3/5 ★ – kariyanine's review of Final Fantasy III.

Final Fantasy III has one of the weirdest releases in the franchise history. Originally it was released on the Famicom in 1990 but it was never translated and ported to Western regions. As many likely know, the Final Fantasy III that North America received in 1994 was actually Final Fantasy VI. Final Fantasy 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6, all received re-releases/remakes in the late 90s and early 2000s but Final Fantasy III was nowhere to be seen. Finally in 2006, it was given a proper translation in a full 3-D remake for the Nintendo DS. Over the next 8 years it would release on iOS (2011), Android (2012), PSP (2012), Ouya (2013), Windows Phone (2013) and PC (2014). I’ve tried the game multiple times on the DS, PSP, and PC but each time fell off before (or just after) the first major area. Something about it just wasn’t clicking but I set out this year to finish the first three games in the series and I was going to push through it this time. And then, in May, I stopped playing after the first area again. I couldn’t let this game do this to me again. And so last month I picked up the game again, right from where I had left off. Turns out, that opening portion of the game is just really, really dull. Don’t let that fool you, Final Fantasy III isn’t some magical game that gets amazing after the first area but the more you play, the more classes you’ll unlock and at least with that the combat gets a bit more depth. The first few hours of Final Fantasy III feature more simplistic combat than the original game. Gone from Final Fantasy II is the insane leveling system but also the more intricate story and characters. Final Fantasy III’s narrative is simplistic in the same way that the original game’s was but this time with named characters in your party. While this may sound a bit crazy, I enjoy the more freeform, create your own adventure feel that the original’s narrative provides by not giving those warriors of light dialog. At least with the original, you could just ignore most of it if it isn’t your thing, with Final Fantasy III they seem intent on trying to establish the party’s personalities and in doing so make you sit through boring and poorly written dialog and cutscenes. If you aren’t going to try with your narrative, please just point me in the direction I need to go next and save me the lengthy dialog. What sucks is that there is a kernel of a more interesting story within Final Fantasy III. About halfway through you learn that where you’ve spent most of the game is a floating continent and there is another continent that has been shrouded in darkness down below. There is a brief moment where you are exploring this darkened continent that time has frozen and its super cool but then you break the curse and it’s back to the same old boring setting but I guess now I have a couple more classes to play with. The game isn’t difficult, especially after you realize that both the Dragoon and Sage classes are entirely overpowered and make the difficulty trivial, except for a handful of late game boss fights. Fortunately the game has a cool auto-battle function, which I didn’t notice for half of my playtime (and I don’t remember this being a feature in the DS version). This auto-battle function basically takes your last series of inputs and reuses them for each round, while also speeding up the turns to about triple time. It’s a very nice option to have when you are inevitably grinding levels before the next area and would rather be paying attention to a movie. Visually the game looks like a DS game on my PC. The 3D models are fine looking but this game isn’t really a looker. And sadly the music isn’t mind-blowing either. There are a couple nice themes that play but mostly it’s the same few tunes (overworld and battle) that you’ll mostly hear and they are just kind of fine. And like its music and visuals, the game is just kind of fine. It’s narrative is dull and the combat is a bit simple but the class system does help mitigate that. In short, its a middling NES era RPG that just has a 3D coat of paint. If I’m being honest, I’d like Square to give this visual treatment to the original as I’d rather play that.