Format: Super CD-ROM²
Genre: Action RPG
Developer: Micro Cabin
Publisher: NEC

Fourth and twenty fourth on this reviewer's all-time games list, respectively, are little-known 3DO gems "Guardian War" and "Lucienne's Quest". It's difficult to know for sure without primary source interviews, but it appears as though Xak III artist Shinji Ishikawa had a shared hand in all three games, as this particular release has the same bizarre, idiosyncratic, utterly experimental character and stage design motifs as those other Micro Cabin releases. Conversely, there are some almost unbelievably violent, un-Micro Cabin themes on offer here, with characters being graphically beheaded, impaled, and torn apart!

Another "Guardian War" connection comes in the form of composer Yukiharu Urita, who also worked on the Saturn's "Mystaria". In fact, gamers-- especially those from the East-- have probably been exposed to as much Urita as they have more popular figures, like Yuzo Koshiro or Nobuo Uematsu, without realizing it! And Urita's percussion-oriented, punctuated style is on full display here. The game's chip sound effects are simple and effective, while the voice acting is the trope-filled, melodramatic stuff familiar to any anime fan.

Xak III plays like Falcom's fellow PC Engine release "Ys Book I & II", except with Zelda-style, button-press sword-and-charge play, and jumping, which adds a surprising new dimension to the combat, and is also used in an appropriately limited amount of platforming in the various stages. There is also straight-up, menu-driven JRPG inventory and equipment management. The problem with Xak III is that its pacing is very poor; there are pointlessly large, visited-once, necessary-but-boring to explore towns and way too much dialog versus actual dungeon crawling. The always-disruptive "Final Fantasy" penchant for constantly giving and taking away party members is also present.

The final "Guardian War" connection comes in the form of Yasuhiko Nakatsu, who wrote and programmed Xak III, then went on to direct the aforementioned 3DO classic the following year. One can even see that the 3DO SRPG was actually a spin-off focusing on Gahoo's abstract golem world, starring none other than "Pumpkinhead" itself. It's peculiar then that the two games couldn't be any more opposite in their gameplay-to-story ratios. It's also a shame that the translation community couldn't have hacked in subtitles somehow for the game's lengthy, totally Japanese animated sequences. Still, for those who have exhausted the four PC Engine Ys games, Xak III is a short-but-sweet action RPG with some memorable themes, locales, and aesthetic.