, Sega failed to include an enjoyable battle system in terms of gameplay, graphics or music, and much of the game is repetitious and uninspired, It's a damn shame, because PS3 could have been much more, so much more.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/06/00, Updated 02/22/01