Story	6/10	Characters	7/10
	Graphics	7/10	Music	6/10
	Gameplay	7/10	Extras	7/10
Reviewer: Chi Phan Final Score: 6.8/10

Growlanser III is more a prequel than a sequel to Growlanser I and II. It works much in the same way as Star Wars I-III in that although they are prequels, they look more advance and polished due to the advancement of technology in the film industry. The advancement between Growlanser II and III isn't a huge leap like with the Star Wars series but there's a bit of a leap that you notice some much better improvement in this prequel of a game. That's not to say this game still doesn't have its flaws. So on with the review.

War.. it's not a pretty thing. I am the new evil, bow to me!      In Voltone City of the Xironia Federation, Slayn Wilder wakes up from his injuries after being found unconscious and cared for by Annette Burns, the daughter of the President of the Xironia Federation. While his injuries have healed, his memory has not and with it a case of amnesia. Annette quickly informed Slayn of the situation in which she found him and the going on in the world. The Kirschland continent is deteriorating from economical and environmental crisis spreading to each of the four nations. Schelfengrif Empire which lies to the south of the Xironia Federation is in the midst of a civil war due to the assassination of its Emperor, Augusta Wellington. In the southeast of Xironia lies the Rolandia Kingdom which has fallen to a harsh environment that has destroyed its land. While in the west of Xironia is Aggressival Kingdom, suffering from famine from barren lands and economic hardship. Xironia is the only nation to remain stable despite the environmental crisis that is spreading across the continent. However the situation will not remain stable for long as Aggressival has begun raiding food supplies in Xironia territory in hopes of saving its people from starvation. And with food supplies becoming short in Schelfengrif due to the civil war there, it's just a matter of time before the Schelfengrif Empire decides to raid Xironia too. The future looks bleak as full war will soon engulf the continent. The President of Xironia realizing that Xironia cannot defend itself against all the neighboring nations decides to send an envoy to Schelfengrif in hopes of allying with Schelfengrif in the war ahead against the other nations. As part of that envoy, Slayn and Annette headed out into the Empire torn by civil war. As a second order, the President asked Slayn and Annette that if during their journey they should come across any possible leads that can save the people of Xironia from the environmental crisis, they are to follow up on such leads and report back to him. With mission in hand, the duo headed out to a hostile world where they will meet friends and foes. And with a possible hope of finding out about Slayn past. Now the story started off okay. You sort of got the idea what the story and objective is about. Make peace with Schelfengrif and find a way to save Xironia from a possible environmental crisis. Both of these objectives were completed very early in the story though. Then the story started to take on different objectives. It became let's stop the entire continent from an all out war to finding out about Slayn past to the mysteries of Spirits, Spirits Messenger, and Spirit Masters. By the time you get to the Spirits part of the plot line, things just got too confusing and complex to even boring. The story was okay until it reached the whole Spirits theory and their existence. I believe they were trying to make the story a bit more sophisticated and complex than it should be. In this case they should just keep the story simple for gamers to understand better. By the time you finish with the story, you feel it being a pointless story. Now the one thing that was made simpler was that there are no alternative paths to choose in this game. You still have those mini different endings with the characters base on friendship ratings but its even less than what was feature in Growlanser II. The story had the right plots and even atmosphere to set up a good story but it just didn't all connect together well enough to be interesting overall, a shame really.

"Err, am I in the wrong game?"      Surprisingly the cast of characters actually shrunk in this game. You have a total of 7 key characters. 6 since 1 of the key character isn't really a party member but more or less a party helper in certain situations but 7 in terms of their involvement in the story. Each character has their own unique distinguish style and personality as well as their own role in a party. However the developments of these characters are a bit unbalance in a sense that some do have a historical background developed for them while others simply do not. Still in general, each character isn't as fully developed as can be. This is the same problem that plagues Growlanser II. The story doesn't try to go deeper into taking a closer look at each character. It just gives enough to try and satisfy the overall plot of the story and not more than that. But then again with the short length of the story, I can say there's not much room to dig deeper. There is however a major improvement in the voice acting in this game. When I say improvement, I really mean it's more tolerable. There's still question such as how in this fantasy world can people have Russian accent and stuff like that but those are just minor stuff. Now in comparison, the cast is smaller but better develop than in Growlanser II and with better voice acting as well. That's looking at the plus side of things.

Anime artworks are always nice.      In terms of technology advancement, not much has change in Growlanser III from Growlanser II. Everything is still done in pixels from sprites to background environment. Things are still in a 2-D world than a 3-D world. The improvement however is the presentation of the graphics. You now have a world that is more open up instead of a simple world map with menus popping out of it like in Growlanser II. You have towns and dungeons to explore and walk around in. This in turn allows the game to showcase some of its pixels graphical engine. Pixel graphics may be old and outdated but if you give it a chance, it can still show you what it can do. The graphics are definitely presented better in this game and compliment the game more than what it did in Growlanser II. The game still deliver those nice looking anime avatars of each character so nothing has change from there. But then again nothing has really changed from II to III, it's just looks much nicer in this game with a world where you have towns and people. And that can be all the difference you need.

A song in the silent of the night.      I hate to say it but music is a disappointment in this game. There are a few good new tunes playing in this game but for the most part, the overall music seem to be recycled music or is recycled music from Growlanser II. Now I'm not saying the music is bad or that the music from Growlanser II is bad but from a fan stand point, we like to look forward to new music and not old music from a previous game. Yes you can recycle a couple of staple traditional series tunes but that doesn't seem to be the case here. This looks like more than half of the music are from Growlanser II. That seems a bit lazy on the game developer part when only half of the musical materials seem to be fresh new ones. But, and we do mean but, to be fair the music, new and old, is good overall. Not great but good enough for you to enjoy it. So from the enjoyment point of view, yeah, you will enjoy the music in this game.

Ready for a fight? Let's master those skills. Game Information    Genre: Strategy Rpg    Publisher: Working Designs    Disc: 1 DVD Disc    Memory: 197 KB    Players: 1 Player Mode    Analog Control: Yes    Vibration Function: Yes    Rating: Teen    Release: December 2004      If you finished playing Growlanser II then you can just hop right in and play Growlanser III. There's no point in reading the instruction book for Growlanser III gameplay. The battle system is basically the same with the exception of the introduction of Co-Op Magic. The Ring and Gem System, you should already be familiar with from Growlanser II. So what has changed? Well the good part is that the world of Growlanser III is a lot bigger and made for world exploration. You actually now have a world map where you can roam and explore while moving to the next town or village. No more of just following a line to the next dot as in Growlanser II. And of course the greatest improvement is the addition of towns and dungeons. Now when you arrive at a town, you can go inside and explore it. Visit shops, sleep at Inns, and talk to the local town folks. Things you couldn't do in Growlanser II. Dungeons are now introduced in this game. Each dungeon is set up like a maze with floors. Nothing too complicated. And each time you enter or leave a dungeon, the floors structure are randomly re-generated so that they don't look the same all the time. This will keep you on your toes a bit and forces you to re-explore a dungeon again should you leave that dungeon. With the exception of a new world map and the introduction of towns and dungeons, the game pretty much is the same as the Growlanser II. The number of party members that you can have in battle has been shrunk from 8 to 4 though. This sort of takes away the feel of a strategy rpg because usually when you think strategy, you think lots of party members and not a small number like only 4 party members. Still all the features you would expect from Growlanser II makes a return here. Friendship: There's a friendship system but not as strongly use as in Growlanser II. There's no friendship meter and the characters don't interact as much during the trip. It's mostly Slayn visiting his party members room and having a few dialogue here and there. Map Completion Conditions:The three map conditions, Failure, Clear, and Complete are back. As before, Failure means you fail to meet the require objectives to clear it, where as Clear means you have met the objectives that is needed to clear the map. And lastly Complete means you have gone beyond what was require to clear it. This time however getting a Complete condition means nothing. You get no reward nor is it a requirement to unlock a hidden extra path ending like in Growlanser II. At this point it's almost meaningless to have a Complete condition in the game. Rings:The Ring System return here with basically nothing new added. Each ring has its own unique stats. You would want to equip the ring that would boost the right stats for a particular character base on their strength and weaknesses. Now in addition to each ring having its own stats boosting attributes, the rings also have three gem slots available. Equipping gems into these slots will give additional attributes to the rings during combat base on the gems. You can only equip or unequipped rings at a Ring Artisan shop. Gems: Gems comes in various levels. Each gem has a special attribute or offensive and defensive effect that can help a fighter in battle greatly. You can only equip a gem on a ring slot if that gem meets the required level of the ring slot. Unlike rings, you can equip and unequipped gems anytime without having to go to a specialty shop. Skill Points: Growlanser III uses a skill points distribution system. This is basically the exact same system as in Growlanser II. Each time a fighter level up, he/she will receive roughly about 3 skill points. You can then distribute these skill points to unlock tech fighting skills, magic, or stat boosting skills. Tech Skills: Tech Skills are basically your special attack skills. In order for a character to be able to use a tech skill, they need to master it first by learning it. This is where you would want to distribute those skill points until you master a particular tech skill. The number of times that you can use a particular tech skill is dependant on the level of your fighter. The higher the level, the more times you can use that tech skill before the usage runs out in battle. Magic: Being able to use magic works in the same way as tech skills. You'll need to master or learn the magic first by distributing your skill points to a particular magic. And like with tech skills, as you level up so will the level of your magic. The interesting thing here is that the level of the magic not only represent the power of the magic but it also represent the number of times you can distribute that magic on more than one target. It's the exact same thing as in Growlanser II. Co-Op Magic: This is probably the only thing new in terms of feature in this game. In Growlanser II, the higher and more advance type of attack magic can be learned later on in the game as the character level up. It's a bit different here. You can still have access to these higher level type of magic but in order to cast them, you basically have to combine two different type of lower elemental magic together to create a higher level type of magic. Simple enough to do. While the overall gameplay and length of gameplay is pretty much the same as Growlanser II, it's the revamp world map and the ability to explore dungeons and towns is what makes Growlanser III more of a real rpg game than Growlanser II. It's this ability to be able to explore the fantasy world that you are playing in is what makes everything seem larger than life, a nice improvement from Growlanser II.

Score: 7/10

Battle Arena      Things are much better in terms of extras available in the game compare to what was presented in Growlanser II. The Battle Arena makes a return but more improved than before. This time around there is more and I do mean more tournament options with each new one opening up once you clear the first few rounds. The tournaments are a bit more challenging too which is a major plus. You can spend quite a few hours trying to unlock and clear all the tournaments available to you. In addition to the Battle Arenas, you now have extra bonus dungeons to complete. Finally something that can be called an extra bonus material. There are three bonus dungeons. They are not very hard or very long but at least they are there for you to do. This was never available in Growlanser II. And in another way there are a few mini bosses for you to fight as well. So for the first time, things are moving in the right direction in terms of extra materials available in the game. Once you finish the game, you can start a new game with a New Game+ save file. You'll be able to carry your money, rings, and gems over. And like with Growlanser II, once you finish the game, you have a new Extra Menu available for you to browse through. Inside the Extra Menu, you'll find Art Gallery, Outtakes, and Music room. Something you can spend a bit of your time in. In the end, a good improvement in this category.

There's no doubt this game is a much better improved game than Growlanser II and more polish too. The world is now open up to town exploration, dungeon exploration, and better exploration on the world map. Generally speaking it's starting to evolve into what most of today strategy rpgs consists of. But the drawback is that the game is still too short and the story still not interesting enough. The cast of characters are still on the plain side of things instead of the more interesting side. If you look at it from the growth of a series, it's growing in the right direction. Improvement is always in the right direction. It's good but it can still be better. Final Score: 6.8/10