So...what do we have here?

Japanese Game Box Front

Shell, The Leader Of This Tale.
He also goes by Ciel from
some folks' interpretation of
the name.

This is a fairly popular RPG in Japan that has similar gameplay mechanics to Megami Tensei and Shin Megami Tensei. Join Shell (Shieru, also called Ciel) as he utilizes the principles of Gaia to create powerful monsters unlike anything you've ever seen. You travel the world learning about the demons (called monsters for a slightly nuanced, lighter touch) as well as all the mysterious people and things in your travels. Like the MT and SMT series, the game has a heavy emphasis on demon summoning and the phases of the moon.

The graphics of the game are mostly standard fare with a few neat touch-ups on certain spell effects. It's also pretty neat just watching the sequence that takes place whenever you combine two demons into a new one. The animation is fair and the overworld looks decent like most other RPGs in its class. Like the games before it, the emphasis is placed on detailed enemy design and the art style is vivid and dark. Since this is for SNES, their are a number of more colorful demons that look silly and kooky. The music is actually pretty nice in most regards and it has the "feel" of a Last Bible game (Excluding Last Bible "S" or "Special" for the Sega Game Gear which plays more like a Wizardry game). The theme that plays in the hero's hometown makes you feel right at home the moment you start the game. If you are interested in this game, I don't think the music will disappoint you.

The gameplay is a mixed bag. If you can see it (The image of a chart with numbers, stars, etc.), You combine monsters according to the chart. It seems complicated, but it's actually simple and the foundation of this game relies on fusing monsters to make more powerful ones. The biggest faults of this game are quite possibly it's magic system and once a monster dies, they are gone for good. The magic of the protagonists (Humans) tends to be strange. They have spells where you can set how much MP it cost in proportion to how potent a spell will be. More MP = greater power, but the value scale is unbalanced. You'll spend all your MP to deal one good blow, while monsters have strong spells they can do five or ten times.

This is not completely bad though as I had Shell deal over 700 damage relatively early by making his spell cost all his MP. More good news is that monsters can level up (though it's limited) and wear equipment in this game. In the Gameboy LB game (Revelations: The Demon Slayer in the U.S.), you would make a monster join and even though you were the same as the enemy monster that joined you, the enemy was more powerful and could kill your monsters quickly. That's not so much the case in LBIII. Navigation is similar to most other RPGs so travel isn't a big deal and the encounter rate is moderate and shouldn't bother you too much.

Last Bible 3 is an interesting RPG for the Super Famicom that few people ever make reference to (or even acknowledge that it exist). It's even stranger when you consider how popular most Megami Tensei, Shin Megami Tensei, and Last Bible games are...they have large followings in Japan and even in the U.S. these days. A novel aspect of this game is that it is the only non-portable Last Bible game, since the rest were made for Game Boy and Game Gear as of this writing. I guess, depending on your stance, that would make this the prettiest LB game as well. Anyway, it's a solid entry to the Last Bible series and a pretty good RPG in its own right.

- Written by Vyse the determined -