Final Fantasy III — The Princess Has Been Kidnapped By Her Own Wanderlust! Are You A Bad Enough Dude To Tell Her Not To Wander Off?

It always takes a few tries to get the formula right.  Sometimes, the formula just won’t click, and so the best thing to do is just scrap it and start over again.  Other times, it can be salvaged with a little tweaking.

The Final Fantasy formula, while it doesn’t necessarily get scrapped with each game, still goes through significant changes between games.  If you get someone to play the very first Final Fantasy, and then get them to play Final Fantasy XII (not counting all the side games and sequels, XII is the latest as of this writing), he’ll swear he was playing two different games unrelated to each other.

Which brings us to Final Fantasy III.  Many modern Final Fantasy elements were created for this, the third game in the series.  The game also helped to determine which of the elements introduced in the second Final Fantasy would remain in the series.

The first thing you notice upon booting up the game is that it goes right into the story.  Four youngsters from a city in the mountains go off on their own to investigate a cave that opened up, and they find monsters inside.  They also find that they’ve been chosen to be the Warriors of Light, and must save the world.  Naturally, most of the citizens of their hometown don’t believe them, not even when they’re able to kill the monsters that haunt a portion of their village (you have to question who decided to build a city in such a way that it can’t repel monsters, since every other city in Final Fantasy, with few exceptions, can keep monsters at bay).  So with the blessings of a grand total of two people, they embark on their quest to save the world.  Along the way, they find out the true nature of their home continent, see the state of the world they live in (not to spoil it, but picture the movie where Kevin Costner peed into a cup), and discover how to put things right again.

The telling of a story was becoming more of a focus in the Final Fantasy series, and it would keep on growing in importance as the series continued, but greater storytelling is not the only improvement present in Final Fantasy III.  The battles system has been greatly improved.  The battle screen has been simplified, and battles have been sped up.  Squaresoft finally figured out how to automatically allow a character to target a different monster if the original one died before his turn could be executed.  In the first two games, a character would swing at the empty air rather than focus on a different enemy, but in this game, your allies are a bit smarter than that.

Once again, music can be good or it can be bad.  It depends on the tunes and it depends on whether you’re in the mood to listen to 8-bit music, or whether you want to put on your Savage Garden CDs instead.  III’s music was, however, an improvement over the music from the second Final Fantasy, including a much better overworld theme than the previous one.

Inventory management was also improved greatly.  To combat the problem of running out of space in your inventory screen, the developers brought back the ability to stack items.  Now, if you want 99 Potions, you can have 99 Potions.  Also, the Chubby Chocobo was introduced,  He was always hungry, and yet for some reason, he would be more than willing to store your items in his stomach, and he somehow kept from digesting your weapons and armour.  For being hungry, he sure didn’t like to use what he ate.  All you had to do to find him was search for an area that practically reeked of chocobos, and he would be there.  Somehow, I don’t think that I would want to wear a piece of equipment that was inside a chocobo’s digestive system, but that’s just me.

The biggest thing that debuted in Final Fantasy III also had what I would consider the most impact on the series of anything that they introduced.  Summoned monsters were first seen in this game, and were at first treated like just another series of spells.  They cost more to cast, but they did more damage, and depending upon who cast them, they sometimes provided added effects in battle instead of damage.  A couple different Summoner classes were created to utilize these new creatures, but that would later be simplified to just one class, and one spell effect per summon, usually the attack effect.

The job system could be considered a debut as well, but it could also be considered a complete remake of an earlier system.  Although it wouldn’t be utilized as much as summons would in later games, the job system has left its mark on the series, and it was first refined in this game.  But unlike its appearance in the original game, you could change jobs in Final Fantasy III.  You weren’t allowed to change jobs in the midst of battle, but you were allowed to change jobs outside of battle, as long as you had enough “capacity points” to do so.

The one downside to this system was that you had to have a plethora of weapons and armour at your disposal, since each job class had their own set of equipment.  Some jobs shared equipment, but it seemed like the majority of them were created only to give the developers another excuse to create another set of equipment you had to carry around (or store in the Chubby Chocobo’s stomach).  The only difference between many of the jobs was the weapon used to kill, anyway, so it’s like most of them were useless.  Some of them had definite differences in ability, and some of them were more powerful than others (rendering earlier ones obsolete), but still, there were too many jobs, and not enough encouragement to use them.  Especially since you had a stat specifically designed to keep you from switching your job too often.  It’s like they were encouraging experimentation, and yet discouraging it at the same time.

In the first Final Fantasy, a tiered magic system was used, where you were allowed to cast a certain number of Level 1 spells, a certain number of Level 2 spells, etc.  In the second game, a single MP stat was used, which simplified magic greatly, but III brought back the tiered magic system.  The developers seemed to recognize that the original game was stingy with its MP levels, so Final Fantasy III allowed more castings per level.  However, dungeons were also made longer than in the first, so you still had to be frugal with your magic unless you knew what you were doing.

Some would consider this to be one of the toughest Final Fantasy releases ever made, even more so than the previous two games in the series, and much harder than most of the later games.  The final act of the game was especially tough, as it consisted of a final dungeon full of many strong monsters and a few bosses, but did not feature a save spot, nor did it provide a
way out.  Once you passed the point of no return, you were trapped, and unless you could defeat the very tough final boss, you were screwed and had to start back where you came from, a few hours before.  It was a far cry from modern Final Fantasies that let you save right before reaching the final boss, and was in many ways a true test of the old school gamer.  It’s too bad that this game didn’t make it out of Japan until over a decade and a half had passed.

When talking about Final Fantasy games, people always call II the black sheep of the series.  If II is the black sheep, III is probably the relative you don’t see much of, but hear a lot about, and when he finally visits, he stays for a little while, entertains those who like to hear tales of the old days, and then leaves just as quickly.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if you happen to be around at just the right time to hear him regale you of a tale about when he was a kid, and all consoles had were 8 bits…

Also available on:

Nintendo DS – Final Fantasy III DS (2006)

It doesn’t seem right to give this version of the game only a few paragraphs tacked onto the end of a full review of the original, given that it’s not just a straight port of the game, it’s a complete remake.  Everything was overhauled, and some things were changed just enough to make them new again.  The DS remakes of III and IV definitely deserve their own review.

One of the biggest changes to III had to do with how the main characters were introduced.  Instead of all four of them being from the same small village, each character hailed from a different place, and were given actual names and personalities.  They all came into the story at different points as well.  The story remained largely the same, but each character seemed to have their own part in it.  Or at least, they did at the beginning.  Unfortunately, once they all came together, they acted as one unit just like in the NES version.  But at least the developers of the remake made an effort to make each character unique.

Another change surrounded the job system.  Instead of capacity points like in the first version, this version instead gives you stat penalties when you switch classes, but they clear up after a few battles.  Once again, it’s like you’re being penalized for wanting to experiment.

Graphics were upgraded to a simple 3-D that admittedly looks ugly when compared to a powerhouse console like the PlayStation 3 and the upcoming release of Final Fantasy XIII, but look beautiful when compared to other DS games.  But comparing the DS to the PS3 is like comparing apples and anvils.  Apples are satisfying for those who like apples, but anvils could easily crush them anyway.  It’s not a fair comparison.

The music was remixed and updated and generally improved.  Just like in previous re-releases, the music is rendered listenable again.  I swear, some people get so spoiled by modern music that it’s difficult to go back to 8-bit bleeps, sweeps, and creeps.

One interesting side note was that this game was supposed to be ported to the Wonderswan Color, but ironically, while the game could fit onto an NES cartridge, it couldn’t fit onto the Wonderswan cartridge.  The port was never officially canceled, but it’s a foregone conclusion that people who still own the system shouldn’t hold their breath.

Other releases:
Wii Virtual Console – 2009

To be continued…