Final Fantasy III (Switch) - Setting Traditions of a Franchise
Final Fantasy III (Switch)
Setting Traditions of a Franchise
Intro
Final Fantasy III marks the end of the NES era of the mainline Final Fantasy series. Where FFI was the start of the franchise, and FFII was the game where the devs tried different things to push and evolve the series, III was the moment where the devs started to set the series traditions, taking several things from the first game, and taking a couple of things from II, making III a Famicom RPG that is a little more interesting in what it accomplishes. I'm going to say this now, Final Fantasy III is probably my favorite of the NES era, with the first being a close second. And in this post, I'll tell you why, from the gameplay, and story, and how it evolves the series forward into its close future.
But first, before I go in on why I like FFIII, I want to talk about, something that happened during the making of the post, specifically when initially playing through the game. My original plan was to play through the PSP version of FFIII so that it would be a straight shot of going through the games on that system and then moving on to the next one that I have the other games on. But with the game being the 3D remake of FFIII, I decided to hold off on that version and play one closer to the original Famicom experience. Because of this, the version I went with was the Pixel Remastered version on Nintendo Switch.
If you read my posts on FFI and II, then you might have seen me recommend these versions of the games to play, I've mainly recommended them based on the multiple places you can play them. But something I have yet to talk about is that these versions of the games are meant to be more in line with their original release versions with some quality of life and modern convinces added to the game. So I decided to play this one instead, but, in honor of my initial playthrough of the 3D Remake, I've named my characters after the named main characters in that game, Luneth, Arc, Ingus, and Refia.
History
When it comes to the history of Final Fantasy III, I can start with the series numbering that I talked about in the FFII post. You might have seen Final Fantasy III on the SNES, that looks like this.
But like I said in the FFII post, FFII on SNES is actually FFIV, this is a similar deal here, FFIII on SNES is actually FFVI, the last mainline Final Fantasy Super Nintendo game that was made for that system before Square jumped to the PlayStation. With me saying Final Fantasy VI you might be wondering, "What happened to V?" While I'll get into more detail in the FFV post, the TL;DR is that the translation was taking too long to make for the US market, at least that's what I managed to find. In the year V came out in Japan, in 1992, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest was released for the US market, it was a more simplified RPG to broaden the genre's appeal in the Western markets. Fun fact, Mystic Quest was also the very first Final Fantasy to be released in EU territories, releasing in that market in 1993... So... Sorry about that my EU people.
On the topic of the actual FFIII, just like FFII, it was region-locked to Japan on the Famicom, after releasing in 1990. But unlike FFII, which that game was eventually released on the PlayStation under the Final Fantasy Origins Collection, Final Fantasy III would not see a US release until 16 years later, when it was released as its 3D Remake on DS in 2006. And the 3d remake has differences from the original, with some added story, added content, and named main characters. This means the West didn't get an official version of the original III until 2021 when the remasters came out on mobile phones and PCs, technically making it a 31-year-long wait. Damn...
Now to say that the West had no way of playing III is exaggerated, there was after all the 3D remake on DS, and later other platforms like PSP, mobile phones, and PC. And if you went looking, there are fan translations of the Famicom III that can be played on an emulator or actual hardware by either a reproduction cart or flash memory cart. With translations as early as 1999, and as late as 2019, two years before the Pixel Remasters came out. So what stopped Square (later Square Enix) from releasing III until 2006? Well, as said in a Eurogamer article about Final Fantasy III's remake, Hiromichi Tanaka laid out a couple reasons why this happened. Tanaka was a key figure in the development of the first three games, he explains that at the time, Square couldn't predict how the console market would progress. The Famicom to Super Famicom was one of the first hardware transitions during that time. Nowadays when we get a new system, we generally expect that there will be a new system at some point. Switch 2, PlayStation 6, whatever Xbox will name their next console. We expect this because we've seen it so much, but back then, this is a whole new thing.
This means that to stay ahead, they had to focus on a Japanese version of III because during this time they were also working on IV for the Super Famicom. And didn't have the manpower, for III, IV, and a translation. But it wasn't just this that stopped the game, FFIII was the biggest game in the series that was released for the Famicom. How big? 512 KB big. Now I know its easy to scoff at the size of a game like this when we have games now releasing at 50 to over 100 GB in file size, but for the time, this was a massive game for the Famicom, with it on the second highest cart that was available. And this size spells a big problem, because where FFI at 144 KB and II at 167 KB could be remade for the Playstation with new graphics, sound effects, music, and any extra content that may have been added. FFIII's 512 would make this especially hard to do, with Tanaka saying that there wasn't enough storage space for an updated version of FFIII.
Combine this with the added manpower needed to make the assets for an update of III, and it makes sense why it didn't happen until 2006, by this point Square, now Square Enix has had several Final Fantasy under their belt and was much bigger during that time compared to when III was first coming out, or when the PlayStation collections came out. And when the pixel remasters were coming out as a sort of definitive way of playing Final Fantasy I through VI as close to their original forms as possible, III would obviously be remade with this in mind. Speaking of the pixel remaster, in turns of translation of the game, unlike the other games, there was no base to work from both because it was not released in the West and because of the changes the 3D remake made. So this is a completely new translation for the game, nothing much else to add for the pixel remaster.
Story
The game starts with a familiar sight from the first game, naming our party members! Are four heroes are Luneth, Arc, Ingus, and Refia, and they are babies now. Once again we don't pick our classes right away, we instead start as the little Onion Knight, a child who "borrowed" some armor to play adventure in the nearby caves. Only for them to fall into a pit that's deeper in the cave. That's how the game starts, no prophecy of four young warriors and saving a princess, no empire burning down the characters' homes, just a big old, "Oops! Better get home before we get grounded!" So we make our way through the caves, fighting some monsters and then killing a giant turtle summoned by the power of darkness.
After doing this, we find a crystal in the cave that begins to talk to us, making one of our knights freak out a little at the site of a talking crystal. This is the Wind Crystal, and it tells us that we are the chosen ones tasked with restoring the balance of a dying world. The room is then covered in light from the shine of crystal, as we hear the sound of a very familiar sound.
The opening of this game sets itself up as a game of setting traditions, as we now have the theme of Final Fantasy playing after speaking with the crystal, something that was missing in FFII. We're back with the Four Warriors of Light story, and adventuring around the world to restore crystals that represent the elements. This continues with the reintroduction of classes we know from the first game, but something new is that we are now able to set our classes to whatever we want at any time. So I'm bringing the party back, with our heroes being a Warrior, Black Mage, White Mage... And Monk, because Theif is available right away... Awkward.
But it's not just FFI this game takes inspiration from, there are some elements from FFII as well, the keyword and leveling system from II may be gone, but there is a little more emphasis on the story, duel wielding is back, and Chocobos which were introduced in II can be found in the overworld and can be ridden around the world for faster movement, and no enemy encounters. This game takes things from both I and II while adding things to the game to move the series forward. It feels like the culmination of everything the devs learned from the past two games. After leaving the cave and going back to town, we talk with the elder, who tells us to follow the words of the crystal and fulfill our destiny. So we go to the next town and find that they have been turned into a ghost by someone named Djinn, in the town we find a man named Cid, who tells us we can use his airship if we help him out of this ghost form.
I will say that this game's story is not much of an upgrade from the last game, in fact, it goes more into the design of FFI's story, solving the problems of other towns and people, which then leads to the much bigger problem. Our characters do talk, but because these are characters that are not specifically named, they don't really need much in turns of any development, so they speak rather simply. They don't specify who is speaking, which is a little annoying, but not too big of a deal.
My favorite parts of the story were more with the 5th slot characters that come with us on our journey. These characters don't really do anything for battles, but they do help in pushing the plot forward, and a lot of their personalities Cid is an eccentric and grateful person with him being more than happy to help in our journey, and after we help his wife. Princess Sara is the Sasune, the castle close to us, and is someone who went off on her own to seal Djinn away. Desch is a warrior with amnesia but is willing to step up to the plate to save the land and his friends. And Prince Alus is the prince of Saronia, a young prince who was outcasted by the then mind-controlled king. He has a really good scene with the main character, as our character tries to reassure him of his worries when going to see his father, and then does it again when the prince calls himself a fool after his father's death. It's a really sweet moment.
Now these characters aren't mind-blowing, but they are charming enough for me to like them, and when it was time for them to leave, I did feel a little sad to see our new friends leave, and for a Famicom game, that's a pretty impressive feat to do.
Presentation
Visuals
Final Fantasy III has now been upgraded to a 16-bit graphic style from its original 8-bit style. They also break that 4:3 aspect ratio that the original Famicom had, into a full 16:9 aspect ratio for modern displays and TVs. These changes are similar to every other Pixel Remaster from I to VI, with a lot of the remade sprites being more faithful to the original sprites from the game's original releases. We also have the full background for battle screens. These full battle screens have been a thing for a while now, but I will say that these backgrounds are a little more detailed. At least that's how I felt when looking at them.
The place I feel this remaster really shines are the new effects the game has for attacks, spells, and even some overworld stuff as well.
Physical attacks feel more powerful, if your duel wilding, physical attackers use both of their weapons during the fight, so Arc in a fight with a Salamander boss, uses both of his Nunchucks like he's Bruce Lee, and Luneth at the end of the battle using both of his elemental swords on it. And you see the slashes of ice and fire from those swords, and it looks devastating on that salamander, making the numbers that pop up make sense in that context.
And then while the physical attackers are attacking, you have animations of magic casters charging, then finally unleashing that attack with a really cool effect of the spell. Blizzara hits really hard with the lingering ice effect on the enemy being a nice touch, and Cura showers light onto the party as it brings their life back after dealing with a devastating flame attack from the Salamander itself.
The overworld effects are pretty good also, the water in all places of the game has a nice ripple with it, making the water really shiny. The overworld also has the sun shining on certain places as it shies on the water, and cloud shadows running across the fields and water.
The game also has effects for mist in caves, and sand effects in a floating tree in the desert (Yes this is a thing), this is something I like seeing and gives a little more life when being in these moments. Like you can kinda feel the sand brushing on your character's face, or looking out on the water as the clouds pass. It makes the world feel a little more alive as you explore the world.
A lot of this presentation can be applied to the other Pixel Remasters as well, and you'll see some similarities when I talk about V and VI. But for the case of III, I think they did a really good job of updating the game's visuals from its Famicom original to its modern-day remaster.
Music
The music of the remaster is my other favorite thing about the game's presentation. Music is an important part of a game's presentation, as the music you hear in certain parts of the game can help in making a moment more powerful. And, we always appreciate good soundtracks in video games. Something I talked about when I first talked about the Pixel Remasters is that these remasters are fully reorchestrated with real instruments, so instead of the blips and bloops that you would hear in the Famicom version, you can hear that guitar or the strumming of strings, and other instruments that are used in the music. Don't mistake me for saying "blips and bloops" to describe the original music, I'm not saying this type of music is bad, or outdated. I love the sound of older music from the NES and Gameboy eras, and the SNES era with that system's sound chip has produced some of my favorite bits of Video Game music. But the orchestrated music is really good and does a really good job of recreating the music from the original game. Also, the remaster has the option to change the game's music from the arrangement to the original in the config menu, so you can choose the flavor of music that you want. I made a video showing comparisons between two of the songs in the game to see how it brings up the music but still keeps it true to itself. The songs are the Prelude on the main menu and the main battle themes when in battle.
I recommend giving the Pixel Remastered Soundtrack a listen, although I will say that it will be different from listening to it while in-game compared to listening to it on a place like YouTube. Either or, I recommend a listen.
Gameplay
The gameplay for the game is more in line with what was in the original Final Fantasy, classic leveling system, and classic classes from the first game. At first glance, it seems more of the same as the first game, but the thing that makes III unique from the other two is how they handle the customization of your party, with the introduction of the Job System. When you speak to the first crystal and get enveloped in light, you get access to five Job classes, Warrior, Monk, White Mage, Black Mage, and Red Mage, all from the first game except Theif.
Where in the first game you could select any of these jobs and create whatever party makeup you want in the beginning, Final Fantasy III allows you to change up your party whenever you want. When you first get your jobs, you choose whoever gets what job in your party, I personally went with the classic setup for my start, Luneth as a Warrior, Arc as a Monk, Ingus as a Black Mage, and Refia as a White Mage.
But if you went with this, and later are like, let's try out the Red Mage on Arc, or two White Mages on a party, if you wanted to try something to change up the party makeup, you could do that whenever you want. Just don't do four White Mages... That will never work.
Where the job system gets interesting is when you get more jobs to play with, you restore more crystals which then unlocks more jobs. The second crystal unlocks jobs like Knight, Theif, and Ranger, but eventually, we find the other two and get classes like Scholar, Geomancer, Dragoon, Viking, Black Belt, and a couple more.
With these choices, you could make Luneth a Dark Knight, Arc a Geomancer, etc. After getting that third crystal the customization of the party makeup really opens up and allows you to have many types of parties. The Jobs in these games also have special abilities, when selecting a command in battle. This means that Summoners can summon monsters and special attacks, Thieves can steal from the enemy, Dark Knights have access to a special attack they can use, and so on and so forth. My party after getting the last crystal and getting the last main jobs was Luneth as a Dragoon, Arc as a Black Belt, Ingus as a Magus, and Refia as a Devout.
Dragoons, originally introduced in FFII, are a fighter-type class that mainly uses spear weapons, but their special ability allows them to jump high into the air and land on the enemy, causing a good amount of damage to them. Black Belts do more damage than Monks and can use claw weapons, their abilities are to power themselves up and do more damage, and kick attack that hits every enemy on the screen. Magus and Devouts don't have a special command to use in battle, these classes are meant to be upgrades for the White Mage and Black Mage so the magic they do is slightly stronger. The game has two more classes you can unlock so I'll talk about those in the next post.
Overall, I love this system, I love the customization that this has and how it opens the door for replayability and trying different party makeups, I think the only problem I have with the system is with certain encounters where some classes are better for certain fights and dungeons. For example, in one dungeon that leads to you getting the last airship in the game, the enemies in the dungeon can multiply if they are hit with physical attacks. I solved this by firing off my strongest black magic spell with Ingus and hitting the entire group so I could take them out as fast as I could, to eventually just running from battles. Apparently, the Dark Knight would have done a good job with those enemies, probably with its special command. I wouldn't call this a huge problem, but it can be a little annoying to have to deal with in battles, that being said I was able to get through the battles with not much problem other than the added challenge of not using the right class. I usually figured out another way to handle it, which could make this a little harder in turns of difficulty compared to the other two.
Ending
The four heroes have done a lot in their journey, we saved our surrounding home from evil monsters and learned our home is a floating island in the air (there are details on the edge of the map that shows clouds floating under the island, showing how high we are in the air).
Helped Desch with his amnesia, and helps him to realize he is the protector of the Tower of Owen, and only he can fix it and keep our home in the air, so he sacrifices himself by jumping into the furnace at the top to fix it from the inside.
The four then unflooded the world below, and saved the kingdom of Saronia from a mind-controlled king. After all of this and getting our third airship, the Nautilus, we find a castle to the south and meet a man named Doga, he says that he can help us with getting to the last crystal. He enchants our airship and tells us to go underwater to get Noah's Lout so we can awaken Unei, an older woman who is asleep in the dream world and would be able to help us in stopping the villain Xande. At this part of the game, I noticed that the story progression is handled a lot better compared to I or II. Where one was just a little too open for its own good, and two was a little better but had some annoying backtracking and still failed in telling the player where to go, three did much better in telling, me where I needed to go with context clues and where we are in the game's story. The only time I was a little confused was when I was looking for Unei, and when I did find her, I felt so dumb as it was close to where you find Noah's Lout. It was very similar to when I played Metroid Dread for the first time, I got stuck on a certain part of that game, and didn't know where to go. When I figured it out I felt similarly, but after that, I felt good about figuring it out in the game, so that's why I like how this game handles progression in the game.
After getting the Invincible the final airship in the game, and getting all the elemental fangs to get through the statues that guard Xande's crystal tower, Doga and Unei tell us we have to battle and defeat them to get the keys we need to go through the Crystal Tower. We defeat them, get the keys, and go for the Crystal Tower, and this is where the game can get a little harder. By this point, I felt no real reason for me to grind throughout my playthrough, not because I was overly strong, but because the game has balanced itself to where you don't need to grind throughout the game. At least until the beginning of the Crystal Tower. After getting the last crystal that is located in the walls of the Crystal Tower, you have to go through these walls. The enemies here were particularly hard, with them being able to kill each party member in about two hits, even with Refia healing the party. This is where the game starts to slow down as you essentially have to grind to get through this part of the game, now I don't mind grinding, but it was a little sad to see that I had to do this to progress after the game has been smooth sailing up to this point.
While grinding, I found that the level that would be good for this part of the game from trial and error was level 50, and that would take a while to get to, especially since the game doesn't have a speed-up option to help speed up said grinding. What the game does have, is an auto-battle option, which copies your last used command for each party member, and an EXP booster that you can configure in the settings to as low as 0.5x EXP, and as high as 4x EXP. By default, the game is set to 1x EXP, but for this moment I set it to 4x to get to level 50 faster. I like that this is an option so players can choose how hard they want the game to be, but I do wish I didn't have to use it for the end just as I didn't have to use it before for the rest of the game.
Anyway, after going through the wall, you have two places you can go to in the Crystal Tower, the pathway in front of you, which takes you down below the tower, or you can go through the walls, and head up to fight Xande. I recommend the first path, as that path allows you to get some last-minute stronger equipment and the last two jobs in the game, Ninja, and Sage. These super jobs are incredibly strong, with ninjas able to throw shurikens that can do massive damage to the final boss, and Sage can use every form of magic and is the upgraded class for Devots. So my updated, end-game party is, Luneth as a Dragoon, Arc as a Ninja, Ingus as a Magus, and Refia as a Sage. What's funny about this part is that in that cave, you can also get some really strong weapons that Arc was able to duel wield when he switched to Ninja, when he did his attacks, it felt like he was out for blood with the amount of damage he did to enemies, like he's saying, "I'm done with all of this!" I just found that funny.
After getting our goodies, we make our way to the end, ready to take down Xande, only to get stopped by a mirror that paralyzes us, Xande says that the monster in that room will eat us and he'll be done with us. This is when my favorite part comes in, Doga comes back in his spirit form, and to help us, he goes to all of the friends we met along the way, including Desch, who I figured was dead! But either way, all our friends come with us to where the monsters are, with them saying that they will hold off the monsters while we break free and fight Xande. This moment was so charming, and made me like these characters even more, even though they didn't have much spotlight after we interacted with them.
We go in the room, fight Xande, and defeat him, and the game is over- Wait! Not so fast! Because it turns out Xande wasn't the big bad, he was only a pawn following the orders of the real mastermind, Cloud of Darkness (Wait to start that trend III...). So we try to fight her, but get destroyed by her giant laser attack! Our characters then die at this moment as Cloud of Darkness leaves for the World of Darkness, we are then revived by Doga and Unei, who then disappear after telling us to finish this once and for all.
When you get to the world of darkness you have to cleanse four dark crystals to be able to do damage on Cloud of Darkness if you don't, she'll just be immune to all attacks. And the monster that guards the crystals are hard, they hit like a truck, and have tons of HP you have to deal with. I wound up doing a little more grinding, and by the time I finished all four monsters, I was at level 64 for the final fight. When fighting Cloud of Darkness herself, I had Luneth always jumping, for Arc, I used all the shurikens I saved and threw them at her, doing stupid damage, in the process. When I ran out, it was time to duel wield. I had Ingus use his strongest magic on her until the magic ran out, Meteor is probably my favorite spell effect I've seen in the game. Refia uses her Holy attack on Cloud of Darkness, and when needed, switches to healing and reviving. I'll say it, even at my level, the battle was challenging, and it made me use everything in my arsenal to stay alive. The game doesn't have the ATB system, but I could feel the pressure in the battle. But pretty soon, I finished the battle and defeated Cloud of Darkness.
We take all of our friends back home and then go home ourselves with Princess Sara, when back home, the town welcomes us back, and the Crystal that started it all begins to shine from the cave. And that is the end of Final Fantasy III.
Conclusion
When it comes to the Final Fantasy games on NES, III really does feel like the culmination of everything Square learned when making these games. It is a fun time to play III, and the customization you can do with your party makes me want to go back and play the game again, so I can see what I can do with a brand-new party. Obviously, this is still an old RPG, but if you would want a place to start in playing a Final Fantasy game, and are willing to deal with an older RPG, I'd highly recommend III, but if you want something a little in-depth in story and gameplay, or maybe something that didn't come from the NES era, then I'd recommend waiting until the start of SNES era with Final Fantasy IV.
If you are interested in playing III, don't play the original Famicom version, not because that version is bad, but because the end is even harder than the Pixel Remaster, where in PR, they made it a little tamer, the Famicom's end is basically one giant gauntlet, so if you're not prepared, your ass will get kicked. So unless you want even more challenge, I say to just stick with the Pixel Remasters. Heck, it's also the only official version of the original Famicom game with modern conveniences. And then there's the 3D Remake, you can still get this version on PC via Steam, or even get it for your phone, it's more different than the Famicom version, there are some added story, named main characters, and more interactions between the characters and rotating 5th slot characters. The only thing I could see getting in the way of some people is its DS graphic style as I know not everyone will like this style.
I personally like the style, but I also like the graphic styles of N64 and PlayStation games, so there's that about me. Also, I grew up with the DS, so I'll have some bias for the graphical style. If you want something on most systems, choose the Pixel Remaster, but if you want something a little more different, try the 3D Remake, either or, if you are interested I highly recommend Final Fantasy III, It's a fun game that takes a little bit of everything from the first two games, and adds some new stuff to make it a memorable experience. But, next is the Super Nintendo era, and this is where stuff gets really good.
Sources
1. Final Fantasy III Infomation
2. Fantasy Reborn - Square Enix VP on bringing FF3 to the DS
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