Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom

There is so much greatness surrounding this game, but at the same time, I have a long list of annoyances that often push me to the brink of turning the game off as soon as I start playing. This is the only role playing game that I have played where you play through generations of characters. You start with a male main character, play through a third of the game, choose one of two women as your wife, marry her, and then play the next third of the game as your son. This process repeats once more to a third generation. This wonderful concept for a rpg that I really enjoy. Those skilled in simple mathematics will find that because of the generation set up, there are four possible offspring by the third generation. Even better, the storyline and gameplay is different for each offspring and therefore, there are four possible endings. PSIII is unlike any PS game. None of the other three have a generations setup so fans of PSII should not expect a carbon copy on PSIII.

You begin the first generation as Rhys, an Orakian and one of two main races in the game, the other being Layan. Orakians are primarily fighters whereas Layans specialize in magic. When you get around to marrying for the first time (and the second time), you have the choice of two women. One is Layan and the other is Orakian. This makes the generations scheme all the more interesting as you can essentially customize your offspring; marry a Layan for a 50/50 magic/brawler split or go 100/0 all brawler if you wish. The same applies to the third generation. Many of the aspects from Phantasy Star II carry over to this game. You have the traditional rpg setup where you buy items at designated shops found in each town you visit. The characters in your party follow your main character in a line throughout towns and the outside world (a concept I believe unique to PS games at the time). Even the spells and items are similar. Therefore, if you enjoyed PSII, there is some carryover here that will add to the series continuity. Your job, regardless of generation, is to save the world (big surprise, I know). In your travels you will meet other people who join your party to help out. You mainly run into battles in the outside world. The battle system is very similar to PSII and the battles themselves are randomly generated. Each character in your party can attack, defend, or cast a spell if they have one. The battles play out in typical turn-based strategy fashion (very similar to the Final Fantasy games). Additionally, there is a chance you can start the battle by surprising your enemy and get a full round off attacks off before the enemy notices you. Conversely, there is also the possible of being surprised yourself.

Its too bad I have so many complaints about this game because I love the generations idea. For one, your character walks too slow. Walking through town is a real life experience as your character literally walks everywhere. The battle system is very similar to PSII. However, the chance of getting surprised going into an attack and thus getting attacked by all enemies before you can do anything, is way too high. Once in awhile is understandable, but it becomes super annoying when you are getting surprised as often as you do in this game. The storyline is very old-school. Your job is too save the world and the logic behind some of the characters decisions is not always sound or reasonable. For example, when you start in the second generation, you are thrust into the 'save the world, you are our only hope' role immediately, despite being level one. Even your old man (the character you played in generation one) sets you free without hesitation. In the three generational roles you will play, you receive very vague advice as to what you should be doing and especially where you need to go to do that. I found myself wandering around the world map often, confused as to where I should be going. Example: A town is overrun by robots and they flee. Your job is to find them. It was my last thought to look in a cave.

Lastly, I felt like the world map was too constrained and should have been more sandboxish. PSIV corrects all of these issues, but with PSIII you will find cave after cave that is conveniently blocked until you have to go through it. And you will be walking everywhere in a fairly large world map. This becomes very monotonous. I would have also liked to see some secrets or side quests to reward my time spent exploring. The absence of side quests (which appear in large quatities in PSIV) make the game too linear. I understand that the Genesis has a memory limitation that prevents tons of add ons. By having the generations scheme, it is possible there was not enough room to add these other qualities. I especially love how the game portrays your character when he is older - by giving him a mustache. Apparently, mustache = old age.

This is the worst of the three Phantasy Star games I have played (II - IV). Despite all of of my complaints, I still enjoyed the gameplay and fighting system. The generation setup was a fantastic idea, but not executed in the best fashion. With the increased memory of today's games, maybe this concept could be properly implemented.

Surrendering itself to the old stereotypes of medieval fantasy JRPGs, the tiresome slog of Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom nevertheless presented a neat idea: an inheritance-based character build achieved through story choices in-between chapters.