PHANTASY STAR III: GENERATIONS OF DOOM

 Legends of your homeland Landen tell of great, world-sweeping wars fought
1000 years ago. The sorceress Laya tried to dominate the world with her
armies of monsters, but her plan was thwarted by the brave warrior Orakio and
his army of cyborgs. In the final battle, all combatants were slain but the
bodies of Orakio and Laya were never recovered. Passageways between the
Orakian and the Layan worlds were sealed and people eventually forgot there
were other worlds besides Landen.

 Two months ago, a young woman washed up on the shore near Landen town. The
young prince Rhys nursed her back to health and, despite the woman's amnesia
regarding her life prior to waking up on the beach, they fell in love. On the
day that Rhys and the woman Maia were to be wed, a Layan dragon swooped down,
screaming that Maia would not be the bride of "filthy Orakians." As the
dragon flew off with Maia, Rhys vowed to search for her and bring her back,
setting an epic adventure into motion....

 That adventure is PHANTASY STAR III: GENERATIONS OF DOOM, sequel to Sega's
incomparable PHANTASY STAR and its sequel PHANTASY STAR II. You assume the
role of Rhys and set off to find your betrothed Maia. But the story doesn't
end there. In fact, the PHANTASY STAR III storyline is so great and long,
that it requires three generations to see the story through; only two loyal
cyborgs participate in all three of the adventures.

 Nor is the story set into stone for you to follow. You get to choose which
of four possible storylines you will take. When Rhys rescues Maia, he
discovers that a woman who helped him has fallen in love with him and
secretly wishes to marry him herself. You choose who to marry; your choice
dictates which son to continue with and which adventure to follow. Finish the
second adventure, and the son has a choice of two brides; again, your choice
decides the plot of the final story and the ending you experience.

 There are seven worlds to explore in PHANTASY STAR III and two moons. You
must ultimately explore each of the seven worlds and at least one of the
moons, if not both. Fly through space in a space jet, or transform into one
of three vehicles: a submersible to explore underwater, an aerojet to fly
through the clouds with a bird's-eye view, or an aquaskimmer to cross the
rivers and lakes.

 Unfortunately, PHANTASY STAR III was very disappointing. All its strong
points are only a little bit better than PHANTASY STAR II, and its weak
points are far more pronounced and noticeable than in either of the first two
cartridges in the series. The graphics, while excellent, aren't much better
than in PHANTASY STAR II. The sound effects are more sparse and also break no
new ground. Only two of the musical tunes really appealed to me; the rest
were satisfactory, but not as good as the PHANTASY STAR II musical tunes of
Mystery, Death Place, and Never Dream.

 The storyline, which is PHANTASY STAR III's strong point, suffers from
gameplay predictability. Each of the four adventures is played out in almost
the exact same manner, albeit for relatively different reasons. For example,
Sean must learn what caused the destruction of Azura, while Crys must foil
the plans of Siren, former cyborg general under Orakio. But they both
accomplish their goals through virtually the same actions and sequence of
events. The two possible adventures for the second generation are almost
mirror images; it was not too hard to guess at the storyline in Nial's
adventure after completing the storyline for Ayn. Also, while there are four
possible ending sequences in PHANTASY STAR III, only one of them is really
different from the others. Two of the endings are exactly alike, except for
the nature of the disaster avoided. The third ending is similar regarding the
ultimate destiny of the seven worlds. Only one ending really is different
from the other three.

 A lot of people were probably mislead by a strategy article in GAMEPRO
Magazine, which said that after you finished the game, you would "finally
learn what happened to the cast of PHANTASY STAR II." Actually, this isn't
true. One of the towns connects PS3 to PS2 by showing how the peoples of the
seven worlds are descendants of the people of the planet Palm, and how their
ancestors managed to escape destruction by evacuating the planet just before
its destruction (shown in PHANTASY STAR II). You do not learn what happened
to the seven characters who defeated Mother Brain in PHANTASY STAR II; Sega
says that perhaps one of the later sequels (they say there will be several)
will reveal that part.

 Although combat is below par, PS3 combat does have a couple of nice
features: For starters, you can now face as many as four different types of
creatures and up to ten opponents. In addition, you can pick out an exact
target (targets in the back row can't be attacked until those in the front
are defeated, unless you use a gun, slicer, bow, or needler) instead of just
a type of target. Best of all, while it is still possible for you to get
ambushed (where the monsters get a free attack before melee), _you_ can now
surprise your enemies, enabling you to run away with no fear of being
blocked, or to kill them all before any of them knows what hit them.

 Combat animation is handled in a rather crude and sloppy manner. The
animation of the monsters is inferior even to that in the original PHANTASY
STAR, and the graphics for execution of Techniques are also flawed. Gone is
one of the best features of PHANTASY STAR II's combat animation: your
characters in battle. PS3 combat returns to the old first-person view used in
the first PHANTASY STAR. The background scenery, while better than the Tron-
like "grid" in PS2, is still rather simple and not as good as the excellent
backgrounds used in combat scenes in the original PHANTASY STAR.

 Worse still, character hit points and technique points are no longer shown
in four separate boxes, where only the box of the character that's being
attacked was displayed during enemy assault. HPs and TPs are now shown in a
single box that does not change. So it's often very difficult, if possible at
all, to determine just which of your characters is under attack by a monster
(unless you notice the HP number of the target going down, or when the
monster uses a Technique on you, where you see a little flash of color over
the name of the target).

 Techniques are almost useless in the game. Only healing Techniques are of
any real value. The Time and Order Techniques fail more often than not, and
two of the Healing Techniques can fail when you need them most. Melee
Techniques, aimed at doing damage to the enemy, are only of any use in the
first-generation adventure, and then rarely. 99% of encounters are handled
more quickly and efficiently with the weapons you're holding in your hands.
Fights seldom last very long, anyway, except when you're battling a "boss"
enemy. Many of the monsters and the cyborgs you face are very strong, but
it's not too hard to find or build up enough money to buy weapons that are
stronger still, and can eliminate the opposition inside of two "rounds."

 The level of challenge and difficulty presented by PHANTASY STAR III starts
out pretty high, but once you have finished one of the four storylines, the
other three are quite easy. Even without the hint book, it's not too hard to
find out what to do next if you speak to all of the townspeople and write
down what they say. Shops and houses have two floors and, many times, you
will find somebody with a useful piece of information upstairs. Still, the
amount of backtracking and side-tracking you have to do before you can
accomplish a goal will keep you from breezing right through your adventures.
To finish the game in a few days can only be done if you are unwilling to put
the control pad down long enough to eat and sleep.

 Overall, one cannot deny that PHANTASY STAR III makes for an intriguing and
often-exciting Genesis FRPG. But many veterans of the first two games in the
series are bound to be terribly disappointed, because the game breaks little
new ground. While PHANTASY STAR and PHANTASY STAR II each took giant leaps
forward, this game attempts only a small one. But, if we remember that a
company can only outdo itself so many times, then we can forgive most of the
game's weaknesses more easily (except the sloppiness of the combat animation,
of course!). On a scale of 1 to 10, I'll give PHANTASY STAR III a score of 8.
A good game, but containing a couple of weaknesses that are inexcusable in a
game of its supposed caliber.

 PHANTASY STAR III: GENERATIONS OF DOOM is published and distributed by Sega
of America.