Final Fantasy III was the last mainline FF game to reach the states when it finally got to us. It came out in 1990, but North America never saw it until 2006 as a DS game. I nearly bought a DS just to play it, but I lacked funds then because...ya know, teenagers... It wasn't until 2014 when I finally got a hold of it on the Humble Bundle Store and added it to my Steam library. I can't compare the NES or Pixel Remasters to the Steam version since I've never played them. But I think I know most of the differences, which I'll get to throughout the review.
On the first go around, I found the game middling. I was enjoying it, but I didn't feel any connection. When I got to Hein, I stopped playing and didn't pick it up for nearly a year. I can't say I enjoyed my first playthrough, but I was pretty into it on my second. At the time, it was one of the only games in the franchise I didn't beat. All three NES games were beyond me, despite having FF Origins since it came out in 2002. I and II were dead to me at the time, but I really wanted to get through III. I'm one of the few people who liked the graphics, so that wasn't in my way. It was just a minor boss with difficulty ambitions above his station. Why shouldn't I want to beat him? Once I did, I cruised through the game. Despite being a remaster of an NES game with very little new content added, I liked everything it had to offer. The characters were fun and entertaining, the twists were out of nowhere but, usually, made some sense, and the music was top notch. But, of course, what sucks?
At its heart, it's still an NES game. The story is threadbare, characterizations are lacking, and the world is pretty empty. I don't know if this is a knock against it since Square could have updated it for modern sensibilities. It was a design choice they choose to make, and I don't really fault them for it. I and II didn't get a lot of new stuff on their re-releases, just a few extra dungeons. V and VI got new jobs and espers. I don't think IV got anything of note. Keeping the old school, bare bones, qualities of the original are in line and consistent. And I dig me some consistency! Plus, there's only so much you can do with a DS in 2006. It was a new console for Square, and the engine was fresh off the floor as well. And I'm pretty sure it was a third party who did most of the development (Matrix). Probably. But because of the true-to-the-source remake, I never felt super attached to anyone or anywhere. Again, that's not bad. It's just a design that, while understandable, I wouldn't have done myself. Nothing wrong with it; nothing bad about it.
And that's not to say it's a total wash. I liked what we got. In the NES version, our four heros are four nobodies. They're orphans, and that's all the backstory we get. In this version, they have unique personalities. Ingus (Triton) is a loyal knight of Sasune who's in love with the Princess. Refia (Cid) is a beleaguered blacksmith's daughter with her own ambitions. Arc (Xander) is fragile and easily bullied, and Lunneth (Drew) is a brave adventurer! From there, they grow as people (mostly), learn about the world, and we get a glimpse of the happily-ever-afters. Lunneth is a lot boring, but Arc becomes more sure of himself. Refia realizes it's alright to be something boring if it's peaceful. Ingus gets the Princess every knight strives for in books. It's all incredibly basic, but it works for this. A new game couldn't pull this off, but if you're shooting for the retro thing, there's more than plenty here.
Secondary characters get to shine, too. Cid is a lovable old man who has enough comedic staying power. Alus is a young King, unsure if what he's doing is correct. The Old Men are just kind old dudes who aren't ready to retire the heroics and want to help out. We learn of Desch's backstory in books in the Saronia library, and Unei and Doga are some of the first sages in the franchise. Who else is before them? Minwu? Lastly, it's impossible to forget about Aria. Despite being with the party for such a short time, she somehow has the heaviest effect. Her death beckons in a new world: a living world. She sacrifices herself for our main character so that we don't lose him for the world. It's an Aerith level play, right there. It's aided when they show up in battle, as well. In the NES version, they're just there. But here, they help out in combat. They actually function like a fifth party member. I'll always have a soft spot for Sara because, otherwise, her dungeon would have been a menace to get through. I wonder if Cid has battle AI? Finally, Mognet goes a long way to revealing more characteristics, especially with Alus. I feel like the secondary characters get more shine than our playable characters, which is rather odd. It does make that final scene in the Crystal Tower really feel emotion, though, so that's cool.
Since this section became the wishy-washy portion, let's keep talking about things I kinda didn't like but also didn't mind. FFIII is hard. All the bosses killed me at least once. The old school difficulty level is here, which is exemplified that there are no Save Points in dungeons. If you die at the boss, you're redoing the whole cave. It's slightly salvageable if you soft restart the game when you know you're about to lose. If you do it right, you load in the boss room or just before the battle. I'm not interested in difficult games, but it's just how the industry was in the 80s, so I'm not gonna be too upset. They kept it consistent.
There are some minor mechanics that I'm against, such as the stat drops when you switch classes. You might want to try a lot of different things, but you're temporally punished for doing so. Sometimes it's minimal, but occasionally you need ten battles to get to normal. It's not in favor of switching roles often. And on that topic, there are a lot of areas where you need to have a specific setup to win. The only way to beat Hein, my mortal enemy, is to use magic classes and a scholar. It's painfully limiting! You need a white mage to reach Tozus, which is, normally, doable, but what if you're shooting for a challenge run? It cheapens a potential second playthrough if you need exceptions. I didn't mind the Garuda fight, but it's brain dead simple if you make your whole team a dragoon.
And some of the job skills seem pretty iffy. I ran with a thief for the whole game, but there isn't anything worth stealing outside of two guys. The dark knight's Darkness ability did less damage than his basic attacks, so why throw away your own HP? Bards were too limited because you can't change gear mid battle. So maybe that's not terrible. Three jobs out of the sixteen isn't a terrible ratio. I can go either way on the upgraded classes type (monk to black belt), but I do wish you got the Earth Crystal jobs way sooner than the penultimate dungeon. I found the black belt job to underleveled compared to the monk I've been running since level eight, which seems a bit wrong. I also would have loved a FFV approach, where you get to use abilities learned from a previous job into another. I wanted a dark knight on my team, but I couldn't afford to not have a knight guarding us. Imagine if Triton and his katana could have acted like I've been using him. Let me be a dragoon with red magic! Being a sage and losing physical power is a real bummer. But it was how it was in the NES, so I shouldn't want it now. I can't have it be both traditional and new age, can I?
Something I can be annoyed about is the FF trope of character deaths. FFIV gets yelled at for this, but III is just as guilty. In between death laden II (Minwu, Josef, Ricard, Scott) and IV (Tellah, Anna, Edward, Rydia, Yang twice), FFIII has its share of deaths and false reports. It's not as bad as the ones around it, but there are enough to be mentioned. Some keep showing up after they kick the bucket, another comes back twenty hours later, and Aria deserved better.
Those are my gripes. It looks like a lot, but I really enjoyed the game. Those are minor nitpicks, I promise, mixed with dreamscapes. So what's good about FFIII?
The music is top notch! The World of Light might have two of the three best overworld themes in the franchise. "Eternal Wind" might be fighting with "Terra's Theme" as the best in the topic, and "Boundless Ocean" deserves more praise than I could give it. All of the town themes are nice and relaxing, and there are even a few of them. Earlier games only had one to go around, but I counted at least four here. I stated that "Aria's Theme," the first character theme in the franchise, is the saddest song Uematsu wrote, and I stand by that.
Each location feels unique. Much of it is based on the music and type of setting the devs were going for. Falgabrand feels a lot different from Salonia, which is miles away from what Ur feels like. Despite being nearby, Tozuz feels nothing like the City of Ancients. The world has so many fun, unique qualities about it, which I'll attribute to diving headlong into fantasy races. And this being a 3D game, the ability to go up and down helps a lot. How's the City of Ancients work on the NES? Now that I think about it, why are there no unique races on the surface? I guess they're replaced by a few job specific places like that bard town, the summoners haven, and Falgabrand.
I mentioned this before, but I liked the characters. There wasn't much there, but there's enough to satisfy my old heart.
I think the negatives outweigh the positives... Okay! The good parts of Final Fantasy III and amazing, but the bad parts of it are so-so. I really enjoyed the game, and I hope I'm not giving off a negative impression.
I just played through Final Fantasy III with my friends by my side. I haven't seen them since January, and we haven't really spoken since the world ended. I don't know if they hate me or what, but I know even less when we'll see each other again. I miss them, and this is the closest I can get to them. I've come to terms with the fact we'll never play D&D to go on a fantastical adventure, but this is the next best thing. Final Fantasy III allows me to spend time with loved ones for the first time in a long time and, even if that's fake, I appreciate the thought. Playing the Pixel Remasters would have made more sense since I wouldn't have had to pretend to be a fifteen-year-old red headed girl, but what can ya do? Thank you, Square, for the opportunity to hang with my friends again and feel like the world isn't against us, even if it totally was, and we had to save it!
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