Corum III: Chaotic Magic

The final part of the trilogy makes the other two almost look like beta versions in comparison. To begin with, the story appears much less stereotypical than before. Three mythical sages seek to bring balance to the world by unleashing the power of an ancient magical artefact, the Jumarion. As they can't seize it themselves, they seek out the help of a mortal mage, who longed for the artifact all his life, and leaves a less than thrustworthy impression. Of all this the young knight Kaien knows nothing when he embarks on his pilgrimage. Rather he has to deal with a bunch of supersticious villainers and an alledgedly cursed little girl with a really strange personality... For the first time the prerendered graphics are rather good-looking, though they still appear sterile. The combat system has also been improved greatly and now stands nothing short of the greatest of beat 'em up-esque ARPGs like Terranigma or Story of Thor. Magic has never been a strength of the Corum series. Now some of the spells actually come in form of special moves that have to be executed during combos, making their usage much more natural. During the course of the game, Kaien gathers a party of three characters overall. Rather than fighting at the same time at his side, they're available to the player to switch in between them during the game. It goes without saying that each of them comes with their individual strengths and weaknesses. Unusual for action RPGs, Corum III comes with a network version. The three playable characters would have suited well for cooperative play, but instead the game offers several arena modes, as well as a dungeon rush. It is a nice extra, but amounts to little more than a gimmick in the end. The music is by far the best in the series as well. The game was originally released on three CDs, whith the last one entirely dedicated to the CD-audio sountrack. Did the first two games suffer from a rather small selection of songs available, Corum III got the right tune for every mood. Altogether, Corum III may be the best single player action RPG ever developed in Korea, and it was a loss for Germany that this was passed for a localization in favor of its still rather unpolished predecessor. This time Japan got more lucky, as Bothtec provided a translated version over there. The most funny and at the same time most sad thing is, Corum III actually made it to the US, yet hardly anyone ever got to play it there as the localization was handled by Gobe Software, then publisher of BeOS. Thus the game was only available for that not exactly widespread operating system.

• Developer: HiCom