Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom

[Melf]

It's sad to see all the hate that Phantasy Star gets. Its biggest crime? Detouring from the established storyline, something Phantasy Star Online has been doing for more than half a decade. It may lack that special charm that fans love about the other three installments, but it's still a pretty decent RPG in its own right. Check out our full review and see for yourself.

[Joe Redifer]

I thought Phantasy Star III was pretty good. I suppose it takes place at roughly the same time as part IV, perhaps a little earlier. The story does indeed explain how it fits in to the Phantasy star series, and part IV even explains part III as well. I found it fairly addicting and kept on coming back until I beat it. The last boss looks like a complete joke, though.

Music volume was set a little bit too loud.

[Mel]

Interesting, considering that I only started with the genesis in the past couple of years, I think I should really try this out.

Maybe I should stick to run and guns though, I'm still addicted to Final Fantasy XI.

How long is this game roughly?

[Zebbe]

I really agree with the reviewer on most things, for example the score. Phantasy Star III could have been a great game if it wasn't so empty. Look around in the towns and castles and you'll find nothing. Everything looks the same in the whole game. The battles are very repetitive and boring. I can't believe they returned to the first person perspective of Phantasy Star, the third person perspective of II and IV makes the battles so much more alive. I liked the generation concept and how the game was linked to the others in the end. Due to all the major flaws, the game lost that special feeling you'd except from a RPG, but overall its pretty fun to play and a must have if the other three games of this tetralogy is part of your collection.

[Demonic Weasel]

Heh. I really had a tough time writing the review, because half of the time I thought I was being far to generous and the other half I thought I was just indulging in a petty dislike of the deviation the game took.

[PepsimanVsJoe]

I for one enjoyed the game heavily. I really dug the art of the monsters as well as the music. The gameplay wasn't very good and the dungeons were either caves, castles, or futuristic tubes and crap. At least it's a short and rather pleasant game with wildly unique creatures.

And one thing that ties this game into the series. In PS4 you'll come across the ruins of a colony. The colony looks like the one that was "the world" of Phantasy Star 3. Kind of depressing really since there's nothing left. It was an interesting society as even within the Phantasy Star uh..Universe there was a civilization that acted on it's own and worshipped their gods, fought their own wars, etc.

But other than that Sega has all but slit all ties with Phantasy Star 3(Aside from Wren and Rappys). Heck there aren't really any special weapons in PSO that reference PS3. I mean you can find Nei's Claw and Rika's Claw(Or not, they have a 1 in 65,432 chance at dropping). However you'll be hardpressed to find any weapons named after characters in PS3.

Also in Phantasy Star 3 you could dual wield staffs. I thought that was the greatest thing.

[Demonic Weasel]

I never denied that it's tied into the overall PS storyline, but it's tied in, in such a way as to become in the nature of a sidestory. Which is a problem with the plot because there was no warning that it wasn't going to be a continuation from the first two games.

I wouldn't have had any problem in that regard if they hadn't made the plot so random, had told us well-ahead of time that it was in the nature of a side-story, and hadn't made all of these details the same as from the earlier games to try and make it work.

[mish]

I plug PSIII in every now and then, but for some reason I never find myself into it. I don't know what it is, but I could just never play for more than a few minutes without falling asleep.

[videolamer]

I'm not sure what there is to like about this game. The plot is anorexic and the battles and animation are spaztic. At least the got rid of PS2s tron style battle backgrounds. It's always mentioned that most PS fans don't like this game but it seems that nearly every PS fan on the internet will defend it, besides me at least.

[108 Stars]

Phantasy Star 3 was the first PS I played, and I was not very happy with it. The Generation-idea is cool, but like in most old RPGs there are too many random encounters for my taste. The sound is acceptable at best, and the graphics are awfully boring. Tiny character sprites with few animations. Urgh. And the buildings´ interior was kind of... well, there really was no interior. All the houses just seemed empty, like the people were just about to move out. I stopped playing when I came to a point where I didn´t know what to do next.
But on the other hand I didn´t like PS 2 much better...
Both PS 2 and PS 3 have this 8-Bit look on them. I´d love to see the interesting stories in remakes for current-generation-consoles though.
Phantasy Star 1 looked great (compared to it´s competitors Final Fantasy 1 and Dragon Quest 1) and played well, but I don´t think Sega put much effort in those sequels.
PS 4 is a good game, but imho it still stands in the shadow of the great RPGs produced for the SNES. Once again Sega had a great chance with this series, but they went on half-hearted.

[Baleog]

This is my first Phantasy Star so far and while it's not the best RPG I've ever played, I will be playing others in the series when I come across them. I kinda dug the storyline (even if some of the endings were rather silly), but the battle scenes were a bit on the stiff side. Monster/enemy design was cool though. And I liked the control I had over directing my attacks.

I can't believe there are people defending the music though. IMO, it's hands down the worst feature of the game. Imagine the most primitive attempts at orchestration through a PC speaker on an old 386 computer, complete with the annoying "Everybody Loves Hypno-Toad" sound at the beginning of every battle, followed by the "Atari 2600 attempt at a harpsichord" stinger music at the end. UGH!

EDIT: All right, the "Wren transforming into an aquaskimmer/glider/submarine" music is pretty cool, but the rest is cringe-worthy. Why did the music sound so 8-bit?

[HolyBloody16Bitter]

If you aren't a Phantasy Star fan, then you would know that this game doesn't deserve a 7, a 6 stand better in his way.

[TwistedReality]

This is the only Phantasy Star game I have. I wanted to like it, but what annoys me to no end, is how painfully slow the hero walks. Also, many environments look bland and identical (like the interior of every single building in the towns). He moves equally slow on the world map, and I'm just trying to find that next town, but it's taking forever between not knowing where to take my slow motion hero, and the relentless monster attacks on me (resulting in repeated game overs). Maybe if I had some codes I could tolerate the heros lack of speed. My review probably sounds really dumb, but I'm just being honest as to why I have a gripe with this title.

[Black_Tiger]

When PSIII first came out, I was really looking forward to playing on so many multiple worlds. I was disappointed when I discovered that instead of worlds, they were actually smaller spheres. I was still fine with it, but the whole multi-planet thing had been hyped in mags for a long time.

I don't think that PSIII is the un-PS'ish offshoot its made out to be. Phantasy Star II is the game that hijacked the series(later games are more inspired by its aesthetics than the original) and is the most un-PS'ish game in the series.

If anything, PSIII is a refreshing return to the more medieval theme of PS1. Gameplay also feels much more like the original, which is a good thing.

Personally I'd rather not have the whole generational system, but nerds are always complaining about RPGs being unoriginal, so they shouldn't complain when they get what they ask for.

The character art doesn't have anything hideous like some of the fugly PSIV stuff and some of the other PS games, even PSO/PSU could benefit from a more realistic art style.

Unlike PSII, I feel that PSIII holds up much better today. I loved PSII when it first came out and played it to death for months. But it didn't take long for me to be able to look back and see it as the short bland game it really is. PSIII is mch is half nonlinear dungeon crawler.

Although I believe PSIV is better overall as a game, PSIII still holds up pretty well to it. Certainly as a prequal. Its true that PSIII was so close to being a really great game, but that doesn't mean that its so far off either.

The one thing that annoyed me about PSIII, was some of the dificult long stretches without saves. Even back when it was common place in RPGs.

I'd rank the real Phantasy Star games like this-

1: PS
2: PSIV
3: PSIII
4: PSII

[Jules Walter]

PSIII was a big dissapointment the first time I played it, but I grew to like to it. Thing is, the first game I played in the series was PSIV, and even after playing a ridiculous number of console RPGs and pretty much every one that was released on a 16-bit system, it still stands as my all-time favorite RPG. I expected PSIII to be somewhat like it, and instead I got this. My main memory from my first playthrough is reaching a new town and wondering why there wasn't any damn villagers anywhere except for the store clerks, then finishing it and thinking it could have been some much better with the potential it had. My lack of access to other RPGs at the time made me replay it though, and eventually, I grew to be fond of it in a way, even though it's still my least favorite on the Genesis.