This little known fantasy shows updates that make an all round solid RPG dispute it's aging formula.
Game Title: Final Fantasy III
Platform: Nintendo DS
Developer: Square Enix
Publisher: Matrix Software
Genre: Fantasy Role Playing Game
Age Rating: 12+ PEGI
Release Date: JP August 24 2006, NA November 14 2006, EU May 4 2007
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Game Score: 7.0/10
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Summery:
This little known fantasy shows updates that make an all round solid RPG dispute it's aging formula.
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Out of the 6 Final Fantasy game that has been remade multiple times, Final Fantasy III when it was originally released on the Famicom in 1990 Square didn't even touch it but it was planned for a remake on the Japanese Wonderswan Color but was cancelled, American gamers might remember Final Fantasy III on the Super Nintendo when Chronologically it was the sixth game in the series. For the first time Final Fantasy III comes to English shores on the Nintendo DS. This little known fantasy manages to hold up as a portable game and as a solid RPG and Hardcore Fans can pick up and play.
The storyline in the remake has been updated, instead of 4 nameless Warriors of Light you're giving 4 different characters named Luneth, Arc, Refia and Ingus in which these 4 characters have their level of personality and their own goals. The storyline is still the same old crystal's in trouble and it's up to 4 heroes to save the world to make things right again. All the town's have their own problems and talking to NPC's help bring out each objective to accomplish, mostly the main dungeon's boss is the source behind each mess. Although the plot is basic and generic but it manages to keep true to it's familiar roots and there is simply not much twists or turns to note here. Although sometimes an NPC's will join your party for their line in the story to offer advice on what to do next or sometimes help out in battle.
Final Fantasy III on the DS makes use of Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection service where you can send messages to other NPC's in the game or to your friends on the internet using Friend Codes which is a deep way to interact with others online and Moggles in each town handle the job of handling mail in between 1 hour. Final Fantasy III itself is an all round solid turn based role playing where you wonder around the World Map to fight monsters, go to a friendly Town to rest and recover and to shop for better Equipment, Magic Spells or Recovery Items that you'll need for later on and to go off to a Dungeon to take on a big boss. The game's path is mostly straight forward but sometimes you can take time to explore and make use of the zoom feature to see a tiny sparkle leading to a secret passage for hidden treasure. Sometimes you'll also encounter a Dancer or a Pianist for amusement in Town. Your start out on the field walking through Town to Town but you'll also get your hands on a Chocobo, a Boat, Canoe or an Airship as means for Transportation. The job system in Final Fantasy III is where the game goes at it's best, you can chose between over 20 different Jobs and you assign any of these to 4 of your party members, as you progress you'll unlock now ones such as Warriors, Mages, Thiefs, Rangers, Geomancers and more but you'll start the game with the simple Freelancer. You can even set yourself different challenges for yourself if you want to either set for 4 Monks or 4 Warriors to see how far you'll get. For a 15 Year old game (16 if you're counting it's release in Europe) there's isn't much on Side-quests beside ones done over Mognet but other then that it's a stright forward lengthy RPG experience which clocks at least over 40 to 50 of playtime which will mostly be for the amount of grinding you'll need to do.
Final Fantasy III's battles are turn based allowing you to pick different turns to use either Normal attacks, Magic or use an Item. Alongside selecting commands with the D-Pad you'll have the option to use the Touch Screen but however it becomes a chore because the text is to small to touch and touching the right targets in battles. Expect very tough encounters later on in the game so you need to do plenty of grinding for character Levels and classes which there's plenty to play around with, thankfully the game does help with it's grinding since Random Encounters appear very frequently so every once in a while you'll want to recover so often since enemies can sometimes either petrify you or inflict poison or sometimes you'll won't expect a Surprise Attack. Boss battles are also very difficult to handle and sometimes dispute being high leveled there some amount of luck to be played like the Boss won't use it's super attack to finish you off or a boss that can land about 3 or more consecutive hits on your party. Final Fantasy III's battles will be challenging and you will soon be forced to grind if you want to advance later on. If you die in battle you'll have to retry the whole Dungeon again since there's no Save Points and you can only Save on the World Map, although you do have a Quick Save option in-which you can Temporally Save the game for you put the game down and come back to continue on later.
On the DS Final Fantasy III has received updates on the presentation. The graphics are refined with detailed 3-D environments in-which Dungeons look like simple mazes that are easily layed out. The character models look good as well along with each different class costume they're using but the monsters including their palette swapped cousins are downright weird such as Dragons that look near shocked and Tornado's that might look have what appear to be Big Eyeballs sticking from the front but the overall details are great overall. One problem is that the Top Screen is mostly ignored, although the Top Screen is used for the World Map when in the Field and Towns but in Dungeons the screen stays black leaving most of the game to be handled on the bottom screen. The soundtrack has remixed tunes with better composition and melodies that make it better then it's 8-bit counterpart and the same for sound effects.
It may over a decade and a half years old but this Fantasy in the series still manages to hold on it's own as a portable RPG. However the lack of Save-points, it's punishing difficulty and lack of other DS features hamper down the experience but as a portable RPG it's a soild game to Hardcore Fans of the series. It helps what make the series well known for. Overall this little known fantasy shows updates that make an all round solid RPG dispute it's aging formula.
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The Pros:
1. Online communication to send mail to other NPC's and other People throughout the internet
2. Loads of different Jobs and different strategies that you can customize and set up making multiple challenges.
3. The updated graphics are pretty good and are well detailed
The Bads:
1. There isn't a lot of DS features like the top screen and touch screen control which is a chore
2. Incredibility punishing due to frequent encounters, difficult boss battles and no save points
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (BlaZer91)
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