Eh! Get a Job, Mate!

Going back through and playing the Pixel Remaster versions of Square-EnixFormed from the unification of Squaresoft (home studio of Final Fantasy) and Enix (creators of Dragon Quest) this combined company is the largest game studios in the world. From action to adventure titles and, of course, JRPGs, Square Enix has become one of the biggest names in gaming.’s Final Fantasy series is an interesting experience. It’s not as though these remasters (or remakes, or whatever you want to call them) drastically deviate from the source material. The goal for these games was to take the original versions and make a new port that was true to the original experience while only marginally adjusting the games into line to run more in parallel with the later SNES titles. For Final Fantasy that meant adjusting the leveling system and including some items not found in the original title. For Final Fantasy II that meant easing back the difficulty some and making the weird stat leveling system a little less obtuse. In both cases the games were so early in the life of the series that the original versions didn’t even really know what they were doing, so their adjustments certainly felt necessary.

The case is different for Final Fantasy III, though. The game is functionally the most complete vision for what Final Fantasy could be on the NES. Taking the classes from the first game and translating them into a more robust job system was a great choice, as was ditching most of the weird skill leveling from the first sequel (although leveling up the jobs did convey some bonuses onto the character’s skill growth). The third NES title really pushed the series forward, solidifying core concepts and illustrating just what the series could be going forward.

And yet the game never made its way over to the U.S. Due to how long it took for the original Final Fantasy to come to Western shores (released in 1987 in Japan, but not brought to the U.S. until 1990), the NES was already heading towards its end of life over here, and it didn’t make sense to bring over Final Fantasy II or Final Fantasy III. Instead Final Fantasy IV was brought over as “Final Fantasy II” (which absolutely didn’t create any confusion down the road, nuh uh), and the two Japan-only sequels were considered “lost media”. Eventually Final Fantasy II was ported and released in the U.S. in combo packs with the original game (as part of Final Fantasy Origins on the PSX and Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls on the GBA), but Final Fantasy III didn’t get the same treatment.

The Pixel Remaster set is the first real port of the original Final Fantasy III in the U.S. (a DS remake of the game at least brought a version over, although it remixed many elements of the original game, and added in a full plotline that hadn’t existed before, making it feel like a distinct game). And with that in hand, this remaster lets the original title shine… while also illustrating the flaws in Final Fantasy III’s implementation of its own mechanics. It’s a solid game that’s fun to play, but within the bounds of the Pixel Remaster package the game gets outshone by another title in the set.

As we covered before in the review of the NES title, Final Fantasy III is a globe-trotting adventure that sees our band of four little Onion Knights stumble upon the first of four magical crystals. The crystal tells them that the whole world is in danger and they’re the chosen four Warriors of Light destined to save everything. Given new jobs to equip (like Fighter, Red Mage, Monk, and Black Mage), the children set off to explore their continent… only to discover it’s a floating chunk of land that’s part of a larger world, and that their quest is even bigger than they could have ever expected.

Final Fantasy III takes the core idea of the very first game in the series – four Warriors of Light going around the world, fighting elemental bosses and lighting elemental crystals – and fleshes out the experience. As much as I love the original Final Fantasy, it’s hard to ignore the fact that it is a very basic, very limited RPG experience. It was Square’s first shot at making this kind of game, and they were defining many of the rules for the genre as they went along. Final Fantasy has solid core mechanics, but it has almost no real story, and the experience feels very basic and very linear.

Final Fantasy III broadens the scope of the original world. It’s still a fairly linear quest (in a way it’s even more linear than the first game in the series), but its massive world, with many varied characters, makes the whole thing feel more interesting, more expansive. The dungeons are frequently more interesting, there’s more to do in each area, and the whole world is brimming with things to look at, areas to explore, and secrets to find. Moving through the world feels like stumbling upon one interesting set piece after another, with the game never slowing down.

The best aspect of the game, though, is the job system. Each crystal unlocks new jobs, and those jobs then give you new abilities to play with, no powers to explore. There’s a lot of variety in the jobs, and while many of them boil down to “melee type” or “mage type”, you get different special powers that make each job interesting to explore. The upgrade from Fighter to Knight is fairly linear, with Knight gaining the ability to guard weak members, but otherwise basically being a Fighter, but better. But Dark Knight, Dragoon, and Viking have more interesting ideas in mind, different weapons to use, new powers to throw out in battle, that you do feel a certain amount of growth in your strength as you go from job to job.

And that’s great… right up until you get to the end game when it feels like things kind of fall apart. The Pixel Remaster doesn’t adjust any part of the original game, so you functionally have the last of the main crystals, the Earth Crystal, show up right at the end, giving you obvious upgrades to your classes (Magus over Black Mage, Devout over White Mage, and Summoner over Evoker) that effectively nullify the previous jobs, giving you no reason to go back to them. They’re like the upgrade from Fighter into Knight (or Monk into Black Belt) that makes the old job completely pointless in late game. And that’s then made even worse if you go get the two Eureka jobs in the secret portion of the final dungeon, Ninja and Sage, which are basically the previous classes distilled into two perfect jobs, Ninja and Sage. Why use any other classes when you have those?

This is something the next job-based game in the series, Final Fantasy V, corrected. There, each job not only has its own specific powers to rely on, but learning and using the jobs conveys real, useful powers to all the other classes you could use. Final Fantasy III has interesting ideas, but not all of the jobs are built the same, not all of them are as useful as others, and many jobs get left behind in the end game making them utterly useless with the right play style. Effectively Final Fantasy III had to walk so Final Fantasy V could run, and that’s clearest when you have both games in the same package and can compare them side by side.

Despite this, though, I don’t hate Final Fantasy III. In fact, the Pixel Remaster iteration actually gave me more love for the title. The improvements to music and graphics really make this game shine, upgrading a decent NES game into something truly gorgeous. And despite some of the flaws with the job system it was still incredibly innovative and a fun experience on its own. I had a blast going back through and playing this game again, this time in Pixel Remaster form, despite having gone through the adventure previously. And with the Boosts turned on, I could kick back and enjoy a fun, breezy experience the way it felt like it was meant to be.

So yes, Final Fantasy III isn’t perfect, but the Pixel Remaster makes it about as good as it ever could be. This is a fun game that shows a solid midpoint from where the series started to where, by the end of the SNES era, it was going to end up. Maybe it’s not the best job system title in the series, but it’s a fun experience in its own right that still lives up all these years later. Just do yourself a favor and embrace the boosts, auto-play functions, and bonuses this version provides. You won’t be disappointed.