After doing a bit of research on this game and hearing horror stories from a friend, I was very considered with my adventure through Final Fantasy III. Having only played it for an hour made me even more worried as the directions in the beginning just aren't clear, but after sometime and some walkthrough looking, FFIII sprung from being a huge pile of mess to a fairly enjoyable experience. Ill totally admit that FFIII doesn't really have a lot going for it, aside from the introduction of the job system and some mild humor, FFIII just doesn’t impress. Its really a very average experience, and the game doesn't really lend itself to even core gamers out there. Its a game more so for the fans who want to simply enjoy some franchise history, and not much more is really going for it. The game is just too average to really forgive any short comings it has, and the things it offers are done better in nearly any other game. The story itself is very basic, and doesn't have many interesting characters or concepts. On top of that, the remake just doesn’t add enough or fix enough of the problems to make it anymore desirable from the original.
It really is just hard to sell this game as something to play even to a final fantasy fan out there, and its completely understandable why. The game is just so outdated for its time, and the remake just doesn't fix these problems well enough. For starters, the remake tries to add in a little more storytelling in the beginning of the game, but really it just starts out fairly confusing and easy to get lost in. In all honesty, the beginning's remake feels like it needed a lot more work to really make the changes it wanted to make. All the characters are given distinct enough models, and semi-different personalities compared to the original, where they were all the same, but what it really boils down to is some more half-hearted dialogue that you have to sit through compared to the original opening. Its not that I don't admire the effort, but its fairly obvious that this was more of something they forgot to fix before release. As well, the remake still has a lot of issues with difficultly spikes still being rampant throughout FFIII. Some parts of FFIII you are simply not prepared enough nor are given enough warning to warrant the sudden spike of difficultly. So this can easily led to mindless grinding and failed run attempts all in the vain of precious hours of your life lost forever. This wouldn't be nearly as bad however if it weren't for the fact that switching jobs makes your stats go to crap till you “get the hang” of your new job. I understand that they didn't want to make jobs too overpowered, but using a transition period merely ruins the fun of trying out different classes as it takes far too long to switch between jobs and being able to run properly in battles. So because its far better to stick with the job you are given, it is almost essential that you never switch jobs till near the end where you get the more powerful jobs in the game. As for the remake, apparently they were trying to rebalance a lot of the job system, but simply to say, it just didn’t work well enough. A lot of the jobs are still very one sided and only a few, mainly the last jobs you get, are honestly worth any time to put into. But because most of these jobs are near the end of the game, and start at the basic level it makes for another mindless grind to getting up to a proper job level before the final boss. On top of that, the remake, mainly the DS version, makes one of the more powerful jobs and weapons you can get a sidequest that requires waiting several hours or timeskipping via DS clock to get them along with the use of Friend Codes and WiFi connections. This is also without discussing the horrible boss battle that takes place in a town castle that can easily be engaged without any warning to the player. Not only does this battle nearly require that all your player characters be Dragoons so they can take down the boss easily, but the boss simply does too much damage to go about it any other way, aside from mindless grinding. Put all of this on top of the transition period for jobs makes for a lot of grinding for only one boss in the entire game. On top of all this grinding, marks another horrible thing about FFIII, the last dungeon, or more specifically the world of darkness. The world of darkness is the point of no return for FFIII, and I’m sure the bane of many’s existence. The world of darkness has no easy save point, the closest being right before the dungeon before it and between the dungeon before that, meaning you have to travel roughly 3 full dungeons relatively unarmed enough to fight the final boss. On top of all this the player must defeat Xande, 3-4 Xande's clones, 4 dark crystal bosses, and then finally the final boss itself. All of these battles must happen while no save is present and you still have to go through the dungeons with normal enemy encounters. I personally don't know what I would have done if I didn't fully prepare enough to beat the final boss in one try, but thank goodness I did because all those cutscenes and boss fights were not something I wanted to see twice over.
Perhaps the only thing that Final Fantasy III really has is the soundtrack, the introduction of many series main stays, and the fact that its one of the hardest, if not the hardest Final Fantasy game of the series. But unfortunately its a rather dubious award as a lot of this difficult is due to poor design and limitations of the system it was made for. But if you are really looking for what old school Nintendo hard was like, Final Fantasy III has just the view for ya.
Final Thoughts:
Final Fantasy III is a very outdated, average, and difficult game. The game really has little to no redeeming value to it, and only serves as a reminder of how Final Fantasy, as a series, has progress. To be fair though, I'm sure a few more hardcore Final Fantasy fans will enjoy it, and the soundtrack is pleasant to listen to, but that is really all I can say about that.