Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom

About Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom

Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom (1990) is Sega's Genesis role-playing game whose story spans three generations, with marriage choices deciding the next hero and leading to four different endings.

Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom in Depth

The game keeps the series' turn-based formula, exploring 2D worlds, recruiting characters and fighting random encounters, but adds an auto-battle option and an icon-based menu, while "technique" magic plays a smaller role than before. Its distinguishing feature is that the story spans three generations. At key points the hero chooses which of two women he has met to marry, and the choice decides the next generation's lead: a child who may be Orakian or part Layan and Orakian, which changes their ability with techniques. Two paths in the second generation branch into four in the third, each with its own ending.

A thousand years earlier, the swordsman Orakio and the sorceress Laya led rival factions; both vanished during a truce, each side blamed the other, and travel between their worlds was banned. The game begins with Prince Rhys of the Orakian kingdom of Landen on his wedding day to Maia, an amnesiac who washed ashore two months before, when a Layan dragon snatches her away. Maia turns out to be a Layan princess whose people thought they were rescuing her. Later it emerges that both peoples descend from survivors of the planet Palm, destroyed in Phantasy Star II, and that their worlds are sections of a vast colony ship.

Making Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom

Sega released the game in Japan in April 1990 and in North America in June 1991. Series veteran Rieko Kodama helped in early planning, and the new team chose branching paths to stand out in a crowded RPG market, but storage limits made the multiple endings hard to implement and forced cuts to the story. Designer Hirondo Saiki grew exhausted as the sole designer, though it was the first time designers and programmers worked as one team, and character designer Saru Miya recalled great hardship on what she called a "home-spun" project. Producer Kazunari Tsukamoto likened it to a collection of side stories compared with Phantasy Star II and IV.

Contemporary reviews were positive: Computer Gaming World called it "a rewarding epic tale which should be told on every Genesis system", and Dragon liked its marriage choices and endings while preferring Phantasy Star II. Later critics, averaging 68% on GameRankings, found its endings too similar and its style too different from the rest of the series, and it is now often seen as the series' black sheep.