In my run-through of the entire Final Fantasy franchise, this was the first one that was frustratingly disappointing. The original version was annoying enough by keeping resting places super limited until way later in the game, meaning you had to backtrack halfway across the map just to restore your HP/MP, then spend the replenished characters getting back to where you were to begin with. This remake makes that more frustrating by seemingly amping up the random encounters (one literally occurred three steps after another one while playing on PC).

This remake tries to put a bandage on the dull story by inserting actual characters into it, but they are not interesting enough to care about and tend to fall back on stereotypical tropes that were old even in 2006.

The introduction of the now-classic "Jobs System" was a cool concept, but it feels like a creative step backwards from FFII's awesome "build-your-own" characters. In this game's predecessor, you could make any character fit any role you could imagine by focusing on weapon/magic types instead of being forced to restrict your character to a singular purpose in combat.

I'd recommend the Pixel Remaster of the original FFIII over this choppy DS port.