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Okay, I'm adjusting this review again after beating the game because I think my first attempts were a tad harsh. TL;DR= This is a good improvement on the translation it is based off of, and there are enough improvements made between the two that this is worth using, but I really wish there was at least an optional patch to change all item and technique names to the original ones used in the international version of the game. It adds a ton of confusion when following a guide, and in a game like this it really adds nothing to the experience to have the words just be "different".

For context: I played PSIII only a tiny bit many many years ago on the Genesis but it was far too slow to get into (I'd beat PSIV at least twice on the original console).

I am new to ROM Hacking (just played through PSII with a ROMHack), but I figured this would present a good opportunity to play PSIII with an "improved vanilla" experience, rather than one that changes all of the dialog, tons of gameplay elements etc.

This seemed like the perfect ROMhack for me, and when combined with the main new English translation it is a HUGE improvement... but I was disappointed that so many of the items have different names even though this is the Classic Names patch. I am looking at information in guides to figure out what weaponsarmor to buy, but MANY of the items (and some techniques) have been renamed so I am forced to constantly cross-reference the .txt file that came with the ROMhack. Don't get me wrong, I prefer the names in this Classic version versus the main re-translation hack (many of those are WAY different than the other games in the series), but it would be nice if we had a version of this that just entirely left all names (items, characters, techniques, locations, etc.) as they were originally in the international translation for consistency.

In a game like PSII it absolutely needed a ROMhack to re-translate "bars" to "claws" since that made zero sense and it was easy to simply swap the words mentally when reading a guide that mentioned a "bar". In the case of PSIII however, I don't see anything in the original names that is clearly wrong or broken, and there are many many changes, so having different names of items just adds confusion for me with no real benefit. Sure, the existing item names don't all make logical sense, but it is a somewhat haphazardly put together JRPG from 1993... whether a robe couldshould be "Steel" or "Lunar" is an odd thing to force us to think about while playing through a game where NPCs just suddenly die after talking to you and you can encounter random battles against disembodied heads while casually talking to NPCs.

When items are renamed like this, it makes things more confusing than they need to be:

SteelArmr = ChainMail; CeramArmr = PlateArmr; ForceArmr = CeramArmr

Yes, something that was known as CeramArmr was renamed to PlateArmr and ForceArmr was renamed to CeramArmr. And I do realize that these were changes made in the "Rebecca, Peaches, Lory" main translation, but this patch that reverts character names back to the originals would have been a great opportunity to revert these totally unnecessary item name changes back to the originals. Also, the Phantasy Star games have always called the Escapipe an Escapipe in the English versions. Why settle on Ocarina in this one game? Just a strange thing to change.

I will fully admit, I'm new to the ROMhacking scene, but this stuff seems really strange to me. I have been playing JRPGs for 30 years and I have never thought to myself "I wish all the names of the items were different so that no one could figure out what anything was without scouring a text file". It seems like someone just wanted the words to better match up with their mental picture of the items/characters... but that is such a subjective thing, it seems like renaming of itemscharacterstechs would absolutely be an optional patch in ANY ROM hack since it hinders the use of game guides.

Maybe it's different for people who replay these games dozens of times and have the items memorized by price or something, but for people who just want a slightly modernized first-playthrough of some early JRPGs, changing all of the item names creates a new layer of frustration that wasn't there originally. These old games greatly benefit from guides, if only to understand what the items do without having to do trial and error. It is possible in some cases to match up items in a guide by price, but it is still very annoying to have to decipher it and takes a lot away from the experience in my opinion.

Making an optional patch to revert all of the names of things (anything) back to what they were would be really really nice. If I knew how to do it myself I would gladly do so but what would likely be a 15 minute text-swap project for a ROM hacking expert would likely be hours of learning and breaking things for me.

One other issue I had is part of the main re-translation, but since this builds on it I will put it in this review. There is a major hangup at the point where you must duel with Lyle and then speak with Lena. After talking to her I had NO IDEA what I was supposed to do. She just said that her Moon Stone was needed so "Lets go rescue Maia!" ... that was it!

I looked at a guide and in the international translation she is SUPPOSED to say that you must return to Aridia and use her Moon Stone on the weather control system to put the moon back in position to change the tides to reveal a land bridge. If you watch a playthrough of the original game that is what she says, and yet NONE of that is in this translation! I don't care what the original Japanese version said... if the original left out such vital information and the international translation team saw fit to add a couple sentences so that players actually knew what to do next, then removing such information doesn't seem like an improvement in any way. Yes, I know some random NPC made a reference to a land bridge at some point (at least in this translation), but this change totally alters important game-directing dialog in a way that completely halts progress of the story. Again, I know this is part of the other translation, but if you're using this patch you must be using that one as well.

I will admit, I almost gave up and went 100% with the original translation because of the added irritation brought on by the changes mentioned above, but I decided to stick it out and just finish my playthrough with this version and it was overall a good experience.

The game's scriptplot is obviously very basic, unrefined, has lots of holes, leaps in logic, etc.... but it was understandable with this retranslation, and nothing was outright egregious. Perhaps, that's as good as it's going to get for this game... and that's fine. To me, that's better than a fan-fiction rewrite.

I actually enjoyed this game more than PSII (both with ROMhacks for QoL improvements), mainly due to the dungeons and overworld navigation not being SO HORRIBLE in this one. I think PSI (played the updated Switch version with the minimap) was the most refined and balanced of the first three, even though II and III had some nice improvements. PSIV is definitely in another league entirely when it comes to game quality, and now that I've played I, II and III I will probably play through IV yet again. But after seeing the personal preferences and changes that end up in the retranslations, I will probably stick to the vanilla translation for that one.

Still, I greatly appreciate the work that went into these hacks and I can't imagine how long it took to get them put together. Thank you for all your hard work, time and effort!