Young Boy follow through a surviving Abyss Gate. In the Abyss, Sarah and the Young Boy combine their powers, awakening Oblivion, a being embodying the Abyss's power. Oblivion's death decimates reality, but the benevolence of Sarah and the Young Boy use Oblivion's energy to restore and remake the world, now free of the Rise of Morastrum. Development Early work on Romancing SaGa 3 began at series developer and publisher Square in December 1993 shortly after the release of Romancing SaGa 2, with full production beginning in the summer of 1994. The production was troublesome for series creator Akitoshi Kawazu. While he wanted to return to the narrative and gameplay style of the original Romancing SaGa, he was unsure how to do it while innovating on the design. An early suggestion was to make the game a direct sequel to Romancing SaGa, but Kawazu wanted it to be an entirely original work. With this game, Kawazu became "more proactive" in designing side quests that players could enjoy and get lost in. Kawazu gathered ideas from the development team, which led to the character-specific mechanics such as Mikhail's war campaign and Thomas's trading mini-game. They were originally grander than the final versions, with Kawazu intending players to clear the whole game using these character-specific mechanics. Ultimately the battle system was the strongest element out of the implemented mechanics, so it became the dominant gameplay feature. The game was produced by Michio Okamiya, who was chosen by Kawazu after previously working in the company's advertising division. The scenario was designed to combine the freedom of choice of earlier titles with the overarching narrative, with all the protagonists being part of a shared world and crossing paths during the adventure. The original story began with the concept that humans worldwide have superstitions regarding eclipses, and built on that the premise that there is actually something to fear, and that eclipses meant death to many people, so if you survived you must somehow be special. When writing the story, Kawazu decided that the heroic Matriarch should be a woman as traditionally the demonic antagonists of games at the time were male. This naturally led into the plot twist of there being two Children of Destiny, one a man and one a woman. Kawazu did not communicate this clearly at the time, so when graphic designer Hiroshi Takai created the opening cinematic, he wrote the Matriarch