After the first couple of hours in this game I thought I knew what my review would be. “This is like FF1 except better in every way.”
Unfortunately, the game couldn’t quite hold up.
To be clear, it has pretty much all of the greatness of FF1. The soundtrack is probably my favourite so far. It also introduces the job system, which is amazing. Summon magic is super cool. And offensive magic is finally balanced in a way that allows it to compete with regular attacks!
I didn’t spend much time talking about the positives but that’s because they’re simple to explain/are already in my FF1 review, so keep in mind that I love this game while I tell you about the negatives of this game.
I might not have been a fan of the FF2 story, but I can’t deny that it was ambitious and mechanically well told, it just wasn’t a story I enjoyed. In that regard, FF3 is a step back. The storytelling is disorganized, even worse than in FF1 and there are fewer cute side stories than in the first game.
One way the game tries to copy FF2’s approach to storytelling is by having temporary party members, but it doesn’t want your core party to be only 3 people so you end up having this powerful warriors and mages by your side doing exactly nothing in combat which just doesn’t really work for me.
As much as I love the job system, there are some issues with how it’s implemented here. Unlocking new jobs is weirdly paced. The second set of jobs takes a while to unlock and then you unlock the third set of jobs almost instantly. This third set of jobs has 2 jobs, Dark Knight and Evoker, that can’t equip anything for a while which is pretty disappointing. There is no non-caster job in the fourth set of jobs, so your non-casters stay in the third set for pretty long, and then the fifth set of jobs has a non-caster job so overpowered it’s basically mandatory.
As cool as the swapping of things is, it might just be a bit too free. I didn’t have teleportation or any of the curing magics equipped to my casters, I just swapped them in whenever I needed them and then swapped them out again. There are some locked doors in the midgame which you need a thief to open, but there’s nothing stopping you from just swapping one of your non-casters to a thief, opening the door, and then swapping back, so a locked door isn’t a reward for having a thief, it just means you need to spend a minute in menus.
While the stronger offensive magic, addition of summon magic, and extensive job system mostly made combat better, there are also some issues. Status effects on enemies aren’t as obvious as in previous games, and the initiative order is much less clear and more volatile. I wasted many healing spells on party members that were either still dead because the healer acted before the raiser or already dead because the enemy acted before the healer.
My biggest issue with the game is how much the ending drags on. There are 4 dungeons in a row (one of which is technically optional, but you really need the loot from it) and the enemies (especially the bosses) in the late game have way too much health. Fights against minibosses shouldn’t take 20+ minutes in a game like this.
But all of these issues are fairly minor compared to how much this game improves on the already pretty decent FF1.
Unfortunately, the game couldn’t quite hold up.
To be clear, it has pretty much all of the greatness of FF1. The soundtrack is probably my favourite so far. It also introduces the job system, which is amazing. Summon magic is super cool. And offensive magic is finally balanced in a way that allows it to compete with regular attacks!
I didn’t spend much time talking about the positives but that’s because they’re simple to explain/are already in my FF1 review, so keep in mind that I love this game while I tell you about the negatives of this game.
I might not have been a fan of the FF2 story, but I can’t deny that it was ambitious and mechanically well told, it just wasn’t a story I enjoyed. In that regard, FF3 is a step back. The storytelling is disorganized, even worse than in FF1 and there are fewer cute side stories than in the first game.
One way the game tries to copy FF2’s approach to storytelling is by having temporary party members, but it doesn’t want your core party to be only 3 people so you end up having this powerful warriors and mages by your side doing exactly nothing in combat which just doesn’t really work for me.
As much as I love the job system, there are some issues with how it’s implemented here. Unlocking new jobs is weirdly paced. The second set of jobs takes a while to unlock and then you unlock the third set of jobs almost instantly. This third set of jobs has 2 jobs, Dark Knight and Evoker, that can’t equip anything for a while which is pretty disappointing. There is no non-caster job in the fourth set of jobs, so your non-casters stay in the third set for pretty long, and then the fifth set of jobs has a non-caster job so overpowered it’s basically mandatory.
As cool as the swapping of things is, it might just be a bit too free. I didn’t have teleportation or any of the curing magics equipped to my casters, I just swapped them in whenever I needed them and then swapped them out again. There are some locked doors in the midgame which you need a thief to open, but there’s nothing stopping you from just swapping one of your non-casters to a thief, opening the door, and then swapping back, so a locked door isn’t a reward for having a thief, it just means you need to spend a minute in menus.
While the stronger offensive magic, addition of summon magic, and extensive job system mostly made combat better, there are also some issues. Status effects on enemies aren’t as obvious as in previous games, and the initiative order is much less clear and more volatile. I wasted many healing spells on party members that were either still dead because the healer acted before the raiser or already dead because the enemy acted before the healer.
My biggest issue with the game is how much the ending drags on. There are 4 dungeons in a row (one of which is technically optional, but you really need the loot from it) and the enemies (especially the bosses) in the late game have way too much health. Fights against minibosses shouldn’t take 20+ minutes in a game like this.
But all of these issues are fairly minor compared to how much this game improves on the already pretty decent FF1.
Archagent
1 year ago