Enhancing Phantasy Star III

Hi,

I'm studying Phantasy Star III code and I plan to hack it for enhancing several aspects of the game. I'd like to make it the game it was aimed to be, and not this multi-flawed thing, that succeed in killing almost every good ideas it had (and there were plenty of them).

Here's a proto-list of things that could be done the first that comes to mind) :

INTERFACE :
* Variable Width Font
* Enhancements in shops :
- displaying stats changes when selecting item
- adding item description
- select number of items to buy (to speed up monomate filling)

MAPS :
* Diagonal deplacements (done)
* Fast deplacement (almost done)

BATTLES :
* Sprites of fighting PCs
* Reenabling parallax
* New battle system
* New magic system, or enhancing current (how ?)

STORY :
* Many things

Please note this isn't yet a true project. I can decide it's too much a difficult task, or I can turn it into a true PC remake (in the spirit of Generations remakes).

But I'd like to gather ideas from the PS lovers. So don't hesitate to put some here. I'll accept, reject or postpone them (according to the difficulty of implementing them, or my own feelings about the game).

This would be awesome. I agree that PS III is deeply flawed, but it could easily have been the best game in the series had the finished product lived up to the promise of its ideas. Yeah, I like the thought about updating the shopping process and things like that, as well as the battle and magic system. The battle system would be tough, as I feel that one of the main things it needs is a graphical and sound effect overhaul. The combat just looks so stilted, such a step back from PS II, because there isn't even really any meaningful animation and the sounds are so tinny. Just adding some nice heavy sound effects for attacks would go a long way toward making the game more impactful.

While I like PSIII for what it is, it has more than plenty of room for improvement like both you and Bragatyr mentioned. Your idea sounds really promising, I wish you the best of luck!

I'll try to implement a fighting sprite during battles. I'll take one from PSII or PSIV, just for testing. If I succeed, I'll ask for a graphist to draw frames in PSIII style. But it's relatively far on my to-do list.

This sounds like an awesome idea, I wish I knew the first thing about working on it. The idea that comes to my mind is possible character balancing through save state hacking. If you actually wanted to make your own project, maybe you could grab an RPG maker? These are just ideas off the top of my head, but it sounds like a great thing to do.

To be true, I considered (and still) doing a remake, but I need graphical ressources, and I didn't find yet a game whose sprites would have a similar graphical style as PSIII, but with higher resolution (Generations remakes don't fit).

I wouldn't use RPG maker anyway (I've written my own engine to recode PS Generations 2, and I'd use it for a remake of PSIII).

PS3 is my favorite in the series. I'd be very curious to see what you can do with it and to beta-test it all you like, I know PS3 inside out!

Oh, you have your own engine already... well then. That comes down to starting from scratch and having your own sprites created, I suppose. Or ripping sprites from something else. The music and sounds should be an easy enough rip, it all comes down to the formats your engine uses. Not that I know a whole lot about that sort of thing. The only thing I ever did as far as creation in games is paint up some Quake 2 skins.

I hate Phantasy Star III with a passion.

However, I do think if a lot of things were fixed it could be a really good game.

As far as combat goes, you have to ask yourself: What makes combat interesting?

And I say meaningful choices. In vanilla PS3, you either attack or heal. Attack magic is too weak to be useful, and the buffs are too situational. I think the game could be more fun if attack magic was given a significant buff and enemies have elemental weaknesses (to the point where it's worth using) and the buffs/debuffs we were given were made useful.

That would go a LONG way towards making PS3 into a playable state for me.

Other things:

Reduce the size of the dungeons/maps/towns. There's too much "dead space" in the game. Most of the time spent walking is done through areas that are aesthetically dull. Even though PS1/2 have slow walking speeds, the changing aesthetics of the areas you go through aren't dull and manage to keep you interested whereas PS3 has a default color - dull and earthy. That again is something that could stand to be fixed.

Oh and fix Divisia. Nothing makes me rage harder than that forsaken town.

If you want to hear more of what I think could use changing, I can ramble and rant on for quite some time

Hukos wrote:

As far as combat goes, you have to ask yourself: What makes combat interesting?

And I say meaningful choices. In vanilla PS3, you either attack or heal. Attack magic is too weak to be useful, and the buffs are too situational. I think the game could be more fun if attack magic was given a significant buff and enemies have elemental weaknesses (to the point where it's worth using) and the buffs/debuffs we were given were made useful.

That would go a LONG way towards making PS3 into a playable state for me.

I totally agree with this. Both the magic buff and the elemental system would make the game a thousand times more interesting. On the point about the dungeons and trekking through a lot of nothing, though, I have to say I actually kind of liked the feeling of emptiness PS 3 had. Really fit with the sense of desolation and isolation in the story.