Two years after the controversial FFII, Square released the third entry in the series, hoping to make up for the mixed reactions toward the last one. It was deemed by both fans and critics as the best FF yet. It sucessfully brought elements from both previous games together to create what I think is the best NES JRPG. It's also kind of important because of introducing various job classes that would become staples in the series, as well as introducing us to moogles. Unfortunately, the game doesn't receive much recognition. This is mostly because of the fact that when Americans think of Final Fantasy III, they actually think of VI, which was originally retitled "Final Fantasy III" back in the 90s since it was the third game in the series to be released there. Let's check the game out shall we?:
The Story:
The story of this game is pretty good. It goes back to the "Light Warriors have to stop the Darkness" formula and expands upon it, giving personalities to the NPCs and motivations to the villains. Unfortunately, this story is very inferior to the one in the previous game. The playable characters are for the most part just empty vessels that accept their destiny without any question. The story is also much less involving. There are character deaths, but since the dying characters are not very well developed, it's hard to be emotionally invested. After the great story of FFII, this definitely is kind of a letdown. I can't help but feel that this should have been the plot of the second game and the plot of FFII should have been in this game.
Overall, though, it was a nice story with good characters, but it definitely could have been better.
6/10
The Gameplay:
Like I said before, this game takes the core gameplay from Final Fantasy I and adds elements from Final Fantasy II, but also brings something new to the table: Job switching. Throughout the game, you will occasionally receive jobs that you can give to each of the four heroes at any given time. Having an efficient party that can defeat the various monsters you find (Some monsters are next to impossible if you don't have a character of a certain job) is essential in getting through the game. You can't just switch all the time though. Besides money and items, your party gains Capacity points by winning batles. Each time you want to change someone's job, it costs you a few CP and if you don't have enough, you won't be able to switch. You also have to mind Job Levels. The more a character fights using a specific job, the more his level for that particular job increases, and every time that happens, the stats used by that job increase in value. The bigger the job level, the less CP you'll need to switch to that particular job. It helps a lot when you want to change the character's job to his usual one. Also, you have to be careful with your stats. Each time a character levels up, the stat values increase depending on the job he's using. For instance, fighters get stronger physically and mages get stronger magically. Switching an experienced fighter to a mage will get you a mage with very poor magical stats and the opposite also applies. This impedes the player from abusing the system and getting an overpowered party easily. It's a fantastic system that, despite the limitations I just mentioned, gives the player a lot of freedom when it comes to what you can do in a battle. Thanks to this system, FFIII achieves what the previous game failed to do: Having a very realistic and complex character development system that's still user friendly.
10/10
The Music:
Once again, the soundtrack is fantastic. The previous soundtrack set the standard for music in the series, but this one raises the bar even more. Unlike the previous games, we have a different theme for each town instead of just a single town theme. The soundtrack has everything: catchy upbeat tunes, triumphant fanfares, epic battle themes and emotional pieces. All of them are extremely memorable and pleasant to listen to. Definitely one of the best in the series.
10/10
The Graphics:
Even back in the NES era, Square was pushing the graphical limits of home consoles. The environments are colorful, varied and the animations are fantastic. I love how they make character sprites jump around when they're happy. It's a smart way to hide the limitations of the NES.
10/10
Overall, Final Fantasy III is a fantastic game. The gameplay manages to have depth while still being acessible, the music is wonderful and the graphics are pure 8-bit awesomeness. The story could have been better, but that doesn't ruin what is in general a great JRPG gameplay experience.
Final Grade: 9/10
Join me next time when I review Final Fantasy IV as we enter what I consider the golden age of the series: The SNES era. Bye.
