Phantasy Star III’s Marriages Set It Apart

While it is one of the more subtle entries, the Phantasy Star III marriage and generational mechanics made it special.

[autobotdan]

Yes it did

[ApocalypseShadow]

It definitely was different in style than the other 3 but I still liked it. And the replay value of deciding who to marry ending up with an offspring that may or may not have certain abilities. Also liked the reveal of where they were located.

Still wish there was a Phantasy Star 5. Online was still cool but not the same story driven RPG style game like the main games. Some of the same people were on the Skies of Arcadia team besides Sonic, Sakura and Panzer Dragoon teams. So, you can tell how great their story telling can be at Sega at the time.

Great memories.

[autobotdan]

Sega was innovative in JRPGs in very early 1990's. They were doing things Squaresoft and Enix were not even doing

[drunkenspy007]

I still preferred PS 2. I felt you couldn't get too attached with the characters since they would retire and you would then be playing as their kids until yet another generation is born. Still it was an unique concept.

[Pickledpepper]

I only ever played phantasy star 2, never got to try the others.
The main boss was so difficult to beat, it took me months of leveling up just to beat it.

[Tross]

You definitely need to check out the Sega Genesis Classics collection then. I think if you want to play the very first game you will need Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection from last gen, but other collections including the one on current gen consoles at least have Phantasy Star 2-4.

[Pickledpepper]

I have got it and still got it on my megadrive. I played though it in the Megadrive collection, got to the final dungeon and it crashed, bad thing is i didnt have any save other than that one and im not doing it all again lol

[Tross]

I feel horrible when I hear about stuff like that happening, especially with a really old school JRPG like that. On the other hand, I'm shocked at how many people ignore the fundamental rule of always saving, especially in a RPG. You're not alone as so many people, including internet celebrities have claimed to have suffered the consequences of such an oversight. I guess my cousin won't have to feel so bad about losing a few hours of Persona 5 data to a game crash now.

If you ever do try again it probably won't be for a good while. It can take months or even a good year or more to recover from such frustration. It's painful and we've all been there. That's why I save often. In fact, I do it at every opportunity and get slightly anxious if I haven't saved for over an hour.

I've also learned to augment in-game saves with save states as although when it comes to emulated classics I usually like to use the in-game save system first and foremost for the authenticity, I did trigger a glitch once playing the original Shantae game on the 3DS while in a dungeon that caused the game to reset and my save data to be erased. It was one of the later dungeons in the game too, so I didn't go back and play it again for another several months.

Now, I use save states in addition to in-game saves with old games. As it's a backup I don't do it every single time, but I do make sure every second or third save is accompanied by a save state, as well as the last save I make before I stop playing, so if something like that ever happens again, I can just reload my backup save state and lose far less progress.

[Tross]

I tried this game and didn't get very far into it, but I liked the idea of being able to choose a wife and having different generations. I just wasn't so into the mediocre RPG aspect that is the core of the game. Maybe I should give it another shot. The other Phantasy Star games have the sci-fi aspect and being able to travel to different planets, but this one feels too much like a knockoff of other fantasy RPGs, and not one that really holds a candle to a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest game of the time. If it wasn't for the choosing a wife mechanic I probably wouldn't think much of it at all, wheres the previous two games at least have something significant that sets them apart from other late 80s/early 90s JRPGs.