Grin and bear it, there's a good game in here.
The DS has been out for near two years now, and in all this time we’ve never been handed a good, solid RPG for the system. Square has been teasing us all fall by sending plenty of games out their doors, Mario Hoops and Children of Mana come to mind, but they had yet to deliver one of their trademark breakthrough RPGs. Sure, there were a few half-hearted RPG releases on the system—the aforementioned Children of Mana, Lunar: Dragon Song, Deep Labyrinth, the list goes on—but none of them managed to strike gold, much less a chord in our hearts.
Here, with the release of Final Fantasy III, RPG fans have something to sink their teeth into. FF3 is a title that, while not perfect, is far and away the RPG of choice for the DS at the moment. First off, it’s an improvement on an already excellent game. FF3 on the DS is a remade version of the never-before-seen-in-North-America original Final Fantasy III. This story has never seen the light of day outside of Japan, so it was choice material for the DS’ first Final Fantasy. No, it’s not the Final Fantasy III you played on Super Nintendo with Locke the thief and his crew. Sorry. That was a great Final Fantasy but it was actually Final Fantasy VI, so don’t go getting excited for a remake of that one. That one is getting released on the Gameboy Advance next year. But I digress.
So here’s the skinny: Though you’ve probably never played this particular iteration of Final Fantasy before, its stalwart components are all still here. As per usual in any Final Fantasy created before 1997, there is trouble amiss in a vaguely medieval land, and at the bottom of it is an evil guy, in this example we have “Xande,” who’s working bad mojo on an ever-important crystal—or in this case, four crystals. You and your merry band of Chibi ass-kickers will promptly set off to shut Xande down and restore the land to its former Chocobo-breeding glory. While this may sound all well and good in terms of getting your Final Fantasy groove on, it will quickly become apparent that the above two sentences are the extent of the story that will be stretched across thirty-plus hours of gameplay. This, in short, is no good. In order to complete FF3, you’re going to have to dig deep into your dedication drawer and muster up whatever tolerance you have for boring storytelling. This is not to say that nothing ever occurs throughout the course of the game, it’s just that none of it ever comes to bear on you as the player, or your characters. Tensions do not arise between party members. Neither do friendships. Or histories. Or anything that might serve to make the characters, you know, interesting. But that’s alright, because it will be your own personal pride that will make it or break it for you in FF3, anyhow. If you’re anything like this reviewer, you’ll be pushing through FF3 solely on the basis that the game doesn’t want you to. This puppy is hard like a bed of concrete, and in order to play it you’re going to have to grit your teeth and enjoy the challenge. Power leveling will become your go-to move in this adventure, and the purest satisfaction will come from exhaustively exclaiming that “it’s about damn time” when you trounce a bossfight. If you can come to terms with this, or better still, if you hunger for it, then Final Fantasy will provide you with the gameplay you need. If you can’t see yourself sliding into either of one those categories, you may want to hold out on this one and stay on the bench until Final Fantasy: Revenant Wings hits shelves.
Speaking of pretty games, Final Fantasy III is among the top lookers on the DS right now. As far as DS RPGs go, FF3 sets the bar for visuals. Every character is animated in full 3D and sports a range of animations to supplement their dialogue so that the player can get a feel for the conversation. The world map is lush and the airships look sprung-to-life as they rip across it. Honestly, some of the later airships are a pleasure to have earned simply to fly the about the world to watch their oars slice through the air and their propellers churn it just as eagerly. Your characters’ individual weapons are modeled for the in-fight sequences, as is their respective attire for each job and the attention to detail does not go unappreciated as it’s the obvious strength of this particular Final Fantasy.
The other stand-out aspect of this FF title is the job system, mentioned only briefly above. Aside from having specific attention paid to it on the visual front, in the form of specific models for each character in each job and wonderful hand drawn art for each variation of character/job as well, the job system adds a layer of depth to Final Fantasy that is present only in rare cases. Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy V both sported job systems of their own, but its inclusion on the DS Final Fantasy is a treat just because it is such an uncommon aspect in the FF titles. Admittedly, the jobs—23 in all—lack the depth that I was hoping for upon hearing of them in the first place, but they were still welcome nonetheless. The idea of being able to outfit my party however I pleased was appealing, as I have an affinity for the Dragoon and Ninja classes, but I was disappointed that the jobs existed as separate entities. For instance, lower level jobs that seemed as though they would feed into higher level ones, such as the Monk class being the seed of the Black Belt class, didn’t exist. Regardless of your character’s proficiency as a Monk, once the option to select the Black Belt class becomes available, his previously accrued skills are not taken into account and you are effectively starting from scratch. It left me wondering more than a few times why I suffered using some of the lower level jobs, when, in the end, the experience put into them would never pay off later in the game. A minor frustration, but a notable one that annoyed me quite a bit come the halfway point of the game. However, the long and short of it, my friends, is this: if you need an RPG that you can bust out on the go, Final Fantasy III has your number. Great visuals, lots of challenge and considerable length make this title strong enough to stay in your collection for a while. Oh, and if you’re wondering about that beautiful FMV sequence in the game that’s all over the internet—sorry to be the bearer of bad news—you only get treated at the beginning of the game, and not once more.