WR: Final Fantasy III (DS)

September 18th, 2009 by

e32006_p3_Final-Fantasy-III

Developer: Matrix Software
Publisher: Square Enix
Genre: Role-playing
Players: 1
Console: DS
ESRB Rating: E10+
Hours Played: 23
Progress: Finished the main quest

Square Enix has remade a lot of their older games for newer systems, including releasing two games that had not been released in America before. Final Fantasy III was one that is only just now released to North Americans. Of course, did SquareSoft (as they were called back then) hold this game back for quality reasons or did they just mysteriously decide not to send to America?

Well, the story in Final Fantasy III is kind of cliché. Basically, the darkness is spreading and the crystals of the land are spawning monsters. You control the four Warriors of Light who must stop the darkness and restore balance to the land. If there is one complaint I have about this setup, it’s that the four main characters have absolutely no character development and only have personalities for the first hour or so of the game. Even with the above premise, the story is still pretty weak and really only serves to link the dungeons together (sometimes it even fails at that).

The graphics in Final Fantasy III are quite nice. The opening movie is absolutely breathtaking with pre-rendered graphics you wouldn’t believe were possible on the DS, while the game itself has pretty good real-time graphics. The characters end up looking kind of like rag dolls with the “stylized” in-game graphics, though.  When you meet a boss and talk to them before the fight they also look like rag dolls, but when you fight them they look like monsters/bigger guys/whatever they are supposed to be, while your rag doll warriors remain the exact same. This thing is kind of annoying as it makes it seem like they could not make the monster appear as such in the conversation, when they very well could have done so.  What is nice about your characters is when you change weapons and classes, your characters change in appearance.

The music is similar in quality to the other Final Fantasy games. It always fits the mood and is very well made, with good orchestration and a lot of variety. The music is one of the best parts of the game, actually and is quite pleasing to listen to.

Final Fantasy III has two different control schemes. One uses the buttons for moving and giving commands, the other uses the touch screen for moving and giving commands. The touch screen controls really seem like something they added at the last minute because some of the buttons you have to press require pressing the button twice, once to select it and once to actually press the button. This may seem like a pathetic thing to nitpick on, but it’s really annoying if you are in the heat of battle and have to press buttons twice to use them.  The control pad and the ABXY buttons are much easier to use and less painfully annoying.

The gameplay feels very similar to the previous Final Fantasy games (not the subsequent ones as they changed the battle system from FFIV on) where you choose what each member of the party will do and then the whoever has the highest speed goes first and so on.  It is a solid battle system, and I have no idea why they changed it.  Basically, you just wander around until enemies attack, then you wander around again and repeat endlessly. I know it sounds kind of boring, but that’s just what turn-based role-playing games are all about.

Well, mutiplayer really isn’t the right term for what is in Final Fantasy III. What they have is a system through which you can send mail to other owners of the game if you have their friend code, or to NPCs. If you send mail to an NPC, nothing really happens. If you send a certain amount of mail to another owner of the game, and then send a certain amount of mail to a certain NPC you can unlock side quests. However, these side quests aren’t worth the effort. There are two that I know of: one has you going into a cave, battling three monsters and then unlocking a new class. The other unlocks a secret dungeon (consisting of two rooms) with a hidden boss that is harder than the game’s final boss. Beating this secret boss does not unlock anything though…  so there is really no point in fighting him except for pure masochism.

Well, the most memorable thing about this game is the number of classes and thus, the amount of party combinations that are possible. Unfortunately though, most of the classes are either borderline useless or just plain useless. You probably should just stick with the typical white mage, black mage, warrior and monk. Fun-sounding classes like scholar and ranger really are not worth the trouble.  Of course, I still encourage you to experiment and find a party combination that works for you.

In all, Final Fantasy III is a good but flawed role-playing game. It may be worth your time, but it may not. If you really want a good role-playing game go with Final Fantasy VII for the Playstation. If the DS is all you have, then I would still go with Final Fantasy IV over this game.


Story:

+ The tried and true story of saving the world with crystals

+ No spikey-haired whiny protagonist

– The main characters have no personality

Graphics:

+ Quite a nice-looking for the DS

– The rag doll-ness of the characters

Sound:

+ Nice and orchestrated

– Some of the music might be re-used from other games

Controls:

+ The buttons are solid

– Having to press each screen button twice when using the touch screen

Gameplay:

+ It is the same as every other role-playing game

– It is the same as every other role-playing game

Usagi Factor:

+ Lots of party choices

– Most of the choices are not worth it

rated7.5