Background
Background
This is one of the true gems of RPG games. If I were to compile a top ten list of all the best RPG games from pre 1990, Phantasie III would definitely be amongst the top 5 along with Might&Magic II, Pool of radiance and other classics.
Phantasie III is the sequel to the little less known Phantasie I & II. Although the graphics and sound are better, it\'s in no way larger or more complex than its prequels. Phantasie III was released for all the platforms of the era (C64, Amiga, Atari,Apple and PC). Sadly the graphics and sound of the PC version are not as good as on the Amiga or Apple. But if you can see past that, you have a great game that will keep you entertained for days.
Story
The story begins in the city of Pendragon and you know almost nothing of the plot or the world. This is one of the great things about this game - the plot will unfold as you explore the world. The world is pretty big with many towns and a few special locations scattered across the land. You can travel across the land as you wish and visit the locations in any order you like. There are many scrolls in the game that you can buy or find and they will give you information about what is going on in the world of Scandor.
Gameplay
The game itself starts out in the fantasy world of Scandor. The first thing you have to do is to create a party of (max 6) characters. You can choose from all the standard races such as human, elf, dwarf, halfling or gnome, but you can also choose \"misc\". That way you get a random race such as a troll, minotaur, gnoll, sprite or an orc. The stats are randomized so you might want to re-roll a few times before you get what you need.
As you travel across the land and explore dungeons, you will often encounter monsters. The game will then switch to \"fighting mode\". You can choose to greet, threaten, beg for mercy or run away besides the obvious fight option. The fighting is done by a classic turn based system. Here you will see some nice animations of your characters and the encountered monsters. An interesting feature is that each characters body is divided into different parts (head, torso, arms and legs). When the body receives damage, a certain part it can get injured, broken or chopped off. But don\'t worry, strong healing potions will cause the missing parts to grow back.
When you win a battle you get the usual experience, gold and items as reward. A nice feature of the game is that when you enter a town, you can distribute the experience amongst the characters in the party. When it comes to items, the system is quite simple. Each character has a hand-to-hand weapon, a bow, some kind of armor and a shield. The character automatically uses the best item he carries. There are also scrolls and potions that can be used at any time except in battle. A character can only carry a maximum of 9 items so from time to time the items need to be redistributed and the lesser items sold. When a character gains enough experience you can train him/her/it. Be prepared to do a lot of saving-and-loading at this point since the gained hit points are randomized. When you train a character to a new level you\'ll also be able to increase their skills. For instance, the attack skill is the most important one for fighters and will allow them to attack more than once per round (max 4 times).
Summary
Phantasie III is a very nice non-linear RPG game with a lot of special features. The story might be somewhat simple, but the gameplay covers for it. Definitely recommended!
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