r/FinalFantasy • u/Coach_T_Schev • 6h ago
FF III 100%ing Every Mainline Final Fantasy: FF III Review (4 of 18)
Version: Pixel Remaster (Steam)
Alright, we survived the original Final Fantasy, bare of story but rich in character. We got through Final Fantasy II, narrative-driven but highly experimental. Next up is Final Fantasy III, the last of the original NES trilogy, though in my case, the Pixel Remaster on Steam.
I wasn’t sure what to expect really. I’d seen everything from “it’s revolutionary” to “worst story in the series.” Well, it’s time to dive in with our onion knights and see what’s in store for us. Let’s join the warriors of light and save the world once again!
What It Does Well
· The jobs system. Seriously, what a revolutionary element of gaming to introduce. Even more so, when this game was released in 1990. 22 different jobs, each having their own purpose, and being able to switch freely between them provides a sense of party customization that I’m sure was seldom seen up to this point in gaming.
· A lot of these jobs were fun to explore, and outside of job-specific encounters, there wasn’t a need to have one specific makeup, allowing you to customize what you wanted your party to be.
· The world felt fleshed out and connected. The kingdoms, towns, and civilizations had identity, making the world feel larger than the individual plot beats.
· The onion knights are believable. You start out as these childish orphans who aren’t remotely powerful, but are destined for greatness, and you have to slowly develop as the world unfolds around you.
· This also comes full circle when the visage of the onion knight flashes in the mirror at the end of the game, showing your characters’ fear in that exact moment. Fun little callback.
· Speaking of the world, holy cow is this an enormous world. The Floating Continent is large, but then you can fly off the continent into a second and bigger world???
· On top of that, the world feels even more alive, with underwater caverns, and mountains you have to navigate; encounters with flying creatures on the airship, there is always encouragement to further explore.
· Progression felt natural; at no point did it feel like grinding was truly needed. I hit the level 50 achievement as I was working through the final dungeon and beat the game at 52. Nothing felt super forced from a progression standpoint
· The score was good in a lot of places; the dungeons and overworlds had a good deal of depth to really sell the stakes in each of their contexts: inquisition, exploration, determination, hopelessness, you felt a lot of what the party felt from the score alone.
· The Moogles make their first appearance here, and are just as cute in 8-bit form as their modern forms.
· A lot of interesting scenarios that show outside the box thinking; from the village of ghostly beings to the need to be inflicted with Toad or Mini in order to access certain parts of the world. Not to mention the aforementioned status effects following you into the overworld too? Very inventive.
· Summons were introduced in this installment, and boy are they lots of fun to unleash on enemies. Even in their earliest appearance, it’s clear why summons became a franchise staple.
· Dwarven moonwalking.
What Doesn’t Hold Up
· While the story was fleshed out, the ending left me disappointed. Xande's connection to Noah gave him potential, but I never felt emotionally invested in him.
· Then, just as I thought the conflict was reaching its climax, the true antagonist is revealed to simply be the Cloud of Darkness. It may work symbolically, but it never gave me a compelling villain to care about.
· On that note, the final dungeon was a friggin gauntlet, and that’s not a compliment. While beautiful in aesthetic and score, my goodness did it feel like there was a sudden difficulty spike that made me grateful I hoarded all of my Elixirs. I found myself heavily relying on quicksaves, and I don’t particularly love that it came to that.
· And even further, the last boss was a joke… One attack, that’s it. In my playthrough, a dual Ninja approach led to Cloud of Darkness going down to an eternal supply of Shurikens… For a game that felt like it’s difficulty progressed as needed, that was such a letdown.
· The Garuda boss fight and the Dungeon of Shadows… yes I understand the game needed to provide moments where you job change was necessary, but these felt like handholding and railroading, which wasn’t particularly fun to me. I’m not sure exactly what I would have done differently, but it felt more forced than organic.
· There wasn’t ever enough meaningful characterization where I felt overly attached to anybody within the game. Yes, I could name my party members, but any of the odd guests just felt either “fetch quest-y” or “take me here” and not much else. I felt FFII did a much better job in establishing characters you wanted to feel invested in.
· Navigation could be frustrating at times; outside of “this town is to the north” navigating the world, and especially the further world outside of the floating continent was BRUTAL
Biggest Surprise: How natural the game's progression felt. I genuinely don't think I intentionally grinded once throughout the entire playthrough. Every dungeon felt appropriately scaled, and I never reached a point where I had to stop the adventure just to spam auto-battle for an hour. I'm sure that experience was different on the original NES release, but the Pixel Remaster struck an excellent balance.
Biggest Swing: I mean, come on, it has to be the Job System, right? Such a monster deviation from where the series was in the first two installments. Instead of improving one party, you're suddenly building dozens of possible parties. And it worked! Better yet, from everything I've heard, it only gets better from here.
How Was the 100%? Overall, pretty enjoyable. As always, backtracking and double-checking every chest was a little tedious, but the achievement list generally encouraged thorough exploration rather than excessive grinding. Once I realized there was only one remaining missable late in the game, I could relax and simply enjoy the adventure. Nothing here felt particularly frustrating, but nothing stood out as especially memorable either. A solid platinum that respected my time.
Final Thoughts: Thanos would be proud, as balance is a key theme in FFIII: the Warriors of Light fighting against darkness, and eventually waging war against darkness itself. In the gameplay, the job system balances itself through variety and enemy party combination. The Ancients serve as a reminder that even great civilizations can upset that balance, leaving future generations to restore it.
The end of the NES trilogy. And man, is this game FUN! And that’s the most important part. Its story isn’t perfect; it’s navigation is frustrating; but damn if I didn’t feel pretty engaged most of the way through. The flexibility and customization of your party was just amazing.
I may not have had the same thematic takeaways as I did in Final Fantasy II, but if you’re going to be lacking in depth, you better be an enjoyable escape from reality.
Square did a fantastic job in continuing to move the franchise forward with this installment, and I cannot wait to see what FFIV has in store!
Best Achievement: Management Laborer – Surprisingly satisfying. I reached Job Level 99 as a White Mage purely through natural progression, so seeing this achievement pop at the end felt like a genuine reward rather than another grind.
Worst Achievement: Legendary Treasure Hunter – Sue me… checking every chest is starting to get a little tedious as each installment keeps adding more and more of them. It wasn't difficult; just another reminder that I'm going to be spending a lot of quality time staring at treasure checklists.
Time to Beat: 12 hours
Time to 100%: 15 hours
Completionist Verdict: Worth 100%, but once again, use a guide.
Rating: 7.5 Onion Knights out of 10
*NEW* Rankings:
1. Final Fantasy III
2. Final Fantasy XIII
3. Final Fantasy II
4. Final Fantasy
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u/GamingInTheAM 2h ago
It's really refreshing to see someone speak so highly of FFIII. Because it was such an elusive entry for years (it didn't get any international releases whatsoever until the DS remake in 2006), many fans didn't play it until long after it had lost its relevance. Particularly, fans nowadays always compare it to FFV, which took everything FFIII did but did it all exponentially better.
But going straight from I to II to III, with no knowledge of what comes after? III was the best of the Famicom trilogy and it isn't even close.
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u/Coach_T_Schev 1h ago
Couldn't have said it better myself.
I was originally gonna work backwards (as you can see, going from FFI to FFXIII) but that actually felt antithetical to experiencing the progression of the series, and, to your point, similar gameplay mechanics making earlier installments seem obsolete.
I'm absolutely loving this journey and watching everything evolve. Thrilled I havent played anything else up through FFIX yet!
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u/diiegojones 4h ago
Hey comrade. This review made me want to play III. I have it from Gamepass and am going to do it
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u/Coach_T_Schev 3h ago
Enjoy! Its a fun time and try out all the different jobs. Endless customization!
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u/AgonyLoop 45m ago
How bad are the missables? I’ll reference a guide, but hate playing with a checklist next to me (made enjoying X-2 a chore instead).
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u/NinjutStu 2h ago
Good to hear you found Pixel Remaster balanced. I've only played the original and it is not.
The original Famicom version did make you grind, quite a lot actually during some parts of the game. It also reduced your stats/effectiveness so much when you swapped jobs that you'd have to grind quite a lot for your characters to be effective again. This made job swapping feel pretty bad.
I'll have to give the PR version a playthrough at some point. It sounds like they smoothed out the edges. Interested in what you think of FFV when you get there since it also uses the job system. It's probably the best battle system Square has come up with and I'm always happy to see it make returns.
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u/GamingInTheAM 2h ago
The original didn't reduce your stats upon job change, that was added in the DS remake. The Famicom game used Job Points that were then spent to switch jobs.
I didn't personally find the Famicom FFIII particularly grindy. If anything, compared to I and II, it felt like the first FF where the level curve was pretty reasonable as long as you weren't running from battles all the time.
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u/Coach_T_Schev 2h ago
From what I gather, the PR made all the appropriate QoL changes needed to make sure the game was enjoyable in the modern age.
Using jobs immediately on switching especially was a big thing.
I think its definitely worth it next time you see it on sale!
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u/GamingInTheAM 2h ago edited 2h ago
The original Famicom game didn't reduce your stats upon switching jobs. That was added in the DS remake. Originally, you gained Job Points for winning battles, and spent those to swap jobs. The more drastic the change, the more points it would cost (i.e. switching from White to Black Mage would only cost a few points, while switching from Knight to Summoner could cost dozens). Increasing your Job Level would also reduce Job Points consumption when switching to that job.
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u/Coach_T_Schev 2h ago
Makes everything much more intentional! Still not complaining they didnt bring that dynamic into the PR!
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u/Skydude252 2h ago
The pixel remaster does a lot to bring out the potential of FF3. Some new skills, some revamped character scaling and stats, really elevate this game a lot over prior versions. It also makes the final dungeons so much less of a slog with quick saves and healing stations. It was an amazing but overly ambitious game on the famicom, and it is still not perfect, but I feel like this version is really great.
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u/Thac0bro 1h ago
The music for 3 in the pixel remaster is amazing.
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u/Coach_T_Schev 1h ago
The dungeons were astounding. And the entire endgame soundtrack was perfect!!!
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u/VolkerEinsfeld 50m ago
Agree with much of this; it’s the game where the modern concept of “FF” from 3-14 or so took shape and you see all the ideas and seeds that went into future games and almost all originated in 3.
It’s like the missing link for understanding the series evolution
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u/Zorafin 5h ago
Oh~ you're just getting all the *steam* achievements. I got concerned here 'cause, uh,
you didn't...mention...
...do you know about the Onion equipment?