Final Fantasy 3 is nearly a perfect step up from the first game. Disregarding a lot of the time wasting bullshit from FF2, 3 manages to improve on all the things the first game did, though this is not to say 3 doesn't have its shortcomings.
For the positives, you could really just copy a lot of my praises I gave to the first game, now with the added bonus of expanding the small things. FF1 had a VERY barebones story, sparsely using dialogue, named characters, or cutscenes. While this functioned perfectly fine for 1, FF3 shows how far these things go for an RPG. I have to admit that there were a few times where I'd have to consult a guide for FF1 due to forgetting some random bit of information, or the game being a bit esoteric with what I was given (a rat's tail is a mark of courage?). This did not occur with FF3. The game expertly leads you from place to place by expanding your range of exploration while contextualizing the purpose of your journey. There's a moment about halfway through the game involving the floating continent that gave me a rush of excitement the first game didn't have and the second failed to execute. Combine this with the solid gameplay from the first game and you have an experience that manages to surpass it.
Unfortunately, FF3 is still fairly average as a video game, and is tied down by a few aspects, especially the job system. This series is known for practically every game being unique from each other, and 3's trait is the ability to change your character's jobs at any point, with jobs essentially acting as the classes from the first game. The way this system ends up being used is far more gimmicky than would appear. Instead of constantly messing around with jobs to create interesting party compositions, most of the time, you'll end up sticking with the same 4 or 5 jobs and only ever change when you need to pass a gimmick section like turning into frogs or fighting a boss that takes extra damage from one job. The worst example of this comes in the late game when you have to do 2 dungeons back to back that feature an insane level spike for the enemies you're fighting, and every single one of these enemies can't be hit with physical attacks without multiplying the enemy. This forces you to kit out magic and dark knight classes, which will be a huge drain on your wallet, which means a shit ton of grinding for you.
Despite the new job system being a bit of a flop, FF3 still cements itself as a worthwhile experience in the series, and giving me newfound hope for the rest of the games that 2 almost managed to kill.
For the positives, you could really just copy a lot of my praises I gave to the first game, now with the added bonus of expanding the small things. FF1 had a VERY barebones story, sparsely using dialogue, named characters, or cutscenes. While this functioned perfectly fine for 1, FF3 shows how far these things go for an RPG. I have to admit that there were a few times where I'd have to consult a guide for FF1 due to forgetting some random bit of information, or the game being a bit esoteric with what I was given (a rat's tail is a mark of courage?). This did not occur with FF3. The game expertly leads you from place to place by expanding your range of exploration while contextualizing the purpose of your journey. There's a moment about halfway through the game involving the floating continent that gave me a rush of excitement the first game didn't have and the second failed to execute. Combine this with the solid gameplay from the first game and you have an experience that manages to surpass it.
Unfortunately, FF3 is still fairly average as a video game, and is tied down by a few aspects, especially the job system. This series is known for practically every game being unique from each other, and 3's trait is the ability to change your character's jobs at any point, with jobs essentially acting as the classes from the first game. The way this system ends up being used is far more gimmicky than would appear. Instead of constantly messing around with jobs to create interesting party compositions, most of the time, you'll end up sticking with the same 4 or 5 jobs and only ever change when you need to pass a gimmick section like turning into frogs or fighting a boss that takes extra damage from one job. The worst example of this comes in the late game when you have to do 2 dungeons back to back that feature an insane level spike for the enemies you're fighting, and every single one of these enemies can't be hit with physical attacks without multiplying the enemy. This forces you to kit out magic and dark knight classes, which will be a huge drain on your wallet, which means a shit ton of grinding for you.
Despite the new job system being a bit of a flop, FF3 still cements itself as a worthwhile experience in the series, and giving me newfound hope for the rest of the games that 2 almost managed to kill.
Despite returning to the gameplay roots of the first game, doing the same thing twice loses the charm that the original had
Pretty alright step up from the first game. The new ideas like the job system were implemented decently although the game never bothers explaining most of these, so it quickly became a habit to open a wiki for this game whenever I got confused. The first game still does exploration better, even though this is still leagues above FFII. This game in general feels like a redoing of the first FF, both gameplay and story wise. Pretty much the only thing carrying over from FFII was the roe mechanic during battle (which of course never got explained in this game). The difficulty is probably the best here out of the games I’ve played so far, even though there are some bullshit spikes where the solution is grinding and grinding alone near the end.
The story is probably as good as it gets for an NES game, with some of the dialogue even being pretty fun to read at times (at least in the German translation, which was the one I’ve played). Overall a decent attempt a redoing the first game with even some cool and new ideas, story and gameplay wise. Some of them just don’t feel complete yet though.
The story is probably as good as it gets for an NES game, with some of the dialogue even being pretty fun to read at times (at least in the German translation, which was the one I’ve played). Overall a decent attempt a redoing the first game with even some cool and new ideas, story and gameplay wise. Some of them just don’t feel complete yet though.