I feel I have a history with the Final Fantasy series. We never actually owned any RPGs on the SNES or 64, but when we got our GBA, we apparently stocked up. I really connected with the series, it’s quite well-made and just gets more ambitious and interesting as it goes on. So, having played 1& 2, 4, 5, and 6, I felt something was missing. Going beyond into the 3D-era ones would be crossing a line I can’t come back from. But finishing out the hexology, I can get on board with.

Of course, that makes this the first FF game I’ve played that’s not sprite-based. The NES original never left Japan, even when they remade a whole bunch for GBA. It took until the DS to redo it, and in doing so they made a lot of big changes. The main characters were faceless cyphers, much like FF1, but now they had names and personalities. On the other hand, sacrifices had to be made as the engine was seemingly not optimised enough, meaning less monsters per battle.

Of course, being released so late like this, inevitably I and many others had played another 3 sequels which had built upon it. The result is a feeling of taking a step back. The plot is more basic, with few interesting revelations. The job system is less fleshed out than 5, with less abilities and the necessity to grind when switching to overcome an adjustment phase. On top of that you have basic problems of old RPGs like this, like additional grinding, a lack of direction, samey towns and environments.

I may have had trouble engaging with this game as much as I did the others. The factors I mentioned are partly to blame, the control scheme (a passable but still unwieldy touch interface) didn’t help matters. The characters weren’t too appealing either; maybe I’ve seen it all before at this point, or maybe I wasn’t taking the game as seriously as when I was a young'un. I don’t know. Maybe I was expecting more, but why? I’ve seen the 3 improvements on what this game had to offer, especially FF5.

It had its unique aspects that helped it stand out from the classic FF crowd. An array of airships with different properties is new. Guest party members following you around is new, although they don’t pop into battle as often as you’d like. Getting letters from different characters is nice. The magic system (which was also used in FF1 NES, but not the remake) is refreshingly different, with charges of different tiered spells. The floating continent is a cool way to start the game and get the reveal of a larger ruined world, although FF6 uses these tropes differently. That particular fact doesn’t have much consequence though, and the latter half of the game is a bit of a jumbled mess. If I hadn’t been using a walkthrough I don’t know if I’d stick with it.

Things just sort of happen in this game. There’s a backstory of warriors of darkness to balance the cycle, much as your protagonists are now the warriors of light (as usual). But the cycle stuff isn’t really developed and I was expecting a reveal of some characters I knew being said warriors, but they turned out to just be 4 generic dudes in the final dungeon. And then in true old JRPG fashion, the bad guy who’s been built up is replaced at the last minute with a cosmic thing, then you kill it. Then credits.

In the end the game doesn’t leave much of an impression. Luneth, Ingus, Refia, and Arc are no Bartz, Lenna, Faris, and Galuf. Xande is no Golbez. Unei and Cid are cool but they don’t do much. And those four old guys just fail as comic relief. The 3D models too, somehow end up seeming less expressive than the sprites I remember.

Unfortunately, I can’t recommend FF3. It seems important to play it as the last remaining piece of the “classic FF” era, but it sticks out being the one that’s not simply improved from the original. And so much of what it’s trying to do has been done much better by the other games. The plot is unremarkable, the combat is slow, the 3D update and added gimmicks are unnecessary. But at least now I can do the list thing. Let’s see… 6<5<4<1<2<3. That’ll do.