A mediocre remake of an 18-year old game.
I guess most people would have liked to see an improved game play system, but squenix left us cold and simply used the traditional turn-based system from the original.
The story is viewed from a perspective of 4 main characters, who need to protect the world from destruction. The difference from original game is that the main characters now have names and back stories, which gives the game somewhat more background (and depth). Still, no miracles can be expected from the story, which remains true to the 18 years old roots.
FF3 was the first FF game to deliver professions into the series, which is good but nothing stellar in the year 2008. Every character in the team can take a profession and as the game goes on he improves on it (archer, black mage, etc). Unfortunately, professions can't be combined (like in FF5), which is a huge letdown.
Overall, the gameplay part has received the least amount of attention from the development team. Game difficulty is pretty high, and you can only save the game on the world map, but not in dungeons. Needless to say, this can get very frustrating as the dungeons get longer and longer and more difficult as well. There is A LOT of battles in each dungeon and the turn based system really starts to get annoying after a while. Okay, this was standard 18 years ago, but people may not be exactly happy nowadays.
To conclude, the game is most definitely not for beginners or occasional players, because it requires full devotion from the player, and a lot of time, patience and persistence. Still, the game glows with that charm that every final fantasy game seems to have, and will definitely reward fans of the series, but even they will have to admit it's just an old game with better graphics.
7.0/10