The NES Trilogy

Ooooo... Sparkly...

With the Dark Cloud defeated, another world has been saved and another Final Fantasy title can be crossed off the list. Final Fantasy III is done and with it, I am finished with all three NES Final Fantasy games. To sum them up in a word, brutal. These games were hard as all hell but finishing them feels great.

Despite being a technical step backwards to several of the older systems, Final Fantasy III was easily the best of the first three games. This was the first storyline I found I really cared about. Although it is certainly more primitive than newer titles and the writing isn't exactly Shakespeare, it was fun, had several supporting characters with distinct personalities, and told an epic tale about saving the world from an evil cloud. What more could you ask for in a game?

The gameplay felt the most balanced as well. We are back to using traditional level ups and they feel distinct and meaty. Each level gives a pretty massive boost in health as well as increasing your number of attacks every few levels which gives a huge attack bonus each time. Enemies felt strong but dungeons were balanced so as to be doable with the amount of magic you had in your arsenal. By the end of the game, magic never feels like something you have to constantly hold back either, since my Sage's each had several hundred casts when combining tiers. Even the level 8 magic had 17 casts which is pretty intense when you're sending out Bahamut over and over again.

Eat it, Cerberus!

Items have also been fixed from two so that instead of each item taking it's own slot, you can once again combine up to 99 of any one item. There was a limited enough backpack where you didn't feel you could just explore forever without hitting up a shop but I never felt like the backpack held me back (no pun intended).

The job system is also in its early stages but is way more interesting than the build-your-own-character style of Final Fantasy II. Basically, every crystal you find gives you new alternative jobs you can choose from. You can make any character, any job but it costs special Capacity Points to do so and each character has to level up each job individually (this is separate from the main character level). Capacity Points are handed out liberally though so not once did I ever even have to think about these.

The game isn't perfect, though. The graphics are starting to feel a little worn after being recycled almost entirely through three games. Sure there are some new sprites, new monsters and new buildings but the world map is mostly the same and many of the sprites have been used since the first game.

Also, the last few battles are a huge step up from the rest of the earlier fights. I made my way to Zande (Xande in the remakes) only to get struck down in one hit. I had to go grind for 12 levels just to survive this fight. Grinding is obviously a part of these early titles but it doesn't make it fun and the huge imbalance is quite noticeable. 

The job system also needs quite a bit of work to make it truly a joy. Most of the time, each job has a clear evolution path and the skill levels mean experimentation isn't really encouraged. By the end of the game, no matter what you choose before, each character will either be a Ninja or a Sage, anyway, as those are the best fighters/mages in the game by far. This obvious endpoint makes the rest feel a bit pointless.

As always, though, the music is a blast to listen to. Getting to the last area brings with it an exciting change of dungeon music that gets you pumped for the last fight. The chocobo theme got a much needed add-on, bringing up to the chocobo theme we all know and love. In two, it was just a 4-second loop that never ended which became obnoxious very fast.

Final Fantasy Hoedown

All in all, it's been a blast but I'm excited to move into the 16-bit era with Final Fantasy IV. For those interested, I'm using SNES9x emulator and a standard, no-frills Final Fantasy II (USA) rom to play. I was going to use ZSNES but it was making trouble with screenshots that seemed horribly unnecessary and SNES9x just played nicer, not to mention it was a smoother transition from Nestopia, with many of the same shortcuts.

Game on!

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Game Rankings:
Final Fantasy II < Final Fantasy < Final Fantasy III