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PostPosted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 5:34 pm
by Heroic_Chaz
suoturska is right about how that would have been one hell of a delay... but which would you like better? PSIV as it is, or PSIII better while PSIV suffers from the Phantasy Star "rush curse"?

PostPosted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 5:36 pm
by Dr_Odin
PSIV as it is (maybe with more challenging enemies) :)

PostPosted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 5:42 pm
by Heroic_Chaz
Exactly my point. PSIV pretty much owned Sega's dominance in the RPG market for quite a good time BECAUSE it was good.

PostPosted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 5:47 pm
by BenoitRen
Nobody said to rush PSIV. Just that PSIII wouldn't be rushed and released later.

PostPosted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 5:50 pm
by Heroic_Chaz
Both PSII and PSIII suffer from rushes, with 2 it's the laconian dagger and lack of background, with 3... well, we've covered that. But I never said 3 was a bad game, and I agree that it's rushed.

PostPosted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 6:31 pm
by BenoitRen
PSII, rushed because of that? Please.

Bugs exist in both rushed and completed games. Ask PSIV with its level 99 bug.

As for the backgrounds, lack of cartridge space is the most probable reason for their lack of presence.

PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 3:01 am
by thriwren
BenoitRen wrote:Uh, PSIV would have been PSIII and PSIII would have been PSIV?
I realized that. But it might of pushed II closer to IV's release. I forgot about there release dates.

PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 7:13 pm
by suoturska
BenoitRen wrote:
suoturska wrote:That would've been some delay, seeing as PS3 was released in Japan in 1990 and PS4 in 1994.

PSIV was released in 1993 in Japan, 1994 in the US, and 1995 in Europe.

I got the dates from RPGamer, but you're right, checking the japanese ROM, it does say 1993.

PostPosted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 1:03 pm
by Zucca
I have listed some pros and cons about this game.


I have now played for two days and I just got Lyle for my party.

NOTE: These are more or less my opinions.

- Poison is really more than just little tickling feeling. Instead that you would lose hitpoints on every step the character with poisonig cannot gain HP or TP until his/her poison is removed. And Anti does not work every time. Antidote does work every time, so you must keep some of them in your backpack. I consider this poison feature as pro. It makes PSIII harder and that's the way I want it to be.

- Balancing of techniques. I really like this. Now you really need to think how you plan your tactics. If you balance all the way to anti you will most propably succeed in treating poison, but GiRes is in the oppisite corner so instead of antidotes you should carry some *mates in your backpack. I personally always balance it all the way to GiRes. This is also a pro.

- Less newschool anime than in PSIV. Characters look more realistic and serious. Well...I like it. PSIV has much comedy on the cutscenes. I like it, yes. I have to admit that PSIV doesn't have too much newschool anime comedy ( = characters literally rolling on floor just about every time someone tell's a joke). I remember this happening only in few places so PSIV still stays mature(?) enough for me. But anyway. In PSIII all the character portaits for example are like from Da Vinci's paintings in 16-bit. It's really a pleasure for an eye. A pro.

- Enemy graphics: pro. Enemy animations: con.
Bigger enemies really don't do much. Smaller enemies tend to "walk around" to deal damage. At least compared to PSII attack animatios, the PSIII attack animations are are quite bland. The reason maybe that the space was getting low on the cartridge chip. Bigger chip would have cost more and the budget was already set.
But in the contrast: most of the enemies look good. Even Dark Force looks cool despite he(/she?) doesn't have he's regular face.

- Character walking speed. We have already talked about this. The walking speed is the same speed as in PSII. But the distances to some places are longer than in PSII for example. This is con and pro. You can actually walk in every house you enter but it surely takes longer time to do your things when you have to walk to the counter (especially when going to cure poison). But most of the houses look awfully the same with only few differences. PSIV is great at this category.

- Towns. I like it. Nice graphics. 1800's styled. But I found the placing of the houses bit dull. Neatly in the line, BUT still enough difference that you can tell where you are... Most of the time. I have few times confused where I was. :P But it's propably just my concentration. The absolute pro in most of the towns is the music.

- Musics in most of the places are ok or great. But the battle musics are just horrible. A con for battle musics, pro for other musics.

- Generations. A pro. Lenghtens the game and makes it highly non-linear.

- Battle engine is nice and in battle you have to think more because smaller monster block the bigger monster, so you must kill them (smaller monsters) before you can attack bigger monsters with character who have close combat weapons. The battle engine dialog just looks dull, but that's purely just my opinion. So battle engine is pro. But a little con goes for offensive techs: you don't need them unless you try to rush game trough. For now I haven't used a single tech with Wren or Lyle. All the weapons do just good. But importance of techs really depends also on who you chose to marry.


I think PSIII isn't a poor game at all. It's just that it's style differs from other PS games quite much that some may find it strange as a part of original PS game series.

EDIT: Correcting some typing errors etc.
EDIT2: Again.
EDIT3: Making some things clearer to read.

PostPosted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 8:11 pm
by Mono
^That X2

PostPosted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 12:23 pm
by Zucca
Do I really explained the nature of PSIII clearly enough that no one has nothing to say (except Mono agreeing)? :o
Case closed? :D

BTW: 100th post on this topic. \o/

PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 6:28 pm
by Sange Mahlay
Zucca wrote:Do I really explained the nature of PSIII clearly enough that no one has nothing to say (except Mono agreeing)? :o
Case closed? :D

BTW: 100th post on this topic. \o/


Can't say I agree with the battle system. I know some people are used to it because of PSI or games like Dragon Quest, but at least the controls were intuitive in those games. I know when I first played it, some years back, I had trouble with the icon system. I didn't like the auto option in PSII, and I liked it even less here.

I thought that the monster designs were pretty lame. People talk about the animation as if it were some great thing, but usually it was just a twitch of a tail or something. Or a wave of the hand, like Rulakir. I didn't care for the techniques, they just looked lazy.

Sometimes I think that battles are there to shake up the monotony of exploration. If battles aren't interesting and exploration is mind numbing then a player such as myself gets irritated quickly. I honestly think that if the battle system were more in line with the others then I probably would've liked it a lot more.

PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 6:52 pm
by Heroic_Chaz
Plus, the anti technique almost never worked, and during some of the later stages, running from battles you're likely to die in was impossible. In Nial's quest, I actually threw my controller for the first and last time because the Primus monsters kept killing me as I was running around with Nial at only 14 HP left.

PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:16 pm
by BenoitRen
Sange Mahlay wrote:People talk about the animation as if it were some great thing, but usually it was just a twitch of a tail or something.

You mean some people are saying PSIII's monster animations are great?

I'm a PSIII fan, but I would never claim this.

PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 9:43 pm
by Zucca
I agree with Ben.
As I said before: - Enemy graphics: pro. Enemy animations: con.