This review is called 'lost in translation' because this little gem of an RPG was literally almost impossible for someone in the US to play unless: A. You lived in Japan, or B. You read Japanese and imported. It wasn't until the english patch by Neil Corlett that it became truly possible for a non-japanese person to enjoy it.

I had the personal pleasure of exeriencing this game /partially/ when I was a kid. We had a game rental place that imported games and, though I read absolutely no japanese at the time, I managed through trial and error to actually play the game somewhat while being completely ignorant of the story.

Fast forward roughly a decade, and I am still playing this game! Only I can actually read Japanese somewhat now, and I've beaten it eight times. Yes, there is enough depth in this game to warrant at least eight playthroughs. You literally cannot get the whole story in one, two, or three playthroughs. To see every single thing you need to play mutiple times with multiple characters. There are a total of six main characters in this game, and each play through you can pick three people for your party. Who you pick as your first character determines who you'll learn most about story-wise and also alters the layout of the story. It also determines which bosses you will get to fight. Three players can also play this game at once (one for each character) and that was fairly rare for the SNES! The only caveat is, you can only do multiplayer once you have atleast two characters which is roughly 30 minutes into the game. Further making things interesting is the Class system. Each character has a total of seven classes they can change into (the initial one + six more) and you can only play at most three in one playthrough further giving you a reason to play and play again. Classes determine the abilities and stats of each character. You are NOT forced to change classes however. If you like a challenge use the initial class all the way through!

This game's main characters have a lot of personality, and so do the bad guys (though, admittedly, they ARE rather cliche...) and playing through their stories is a fun and rich experience. The graphics are fabulous for the SNES, and the music does not dissapoint (few Squaresoft games do). Some of it is in fact really catchy. This game is also full of easter eggs including a certain insanely hard boss that can only be fought with certain characters. While this game is not OMG hard, it is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. If you underlevel your characters and do not keep items stocked well you will be in for a RUDE awakening against some of this game's bosses.

That all said, Seiken Densetsu 3 doesn't really break the mold for an RPG (these days at least) though it does stand out considerably even when compared to modern RPGs. There will be a lot whacking things over the head with sticks and/or blowing things up with spells here and every so often you'll hear that all too familiar victory song as you 'level up' and the game forces you to pause and train your characters stats. This story is pretty linear over the course of one playthrough, but changes over many, and you won't be able to go wherever you please  until you get some transportation (like so many other RPGs) late in the game. The combat system's ability to move freely while fighting is nice, and useful strategically in multiplayer mode, but unless you set strategies properly on your CPUs (you can) your mages will default to running right up in the enemy's face to whack it with a staff and get beaten to a bloody pulp by default.

Over all, DEFINITELY a worth while game to play for RPG fans (especially Square fans). Don't miss out on this awesome game! If you loved Final Fantasy or Secret of Mana or any of their variants you will love this!