Back in the early 2000s, Square-Enix was set on remaking and rereleasing the classic Final Fantasy games to a newer audience onto newer consoles with Final Fantasy I + II being remade for the Gameboy Advance as well as Final Fantasy III and IV being remade later onto the Nintendo DS. However, whereas Dawn of Souls reimagined the original two with gorgeous 16-bit pixel art, the latter two were plagued with awkward 64-bit polygonal models as well as blurry textures.
Prior to the remake, Final Fantasy III had only been available in Japan with it being released solely on the Famicom in 1990. So the fact that they were localizing this classic game in English offered a fantastic opportunity to deliver a once hidden gem to a Western audience that otherwise couldn’t experience it through legal means.
Final Fantasy III truly was a milestone in the franchise, being the first to introduce the job-changing system that would influence not only its own series in the future but many JRPGs going forward. So it was definitely a shame that so many gamers missed out on it for 16 years. Luckily, the DS remake kept many of these original mechanics intact with a few quality-of-life changes particularly in the inventory management departments. But keep in mind, Final Fantasy III was still a simple, straight-forward NES era JRPG and the DS remake keeps everything under the hood the same albeit with a new 64-bit coat of paint.
It’s this new coat of paint that I have a problem with. The crude polygonal character and environmental models as well as the blurry, shaky textures don’t hold a candle up to the gorgeous original pixel art on the Famicom. This is especially noticeable when you compare the new boss models with the original boss sprites that adapt Yoshitaka Amano’s breathtaking concept art into brilliant 8-bit pixels. These bosses also tower over your small fighter sprites making these battles feel like a real undertaking. In the remake, the bosses feel like uninspired and vague recreations of the pixel art, not to mention the size difference is much less staggering. The chibi style given to the character models is a cute art decision but isn’t quite enough to make any battle feel particularly menacing apart from the actual turn-based combat that was still quite standard for that era.
The DS remake did a great service by getting Western audiences closer to a complete catalogue of FF games but trying to bust out those Nintendo DS graphics on an NES-era Final Fantasy game seemed like overkill and a disservice to the artstyle as a whole. Imagine had they focused on doing all new pixel art using the DS’s graphical power based on Amano’s original artwork in the same vein that Dawn of Souls had done, this remake wouldn’t have been such a chore to look at. The game does offer an opening cutscene in full CG which is a great touch but perhaps a few more would have helped in bringing the entire world to life especially during important scenes like breaking through the boulder in the beginning or getting shot down over Saronia. It also can’t be stressed enough, though, that the localization does a great job in breathing life into some of these side characters, adding some flavor in an otherwise standard “Four Heroes of Light must go and save the world from an Evil Darkness” kind of story.
If you want an officially translated version of Final Fantasy III to add to your collection, definitely seek out this remake. If you are looking to experience how the game was meant to be experienced, it might be worth seeking out a translated rom of the original as Final Fantasy III for the DS doesn’t offer much besides a serviceable, totally legal remake of the original.
Prior to the remake, Final Fantasy III had only been available in Japan with it being released solely on the Famicom in 1990. So the fact that they were localizing this classic game in English offered a fantastic opportunity to deliver a once hidden gem to a Western audience that otherwise couldn’t experience it through legal means.
Final Fantasy III truly was a milestone in the franchise, being the first to introduce the job-changing system that would influence not only its own series in the future but many JRPGs going forward. So it was definitely a shame that so many gamers missed out on it for 16 years. Luckily, the DS remake kept many of these original mechanics intact with a few quality-of-life changes particularly in the inventory management departments. But keep in mind, Final Fantasy III was still a simple, straight-forward NES era JRPG and the DS remake keeps everything under the hood the same albeit with a new 64-bit coat of paint.
It’s this new coat of paint that I have a problem with. The crude polygonal character and environmental models as well as the blurry, shaky textures don’t hold a candle up to the gorgeous original pixel art on the Famicom. This is especially noticeable when you compare the new boss models with the original boss sprites that adapt Yoshitaka Amano’s breathtaking concept art into brilliant 8-bit pixels. These bosses also tower over your small fighter sprites making these battles feel like a real undertaking. In the remake, the bosses feel like uninspired and vague recreations of the pixel art, not to mention the size difference is much less staggering. The chibi style given to the character models is a cute art decision but isn’t quite enough to make any battle feel particularly menacing apart from the actual turn-based combat that was still quite standard for that era.
The DS remake did a great service by getting Western audiences closer to a complete catalogue of FF games but trying to bust out those Nintendo DS graphics on an NES-era Final Fantasy game seemed like overkill and a disservice to the artstyle as a whole. Imagine had they focused on doing all new pixel art using the DS’s graphical power based on Amano’s original artwork in the same vein that Dawn of Souls had done, this remake wouldn’t have been such a chore to look at. The game does offer an opening cutscene in full CG which is a great touch but perhaps a few more would have helped in bringing the entire world to life especially during important scenes like breaking through the boulder in the beginning or getting shot down over Saronia. It also can’t be stressed enough, though, that the localization does a great job in breathing life into some of these side characters, adding some flavor in an otherwise standard “Four Heroes of Light must go and save the world from an Evil Darkness” kind of story.
If you want an officially translated version of Final Fantasy III to add to your collection, definitely seek out this remake. If you are looking to experience how the game was meant to be experienced, it might be worth seeking out a translated rom of the original as Final Fantasy III for the DS doesn’t offer much besides a serviceable, totally legal remake of the original.