Final Fantasy III is surprising in its competence. There are very solid ideas in its gameplay and story, and while it doesn’t do much to amaze, it remains very enjoyable for most of its journey. It’s very much a classic Final Fantasy with a fun progression system that would go on to be a series favorite, used in future titles to varying degrees of success.

• The plot can be slightly vague at times which will sometimes lead to you getting lost, but you can usually just talk to NPCs to get an idea of where you need to go next. There are some fun moments in the story, but overall this is an extremely lite element of the experience as a whole.
• The DS Remake creates true characters out of the playable characters, adding backstories, default names, and unique designs to them. Side characters are likable but not deep– barring a few examples who receive minor depth through a ‘mail’ system and some cutscenes here and there.
• There’s a surprising amount of world-building in FFIII. You get hints of events that precede the main narrative, and you feel like part of something bigger. Otherwise, the story is rather simple and uninteresting, but because it isn’t the main focus it likely won’t greatly diminish your enjoyment. It isn’t bad, it simply isn’t great.

• • Final Fantasy III pioneers the Job System which adds a good amount of variety and tactics to battles. You unlock various jobs at key points in the story, each with their own special stats, abilities, equipment restrictions, and designs. You can assign your four characters any of those unlocked jobs in any combination.
  • The combat is true turn-based and is as fun as it is frustrating, depending on your behind-the-scenes dice rolls that determine not only damage output but the order in which each character takes their turn which can lead to unnecessary healing or the enemy getting their turn in just before you, thwarting your plans and sometimes wasting that entire turn.
  • Menus can be a bit sluggish sometimes, both in combat and in the overworld. This can often lead to mis-presses that result in your immediate demise, and is otherwise simply annoying to deal with.
  • The random encounter rate can be a bit insane, but the rate actually decreases due to things like your playable character being a particular job, and I think even by being super over-leveled for the area.
  • Navigating FFIII is mostly a fun endeavor because of the exploration therein. Dungeons are diverse and fun to navigate with rewards and fights around every corner. The overworld has no minimap, requiring the player to either draw one, mentally map it out, or use in-game items/spells to keep track, which better invests you in the world itself.

• I played the DS Remake on Steam, and I have to say they did a wonderful job with the visuals. The character designs are adorable, the world is vibrant, and everything is just exciting to look at. The style of this game is probably my favorite thing about it.

• The music is very solid. There are a few standout songs, such as Crystal Tower and The Cave Where the Crystal Lies, but overall is simply there to service the ambiance and story when needed. While it doesn’t reach the heights of later games in the series such as FFVI,  FFVII, or FFVIII, it’s clear that this was pretty revolutionary stuff for the time.
• The sound effects are fine and do their job, but one annoyance I had is the effect added to scene transitions. This can become rather grating when you’re running through castles and caves that have a lot of transitions.

• It’s pretty minor, but I love the sprint feature in the remake. This is something that not only added convenience to the exploration part of the game, but just generally showed the care and attention put into remaking it.
• The final dungeon is absurdly unforgiving. Without spoiling anything, it is effectively 3 dungeons back-to-back with no saving or rest points (4 dungeons if you include an optional one that contains near-mandatory loot.) During this gauntlet, there are I think 6 bosses you have to defeat, including the final boss. This was probably the only point in the game I was genuinely not having fun, because when I wasn’t having to outright start the dungeon over, I was being forced to grind so I had any hope of beating it in the single run it requires.
• The effort put into the remake of this game is fantastic, and I actually think it’s a better remake than the one Final Fantasy IV received, if only slightly and for different reasons. I think the menus are better, the free-range of motion is better, and I personally enjoy the art of this one more than FFIV’s, but that’s more of a matter of personal taste.

I have very few complaints with the game, and overall I really enjoyed myself. I found the true turn-based combat to be ironically fresh, and the Job System adds just enough variety to spice things up from time to time at your discretion. I’m surprised with how much I like this game, and I will absolutely be coming back to it in the future.

I can recommend this to anyone wanting to scratch that old school ‘Crystal Fantasy’ itch with a pretty lite story in lieu of a focus on gameplay.