Game Review: Phantasy Star III

Oy. kazekage was right; this one was a real bitch to play. Even cheating my butt off and fast-forwarding 95% of the time, I still came very close to quitting several times.

On every practical level - gameplay, characterization, music, visual design - "Phantasy Star III" is an enormous step down from its predecessor. This, in itself, isn't uncommon where game series are concerned: generally speaking, if they spike up they can drop down just as easily. And if "Phantasy Star III" were simply a lousy game, it wouldn't be such a big deal; the real problem is that, as Marlon Brando put it, "it coulda been a contender". I'm going to do something a little different this time, to demonstrate:

1. The Gimmick

Why it could have worked: You don't see many multi-generational sagas in RPGs; "Phantasy Star III" follows Rhys, then Rhys' son, then his grandson, three generations of a family undergoing various quests, all of which are connected to the Dark Force (primary antagonist of the "Phantasy Star" series). You'd have three self-contained tales which all interconnect to form a larger tapestry. What's more, the game allows you to determine how Rhys' bloodline evolves, by letting you choose who Rhys should marry - and, at a later point in the game, who his son should marry. The choice of wife/mother determines who the next-generation protagonist will be. Thus, you actually have six different games in one (the two possible sons of Rhys, and the four possible third-generation heroes). With distinct storylines and characterizations, replay value would be extremely high.

Why it didn't work: There's no characterization at all - the main characters might as well be the sodding Light Warriors for all we know about them. As a result, you're not really inclined to care who should marry whom, since there's no basis for any kind of romantic tension; imagine if "Final Fantasy VII" had given its players the choice to pair Cloud with either Tifa or Aeris. People still debate about that triangle today. But since character interaction is non-existent in "Phantasy Star III", you reach the point of choosing a wife without any reason to pick one or another at all. To make things worse, the third-generation storylines are way too similar, so it ultimately doesn't matter how you manipulate the family line - a monumental waste of a very clever device.

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2. The Big Twist

Why it could have worked: From the very beginning, it's clear that the world of "Phantasy Star III" doesn't quite fit with its predecessors; the environment is distinctly medieval, with princesses being abducted by dragons and held captive in ancient castles. In fact, there's not a hint of technology in sight... until you're called upon to travel from your world to an adjoining planet, and the passages connecting the worlds look like something out of "Tron". Nevertheless, besides a single name-check of the Dark Force, there doesn't seem to be any tangible connection to the "Phantasy Star" universe; the mythologies are all wrong, you're clearly not in the Algol system, and no prior characters make an appearance. Then the truth is revealed: the planets you've visited are sections of a thousand-year-old worldship, the Alisa III, carrying the descendants of the survivors of Palma (the planet destroyed towards the end of "Phantasy Star II"). It's an excellent twist, because it accounts for every single anomaly: the medieval environment is due to Palman civilization being "rebooted", which also explains the wildly different history that shapes the plot. This revelation undermines our whole perception of the game reality - a twist worthy of the Wachowski brothers.

Why it didn't work: I actually think this is the only aspect of the game that turned out right; granted, the dramatic effect is diminished by the fact that you're not really invested in events due to bland storylines and persona-non-grata characters, but it's still a big surprise and a clever, pleasant link to the previous games.

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3. The Multiple Endings

Why it could have worked: This one's self-explanatory; multiple endings grant the player a certain amount of control over an otherwise-linear storyline. You'll come back for more if the outcome promises to be different.

Why it didn't work: Except the outcome isn't really different. Aside from the fact that the four endings are painfully abbreviated and anticlimactic, they're also very, very similar. In fact, two of them are practically identical, with the same sequence of events and the same dialogue (the only difference is the presence of a black hole in one and a sun in the other). What's more, only one of the four makes any kind of sense in the context of the series: in Aron's ending, the Alisa III goes through a black hole and emerges near Earth, thousands of years in the past. Though the sequence itself ends there, the implication is clear: the people of Earth make contact with Alisa III, are exposed to Dark Force, and use Palman technology to create Noah and Mother Brain (as seen in "Phantasy Star II"), all part of Dark Force's plan to return to Algol. History comes full circle. Sadly, none of the other endings invite even this amount of speculation: one ending simply promises that the people of Alisa III will fight Dark Force again in a thousand years, while the other two announce the intent to settle on Earth in the present (and anyone who knows how PS2 ends knows they're not going to find anything there). At the end of the day, you're not rewarded for a second or third playthrough; instead, you're left feeling incredibly stupid that you went to all the trouble for nothing.

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4. Visual Design

Why it could have worked: even though there's a considerable gap between "Phantasy Star" and "Phantasy Star II", you're still broadly in the same solar system, visiting the same planets. The Alisa III, by contrast, is a completely new world, something we've never seen before. Quite frankly, the creators had an opportunity here to construct an appealing, engaging fantasy world on their own terms.

Why it didn't work: They didn't. Not only do the worlds of Alisa III look more or less the same, they're comprised of huge, sprawling maps that are empty. You can walk for fifteen minutes in any given direction and never find the slightest trace of your next destination. And it's not just on the level of the world maps themselves: all the towns on all the worlds follow the same visual design, including the very confusing shop signs which make no fucking sense: why does the Armor Shop have a picture of a duck over its door? Why is the Inn's logo an urn? Why is it that the icon for executing a turn in a battle menu is a crank key and a fish? It's all horrendously abstract and arbitrary, all the more outrageous given the clean and ordered designs "Phantasy Star II" had sported.

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I could go on, but the point remains the same: "Phantasy Star III" is a sloppy, shoddy mess, all the more condemned for the many ways it could have succeeded with the tiniest amount of effort.