When this game was released I was one of the few people that was nerdy enough to even know what it was seeing as how its fame was much bigger in Japan than it ever was in the rest of the world. Y's is known for the engaging stories, dark overtones, and most of all very innovative music. There are new Y's games released on a regular basis and they always tend to be quite expensive to the degree that I believe that their market strategy is to keep things expensive and focus on a smaller, higher-paying demographic rather than attempt to lure in everyone.
This was kind of the case with Y's III as this game was the maxxed out $40 on SNES and I don't recall it ever being less than that outside of 2nd hand copies at various stores such as whatever GameStop was called before it was GameStop.
When I first played this game, my only exposure to the franchise at that point had been Y's 2 which I had played on a friend's TG-16 CD. The music on the CD version was premium quality so this cartridge-based game was not going to be able to keep up with that and I was aware of this when we obtained it (me and my pal kind of worked as a video-game duo of sorts.) I was also a bit let down that they had transitioned to a side view and we both groaned because even though we thought it was a great game in the end this is the same thing that they had just done to us with Zelda a few years earlier and we were let down by that "innovation."
Be that as it may, just like with Zelda II we quickly got past this "letdown" and realized that this, like the predecessor, was a fantastic game and the added bonus was the fact that our fellow gaming pals had no idea what it was.
There were several things about this game that were letdowns for those of us that had played book 1 and 2 on the TG16 CD. The diminished musical quality, the near absence of any sort of voice acting (because the SNES is not capable of that), and the linear story meant that exploration was not going to happen.
Also, the lack of auto-attack that existed in the previous installments meant that you had to swing your sword in order to hit enemies. Obviously this had a very short range and therefore involved getting very close to bosses that would cause massive damage with even a slight miscalculation in your jumps.
While it was still a great game (compared to other SNES RPG's at the time) I think I speak for all Y's fans when I say that this change was not very welcome and the message must have been received by developer Falcom because they quickly reverted back to a top down style of play which is something that for the most part they stick with to this day.
SNES Drunk, who has an absolutely excellent nostalgic channel kind of sums up my feelings about this game and his lack of overall enthusiasm pretty accurately sums up how every Y's fan felt at the time. The game wasn't great, but we felt compelled to finish it anyway.
If you want to have a look at this game you can do so with the ROM for free HERE