JoeTheDestroyer's Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom review

Another one of those games I've started a couple times but never got around to finishing. I think your review does a good job of getting to the heart of why that is, bringing up the slow, generic start to things, how it takes until the third generation to get to the cool PS-style stuff and all the damn backtracking for large chunks of the game.

Thank you! I found the third one to be the easiest to finish, but the most tiring. It's just so run of the mill in comparison to the rest of the series. I initially planned to play all of the scenarios, but I couldn't bring myself to spend another twenty-something hours playing this.

I agree the concept and the bizarre change that this game drastically set apart from its previous entries (and its sequel,) the game felt TOO big to be in a sole 16-bit cartridge and it shows, being that it feels incomplete as well. Even when the whole generations scenario promises multiple experiences, it feels linear anyway. Perhaps SEGA could had done this as a spinoff than a sequel, but it is appreciated that after the very depressing setting left at part 2, there was some hope for those that survived its cataclysmic event. I may be dreaming, but I hope one day SEGA can redo this game in any way.

From what I gather, it's not really worth it to play all the scenarios, if for no other reason than how only one of the four endings is notably different from the rest. So, in essence, the main benefit to doing so would be having a main hero who controls differently, as well as (I think) a few plot differences depending on which wife you pick at the end of the first chapter.

You're not alone, Cpt. I was actually thinking about how a possible remake of this game, with a fully realized world and a fleshed out storyline. Mainly, it'd be great if they cut back on the backtracking, because it begins to feel like padding after a while. But if they could pull something where each generations offers significantly different content, that would be great. I think this game may have been developed decades too early.