If you were looking for Gogo, Umaro, Terra, Setzer and the rest... sorry.
1996 called, they want their flawed numbering convention back.
Nope, this is the REAL Final Fantasy III, full of... well, four stock characters who
didn't originally have names or stories but now do.
It took sixteen years, but in 2006 the western world finally got to enjoy the "lost" Final
Fantasy, so now the whole Onion Knight thing and the weird artifacts in FFIX kinda almost
make sense.
More importantly, we got to see the origin of the famous Final Fantasy job system!
No, it didn't start in Tactics.
No, it didn't start in V. It started right here, but for the NES, and by that I mean
the Famicom, in 1990.
And it all starts with a kid falling down a hole.
Yes, you're never going to forget that this is a DS title, as dialogue sometimes pops
up on the previously-abandoned top screen or the menu screen slides the entire bottom
screen to the top... let's face it, this is certainly the "gimmicky" era of DS gameplay.
But I'll certainly take the ability to directly point-and-click your abilities and attacks
onto the field of battle.
That's a nice touch.
Anyway.
This kid and three other kids who had personalities grafted onto them for this version but who
were completely blank slates in the original are chosen by the crystals to bring light
and hope into these dark times, because apparently they think that you put the game in your machine
and played through ten minutes or so without noticing the words "FINAL FANTASY" prominently
displayed in a number of places.
What commences is... well, let's be honest.
They took the whole of Final Fantasy II and threw it out the damned window.
We're back to Vancian casting, we're not obligated to punch each other just to get functional
levels of HP, and you don't have to juggle passwords from NPC to NPC.
You do, however, have to deal with a gaggle of orphaned children, thus beginning the decline
of JRPGs into glorified day-care services, specializing in saving the world from clouds
of darkness.
About an hour in, and after clearing a dungeon that mostly wants for the strategy "Buy 40
potions, slam everyone in the back row, and mess up some undead," you unlock the ability
to switch your team's jobs around, a skill which will be largely unused since, strictly
speaking, nothing's stopping you from just rolling that Monk for eighty-some levels.
Getting into the nitty-gritty of how to best manage this system would involve breaking
down any number of growth charts, and I'm not your pediatrician.
You get new jobs, which may have diversified magical capabilities or new special attacks,
and you get a lot of flexibility as you play.
Granted, the ability to grab powers from other jobs won't make an appearance until FFV, but
this is pretty awesome in the moment.
After a rather rocky early game, you won't have any issue unloading big numbers and 25-hit
combos at your leisure.
The biggest deviation from the Famicom original is, of course, the completely rebuilt graphics.
FFIII was long thought unportable due to the sheer size of the cart they used on the Famicom,
which would've required massive restructuring even for later platforms like the Wonderswan.
This 3D version, though, brings us all the action with kinda-chibi, kinda-Tactics-lookin',
noseless characters, walking around fully-rendered dungeons and occasionally requiring a quick
shift of the camera to notice a particular switch or anomaly.
The music is a loving update of one of Uematsu's most underappreciated scores, and one which
will be very familiar to anyone like me who can't seem to quit XIV.
Final Fantasy III isn't going to jump out and grab you, but to any loyal friend and
true it's still an important experience and a part of this balanced breakfast.
I mean, Final Fantasy collection.