Final Fantasy III Pixel Remaster

It has been really fun playing through the original 2D Final Fantasy games. I resisted the urge to start blogging about Final Fantasy III for the last two weeks. Geekily enough, as I have played through I have kept a few notes and I have taken some screenshots to talk about my impressions of playing the "original" Final Fantasy III. 

Three days before my 10th birthday, April 27th 1990, Final Fantasy III was released. I knew exactly nothing about the game's release and it would be more than a decade later that I would find myself frustrated that I could not truly complete my Final Fantasy collection. I would be 26 years old before actually laying my hands on a Nintendo DS remake of this game that I was fairly confident was not faithful to the original Famicom game. 

While the Pixel Remaster edition of the game is not the original "NES" version, I suspect it is much closer than the DS gameplay which was made to capitalize on the 2 screen Nintendo DS. I enjoyed the DS version of the game immensely in spite of the fact it was a game targeted at a significantly younger audience. The same drive that made me want to play the original Dungeons and Dragons adventures like Temple of Elemental Evil wanted me to play a 2D version of FFIII. Honestly, I doubted it would ever happen. 

I was obviously delighted when the 2D Pixel Remaster version of FFIII was announced. I hesitated for about 13 heart beats before buying the bundle on Steam. Suddenly, I could fulfill the fever dream of 20 something year old me of owning all of the Final Fantasy Games on the same platform. I had a few questions about the game that I couldn't wait to have resolved for me. 

 My first suspicion was confirmed when I started the game and I was asked to name my characters. Lunetch, Refia, Arc, and Ignus were given individual personalities and names in the remake. Back story was added to the remake having Luneth falling into the cave (a bit to similar to Randi's story in Secret of Mana's origin for my taste) and then connecting with Arc back in his adopted village. Then you meet Refia who is the daughter of the smith in the next town, and Ignus who is Princess Sara's loyal guard. 

None of that happens in the Remaster. The 4 orphans are all raised by Elder Topapa. While the first part of both games (function as a tutorial and) are very brief, there are certainly at least an extra hour or so of content to the start of the game in the 3D version. I actually prefer the shorter Remaster version for this part of the game. It didn't feel as juvenile. 

The Warriors of Light all start as Onion Knights which is an interesting hybrid Fighter Magic user that puts me in mind of a Red Mage. in FFIII Red Mage is strong but isn't able to use swords which is a little frustrating. I pretty quickly built a completely powerful and totally unbalanced party of Red Mage and three Black Mages. It dominates for about 70 -75% of the game. I returned back to it as seen below when it comes time to join Doga on the path to the Eureka Key. 

The job system for FFIII is fun. There are quite a few jobs like Geomancer, Bard, Viking, Evoker, Ranger, and (with the exception of one fight) Scholar that I just do not bother with. The fight with Hein is one of the most frustrating in the game if you prep for it wrong. Playing from memory and story prompts from in game I remembered this barrier shifting douche nozzle. I should not have wasted time levelling Knight. Hein just needs patience, healing, and a great nuker to take his annoying self down. Being able to change jobs between fights is great.  Most of the fun jobs come mid to late game, and the final Crystal doesn't unlock Ninja or Sage. You have to take a field trip to get those. It is well worth your time. 

The DS version of the game is undeniably cute. There are individual renders of each character doing each job. The DS version also starts the kids off as Freelancers. Onion Knight becomes a late game quest making it a time suck to level up much like Ninja and Devout in the Pixel Remaster. This takes Grind it Out to a new level of interest if you want to really do the game up right. 

Even without the 3D, FFIII has some cute touches. Check out the screenshot below. When a Dark Knight character dies he apparently follows in the path of Obi Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker leaving behind no corpse only his chest armor and helmet. Adorable. Meanwhile my very dead White Mage and Black Mage show off their dead feet. It is a cute touch. I cannot say I let every character die to look for other cute things like this, but the Dark Knight stood out. 

Of course Dark Knights are part of FF lore. I have always held the view that Garland was a Dark Knight in the first game. Leon was the first playable Dark Knight though this didn't stand out much in Final Fantasy II. My love affair with Dark Knights came from Final Fantasy IV and the short time that Cecil has not yet gone through the trial to become a Paladin. Maybe it was because of all the love I had for antiheroes in the 90s, but I always wanted a way to play through FFIV without converting Cecil. 

It is nice to get some time with Dark Knight, Dragoon, and Summoner in FFIII. Oddly enough having played most all of the series FFIII plays as a nostalgia game even though it originated playable versions of these classes. It gave Dragoon the Jump ability. FFIII introduced the list of summons Chocobo, Shiva, Ifrit, Ramuh, Titan, Leviathan, Odin, and Bahamut. I abandoned levelling Magus having put 99 levels into my primary Black Mage and turned him into a Summoner. Running down Bahamut, Leviathan, and Odin was a really fun series of sidequests. 

The biggest downside of FFIII that I found came from length and story. Grinding my characters to end game strength was fun, but when I killed Odin in two rounds I knew I would have no struggle with the Crystal Tower. I was 100% correct about this. I even swapped out the aforementioned summoner to level a 2nd Ninja. MP is a finite resource, but sword swings apparently are not. I went into the end game with Two Ninjas, a Dragoon (99th Job Level, baby!), and a Devout. Even on the boss battles I was not outmatched. 

 I finished the game in about 21 and half hours with all the summons, spells, and legendary weapons. That puts it more on par with the content of the first game than the second where I ground out 50 plus hours on. I was not disappointed by this. Maybe I was a little surprised. I feel like the DS version was 40+ hours of game. 

I have always been a little frustrated the the bait and switch at the end of FFIII. You spend 20 hours of game ready to take out Xande the rouge Ancient mage only to find out he has been corrupted and controlled by the Cloud of Darkness. I appreciate a sexy cosmic cloud of evil as much as the next guy, but maybe the twist wasn't necessary. Foreshadow the Cloud a bit more and put a bit more content between her a Xande the way IV puts plenty between Golbez and Zemus. I mean you have the same problem with both stories that you disengage after taking out the primary antagonist, but it feels worse in FFIII.

All of that aside FFIII is my favorite of the first three games. It feels like the formula for a great FF game had been arrived at. The lore feels consistent. The standards feel as if they were set for what comes next. I think it really drove the quality up for FFIV. That lead to one of my all time favorites. So much so that I was ready to smash right into my next replay of IV. 

I would bet I have played FFIV through at least a dozen times and it never gets old. I have never walked away from a replay incomplete. IV and VI are by far my favorite 2D games and some of the best in the series overall. I promise I won't grind through FFIV in less than 50 hours. More than likely it will be closer to 70...which I really like. 

The only catch to that is the Pixel Remaster of Final Fantasy IV doesn't release until September 8th! How did I miss that IV, V, and VI aren't available for download yet? More importantly what am I going to do with my game time for the next 10 days? 

I guess I will try to stay out of Skyrim.