Is this the FINAL Fantasy? I don't think so...
Final Fantasy III follows a classic Final Fantasy storyline in that it places you in a world in the distant future on a planet that is near extinction. You are one of the last Magic-users left on the planet, and you must use your powers to bring the world from the brink of destruction. That's pretty much the just of it. But along the way, you meet some interesting people who try to help you remember your past, which apparently you have forgotten because you were under the control of the Empire.
Out of all of the Final Fantasy games that I have ever played, Final Fantasy III really takes advantage of the abilities commands. In fact, they liked being able to do extra things so much, that they give you about five different commands for abilities: Magic, Magitech, Special, ect. (Note: Magitech is pretty much just magic, except it's the standard attack form used by the giant walking machines.) Also, they improved the Steal command to near perfection in this one. Unfortunately, one of the big turn offs for me about this game was that the main character is a girl. I mean, it's hard to imagine a single girl going against the entire Empire alone like some kind of Die Hard movie. And the fact that she is wanted dead by the Empire, and they keep sending waves and waves of soldiers at her, seems kind of ridiculous that they can't catch one girl who can't remember her own name! How does that work?
In the mean time, this game uses a classic active battle system, similar to that of Chrono Trigger. You select what you want to do once the bar fills up, and then your character does it. The enemy may attack whenever there bar fills up, and enemy bars fill up at random moments depending on the speed and when it starts filling. Therefore, battling is a bit slow because you don't attack immediately after your bar fills up, rather roughly five to fifteen seconds afterwards, thus giving your allies enemies more time to fill up.
The reason I disliked weaponry in this game is that weak weapons are mithril weapons, and stronger weapons have weaker names. I think Square just wanted to mix it up a bit to see how the fans would like it. I found it just confusing, because you start off with mithril this and mithril that, where every game that I had played before that, mithril weapons and armor were ridiculously powerful.
Graphically, Final Fantasy III looks pretty good in battle, with well-designed enemies and allies. Battle animations are a bit outdated, but are still pretty intact and attractive. Out of battle, the graphics are fair at best, with some scenes making you scratch your head trying to figure out what kind of situations are trying to be portrayed with the sprites. It helps that cutscenes have facial expressions to show what emotion the game is trying to portray. However, even some of the cutscenes cannot be saved by the facial expressions in the dialogue boxes.
Audio quality is pretty smooth, with very few low quality audio tracks, and many well-placed sound effects. For instance, rivers finally sound like actually running water in this game, verses static sounds in other games. Some of the battle audios are pretty decent, with a few glitchy sound effects during battle that skip a couple times after the attack has already been executed, but other than that it's pretty good.
Here's the breakdown:
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Storyline: 8 out of 10
Battle System: 8 out of 10
Gameplay: 10 out of 10
Graphics: 8.5 out of 10
Audio: 10 out of 10
Sidequests and Mini-Games: 5 out of 10
Replay Value: 8.5 out of 10
Overall Score: 8 out of 10
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Although Final Fantasy III introduced smoother graphics and an overall improved interactive experience, it failed to deliver on a few key points that made it less appealing than some of the other classic RPGs for the Super Nintendo. I recommend this game to fans of the Final Fantasy franchise or series, fans of RPGs, fans of classic RPGs, and fans of classic SNES games.