This review contains spoilers
It's a nice game. It introduced me to the classic job system Final Fantasy is known for. But it is really rough around the edges.
Story:
Nothing outstanding. It is not bad, but there isn't anything good either. It is just extremely generic and there isn't really anything to talk about.
Characters:
It is nice that the protagonists got their own character design and personality in the remake. But they are no Sora or Cloud when it comes to the individual characters themselves. Just as basic as the story, although the designs are kind of nice.
Music:
The music is also very generic. It has some cool tracks here and there though.
Gameplay:
The gameplay is fine. It is basic traditional turn based combat. The coolest part is unlocking new jobs and using their abilities. Additionally you can switch jobs at any time and make your own personal party with the jobs you enjoy most. And when you stick with them you get their legendary equipment piece when reaching job level 99 and this equipment is usually pretty cool. It is extremely fun to browse through all of the jobs and see what they can do, what their stats are and their synergies with other jobs. Buying/Finding new equipment and spells is always pretty fun because they usually are big upgrades from what you had before, so they feel impactful. Generally the gameplay and the systems attached to it are pretty fun. What isn't fun though is the overall difficulty pacing of the game. This game is usually kind of difficult, but still very manageable. But there are some instances where the game implicitly forces you to use specific jobs for a specific boss fight or dungeon or else it gets frustratingly difficult out of nowhere. I hated the Garuda boss fight not only for that reason, but because in the story you cannot leave the town before beating him, so grinding that might be necessary is extremely limited and tiresome. The dungeon with the earth fang where you basically have to use Dark Knights is also very bad. You are almost forced to use that job and the enemies only give small amounts of EXP. All in all it's an awful dungeon. I always flee from the battles there so I don't have to bother with the fights. These parts of the game are just the worst. The secret boss of the game is also atroucious. The boss itself is fine and cool and all, but reaching the point where you are actually strong enough to be able to fight him is just unfun. Usually you are around level 40 to 60, depending on how you play, when you finish the story. The recommended level for the secret boss is 99. And grinding to even near that level takes an ennoyingly amount of time which is just unnecessary. It took me 50% of the time it took me to finish to whole game, just to grind up to defeat that boss and even then I barely won. You can use a specific job combo for your team and by having job level 99 for these jobs you are basically good to go. But what if I don't want to use these jobs and that very specific strategy that you are forced to use? In both cases it is generally not worth it to fight him. Dungeons themselves are as basic as the story and the characters, but the last three dungeons of the game are extremely cool and epic. They are I bit to long (especially the crystal tower) and if you die you have to do the whole thing all over again. But that doesn't apply to any other version of Final Fantasy III (FF3) after the DS remake, because of autosaves.
Content:
This game is relatively short. It has its 20-25 hour long main story, some mini side-quests and one secret boss. The sad part is that to be able to do any of the side and post game content you need to send letters to another DS with it's own FF3 game. Locking that content in such a way is not player friendly for people outside of Japan, where the chances are way higher to meet people to do this with. Or else you need two DSs and two FF3s and do it with yourself. Luckily every other 3D version after the DS remake has that content integrated into the game by default.
Replay value:
I think this game has amazing replay value. Thanks to the fact that the game is relatively short and simple you can replay it a bunch with different job combinations every time. I think FF3 is my most replayed game in general because of that.
Conclusion:
I like this game. It belongs to one of my favorite games ever. Even though it is the worst game out of my personal best games. It is really rough around the edges when it comes to consistent balancing and game flow, but the gameplay systems are fun enough to at least experience the main story.
Story:
Nothing outstanding. It is not bad, but there isn't anything good either. It is just extremely generic and there isn't really anything to talk about.
Characters:
It is nice that the protagonists got their own character design and personality in the remake. But they are no Sora or Cloud when it comes to the individual characters themselves. Just as basic as the story, although the designs are kind of nice.
Music:
The music is also very generic. It has some cool tracks here and there though.
Gameplay:
The gameplay is fine. It is basic traditional turn based combat. The coolest part is unlocking new jobs and using their abilities. Additionally you can switch jobs at any time and make your own personal party with the jobs you enjoy most. And when you stick with them you get their legendary equipment piece when reaching job level 99 and this equipment is usually pretty cool. It is extremely fun to browse through all of the jobs and see what they can do, what their stats are and their synergies with other jobs. Buying/Finding new equipment and spells is always pretty fun because they usually are big upgrades from what you had before, so they feel impactful. Generally the gameplay and the systems attached to it are pretty fun. What isn't fun though is the overall difficulty pacing of the game. This game is usually kind of difficult, but still very manageable. But there are some instances where the game implicitly forces you to use specific jobs for a specific boss fight or dungeon or else it gets frustratingly difficult out of nowhere. I hated the Garuda boss fight not only for that reason, but because in the story you cannot leave the town before beating him, so grinding that might be necessary is extremely limited and tiresome. The dungeon with the earth fang where you basically have to use Dark Knights is also very bad. You are almost forced to use that job and the enemies only give small amounts of EXP. All in all it's an awful dungeon. I always flee from the battles there so I don't have to bother with the fights. These parts of the game are just the worst. The secret boss of the game is also atroucious. The boss itself is fine and cool and all, but reaching the point where you are actually strong enough to be able to fight him is just unfun. Usually you are around level 40 to 60, depending on how you play, when you finish the story. The recommended level for the secret boss is 99. And grinding to even near that level takes an ennoyingly amount of time which is just unnecessary. It took me 50% of the time it took me to finish to whole game, just to grind up to defeat that boss and even then I barely won. You can use a specific job combo for your team and by having job level 99 for these jobs you are basically good to go. But what if I don't want to use these jobs and that very specific strategy that you are forced to use? In both cases it is generally not worth it to fight him. Dungeons themselves are as basic as the story and the characters, but the last three dungeons of the game are extremely cool and epic. They are I bit to long (especially the crystal tower) and if you die you have to do the whole thing all over again. But that doesn't apply to any other version of Final Fantasy III (FF3) after the DS remake, because of autosaves.
Content:
This game is relatively short. It has its 20-25 hour long main story, some mini side-quests and one secret boss. The sad part is that to be able to do any of the side and post game content you need to send letters to another DS with it's own FF3 game. Locking that content in such a way is not player friendly for people outside of Japan, where the chances are way higher to meet people to do this with. Or else you need two DSs and two FF3s and do it with yourself. Luckily every other 3D version after the DS remake has that content integrated into the game by default.
Replay value:
I think this game has amazing replay value. Thanks to the fact that the game is relatively short and simple you can replay it a bunch with different job combinations every time. I think FF3 is my most replayed game in general because of that.
Conclusion:
I like this game. It belongs to one of my favorite games ever. Even though it is the worst game out of my personal best games. It is really rough around the edges when it comes to consistent balancing and game flow, but the gameplay systems are fun enough to at least experience the main story.
DeltaWDunn
5 months ago