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chuckroThe crystals have lost their light and the elements have once again gone out of control. It’s up to four youths blessed by the crystals to restore balance to the world against the flood of darkness.
I’d been meaning to play this for a while, because apparently it’s much closer to the original FF3 experience than the 3D remaster is. I had played that on DS, and then partially replayed the Android version of it a few years ago.
They did a good job of making the experience feel like Final Fantasy history with the rough edges sanded off: I got the impression they basically rebuilt the first six games to use mostly the same engines rather than the individual original ones, and this looks and feels very much like the GBA/Android remakes of FF1 and FF2 but starts to feel like FF4 and FF5 as well. It’s more linear than FF2 but opens up with exploration and sidequests like FF4 in the later game. The dungeon design feels like an evolution of the earlier games (and has far fewer dead ends and “monster closets” than FF2). For the American player who watched them jump from FF1 to FF4, this is absolutely a “missing link” in the development. In this version, they added quality of life features like auto-targeting, optimal equipment settings, an unlimited inventory, sensible autobattle (it repeats your last action), in-game minimaps, quick save/autosave, and purchasable Phoenix Downs. The difficulty is still a bit on the high side if you aren’t willing to take full advantage of the class system and grind for money/experience to do so—you can’t play this like FF1 with a “set it and forget it” class setup.
This game introduced the class changing system to the series and designed the game to force you to use it. In this version, they removed the “capacity points” from the original game (you got them by fighting and needed to spend them to switch classes, with “big” switches from fighter to mage costing more) in favor of each class gaining levels, and those levels seem to influence the fighting ability of that class. (Apparently they also silently unlock improvements in class abilities, like thieves stealing better items and bards learning more songs.) They also skipped the switching “acclimation period” from the 3D version. You can change classes freely and it even optimizes your equipment when you do. This is great, because the game wants you to freely change classes as a way of overcoming obstacles: You need to be mages in the miniaturized sections, you need to use Dragoons to beat Garuda, the Scholar class is ideal for beating Hein, Goldor Manor has locked doors that a Thief can open, the Cave of Darkness is basically impossible without Dark Knights. But at the same time, you’ll sometimes get handed great equipment that’s specific to other classes (claws for Black Belts, arrows for Rangers, etc) to encourage you to swap over to them. (This was a frustrating aspect of the 3D version, which was trying to strongly reward you for sticking to a single class while still punishing you for not swapping around as circumstances required.) The one really annoying thing is that switching to a class with no magic wipes your spell points until you rest at an Inn or equivalent, and there are no Ethers. If you want access to magic, you need to prep that in advance.
This could have used a little more hand-holding on strategies that really influence the difficulty level of the game, like always dual-wielding and freely using weapons as items in battle. And the endgame is stupidly long without save points (though there are the autosaves if you die, and at least you can leave Eureka to properly save without having to hike all the way back through the Ancient Maze, which I think was true in the original).
The 3D version enhances the story scenes and role of NPCs; honestly in this version the story feels pretty sparse, especially compared with FF2 or FF4. It’s not actually that obvious why Xande is doing what he’s doing and it’s easy to miss details. This does, however, strongly improve the controls vs. the Android version of the 3D game and makes it a better play experience. As noted, it also feels more like a part of the series history and the mechanics fight with themselves less.
This also turned into an experiment in side-loading apk files onto the Mangmi Air X in an effort to differentiate it from the way I set up the Retroid and Odin devices. It worked here but not for other games--Turns out that Android backwards compatibility is a mixed bag.
Overall: This is much closer to the original NES game and in some ways a stronger port than the 3D remake was (though weaker in terms of story and characterization); honestly, they’re very different games. If you like the gameplay of the 2D era of Final Fantasy you might enjoy this more than the 3D remake.
I’d been meaning to play this for a while, because apparently it’s much closer to the original FF3 experience than the 3D remaster is. I had played that on DS, and then partially replayed the Android version of it a few years ago.
They did a good job of making the experience feel like Final Fantasy history with the rough edges sanded off: I got the impression they basically rebuilt the first six games to use mostly the same engines rather than the individual original ones, and this looks and feels very much like the GBA/Android remakes of FF1 and FF2 but starts to feel like FF4 and FF5 as well. It’s more linear than FF2 but opens up with exploration and sidequests like FF4 in the later game. The dungeon design feels like an evolution of the earlier games (and has far fewer dead ends and “monster closets” than FF2). For the American player who watched them jump from FF1 to FF4, this is absolutely a “missing link” in the development. In this version, they added quality of life features like auto-targeting, optimal equipment settings, an unlimited inventory, sensible autobattle (it repeats your last action), in-game minimaps, quick save/autosave, and purchasable Phoenix Downs. The difficulty is still a bit on the high side if you aren’t willing to take full advantage of the class system and grind for money/experience to do so—you can’t play this like FF1 with a “set it and forget it” class setup.
This game introduced the class changing system to the series and designed the game to force you to use it. In this version, they removed the “capacity points” from the original game (you got them by fighting and needed to spend them to switch classes, with “big” switches from fighter to mage costing more) in favor of each class gaining levels, and those levels seem to influence the fighting ability of that class. (Apparently they also silently unlock improvements in class abilities, like thieves stealing better items and bards learning more songs.) They also skipped the switching “acclimation period” from the 3D version. You can change classes freely and it even optimizes your equipment when you do. This is great, because the game wants you to freely change classes as a way of overcoming obstacles: You need to be mages in the miniaturized sections, you need to use Dragoons to beat Garuda, the Scholar class is ideal for beating Hein, Goldor Manor has locked doors that a Thief can open, the Cave of Darkness is basically impossible without Dark Knights. But at the same time, you’ll sometimes get handed great equipment that’s specific to other classes (claws for Black Belts, arrows for Rangers, etc) to encourage you to swap over to them. (This was a frustrating aspect of the 3D version, which was trying to strongly reward you for sticking to a single class while still punishing you for not swapping around as circumstances required.) The one really annoying thing is that switching to a class with no magic wipes your spell points until you rest at an Inn or equivalent, and there are no Ethers. If you want access to magic, you need to prep that in advance.
This could have used a little more hand-holding on strategies that really influence the difficulty level of the game, like always dual-wielding and freely using weapons as items in battle. And the endgame is stupidly long without save points (though there are the autosaves if you die, and at least you can leave Eureka to properly save without having to hike all the way back through the Ancient Maze, which I think was true in the original).
The 3D version enhances the story scenes and role of NPCs; honestly in this version the story feels pretty sparse, especially compared with FF2 or FF4. It’s not actually that obvious why Xande is doing what he’s doing and it’s easy to miss details. This does, however, strongly improve the controls vs. the Android version of the 3D game and makes it a better play experience. As noted, it also feels more like a part of the series history and the mechanics fight with themselves less.
This also turned into an experiment in side-loading apk files onto the Mangmi Air X in an effort to differentiate it from the way I set up the Retroid and Odin devices. It worked here but not for other games--Turns out that Android backwards compatibility is a mixed bag.
Overall: This is much closer to the original NES game and in some ways a stronger port than the 3D remake was (though weaker in terms of story and characterization); honestly, they’re very different games. If you like the gameplay of the 2D era of Final Fantasy you might enjoy this more than the 3D remake.
