I want to treat 2 aspects of the game, first being the game itself and second being Square-Enix.
Having never played Final Fantasy III this has been an absolute joy. I started the series with 6, followed by 7, 8 and 9 on the PSX and since then no Final Fantasy game has been able to grab in me the same way. It does show it age by how it doesn't display markers, doesn't warn you aboutI want to treat 2 aspects of the game, first being the game itself and second being Square-Enix.
Having never played Final Fantasy III this has been an absolute joy. I started the series with 6, followed by 7, 8 and 9 on the PSX and since then no Final Fantasy game has been able to grab in me the same way. It does show it age by how it doesn't display markers, doesn't warn you about areas too high level for you and an overall difficulty level making this RPG an actual challenge. No charging head-first into the area in this game.
With only 4 primary characters in your party, you get a good amount of customization with the job system without having to deal with switching out entire characters (and leveling them up individually). Next to the characters level you can give them a certain class. While their character level stays the same, they have to earn proficiency with each job. Not only does add variety it also gives you a reason to stick it out with the random battles. Even though grinding is required in this game, it doesn't consume as much time to be annoying (to me, anyway).
While the story isn't overwhelming (again, personal opinion), your goals are always clear as long as you bother talking to the NPC's and actually taking in what they have to say. This automatically gives you insight in the game world. Again, it's not overwhelming then again these are ~24 year old standards. I found it enjoyable overall.
The real issue with the game though, and this is the other point, is Square-Enix. After having bought FF7 and FF8 re-release on Steam I have mostly been unable to continue at certain points due to bugs / crashes to desktop. Which to an extent also made me paranoid about saving my games because I'd have no clue when the next crash would come up. This ruined the experience for me and I quickly gave up on them. Lucky these issues have not (yet) presented them on my version of FF3.
Though it's running stable, I do have to point out that keyboard controls are problematic. It hasn't taken kindly to me trying to map them differently. I simply ended up switching to controller which it luckily mapped all the keys for automatically (and correct). Next is how the game will cap itself to 30 frames per second, even though I have my refresh rate set to 120hz in the games' settings menu. It will do so on any resolution, windowed or not. It's not a huge issue, but it does show how badly the (already few) settings options were implemented.
Next is the fact of Square-Enix charging €13/$16 for what is basically a port of a port. I disagree with the pricing of FF7 and 8 on Steam as well, as these were already on PC. All they had to do was fix the compatibility (they got it to run, but I find the remaining issues too aggravating to even play them).
I waited for a sale when 7 and 8 came around, but not having played FF3 I figured it'd be worth spending some GMG credit on it. I am thus far not disappointed, but if you are already familiar with the original game, this probably won't be worth it outside of a minimum 50% discount. Though this will probably take 1 to 2 years as Square-Enix is very stingy with discounts on the Final Fantasy series (whilst they shower you with Hitman Absolution and Tomb Raider).
All in all I really liked the game as a Final Fantasy fan of 6 up to 9, also having never played 3. For that I have based my score on. Though if I were to consider 'value', it being, in the end a poorly optimized, overpriced port while having to remotely deal with Square-Enix, this would be more towards a 5 or 6. Though I'm choosing here not to hate the game for its publisher.… Expand
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