I found a blog run by the only person who really loved Phantasy Star III. The dedication is great. Reading about the localization changes, the most surprising one to me is about the old man with the boat.
In the Japanese original, he’s just a lech, so you need to find Mieu for him to leer at before he gives you a ride. How boring. The localized version is actually fascinating to me because of the worldbuilding.
In English, he’s a superstitious old man who won’t go out at sea without a cyborg aboard. Robots from the Orakio-Laya War still wander the world centuries later, looking for Layans to kill, but they’re no longer built and used by the Orakians. The implication that the old man is among the last of the Orakians who still worked alongside machines is far more interesting.
