Better type this down while its fresh on my mind. I started it on Sunday the 2nd of January and finished it on the 3rd of January haha. Took all of 16 hours and unlike the first two, no game overs. It was much easier than FF2 and much more polished than either FF1 or FF2. But was it better?
Main characters
You get to name them. Good. They have no class or job so you can define them Good. They have no other real distinguishing features. Not so good.
While your main guy, in my case, Fire, gets dialogue (blue text here and there) the rest just tag along and get no moments to themselves. I guess, neither did the backing characters in the first two games but at least in 2 Firion, Maria and Guy had a bit of a back story and dialogue apiece. And the other fourth character was integral to the plot, I guess. Here, in FF3, its all about the main guy and even then not much to say.
I only named the main guy Fire because he was red, blue was Water, green was Earth and pink was Air. They have no discerning attributes in this one, unlike in FF2 where Maria had higher intelligence so made a good mage from the start. Kind of a bummer.
Battle
It's as polished as it ever is with these remasters. While you can mess around a bit with different setups I spent 99% of the game attacking with Fire and Earth, healing with Water the White Mage and blasting the enemy with spells with my Black Mage, Air.
There is absolutely no need to dip into casting Haste or Berserk like there was in 1 and 2. While those were the difference makers in boss fights, I found that bothering to waste time casting Haste (a single target spell) would just mean losing a turn of healing with Water. It was just better for her to spam healing while the others damaged. I never even cast Holy in this game.
By the end of the game I was still attacking with Earth and Fire, healing with Water and spamming Meteor with Air. It worked and there was no need to deviate.
Minigames
There were none in this game so will just give a passing score of 5 here. Sh*tty, tedious games you have to play to advance the plot or get better stuff = lower score, awesom games that enhance the experience or are otherwise optional like card games = higher score. No games, medium. Not fair to give a 0.
Music
The main battle theme I never muted and had no problem listening to all game for hundreds of battles. Wasn't a banger but not offensive. There were one or two goodies but all in all not a very exciting soundtrack but very solid. I did enjoy how every location you saved/helped out would play this epic, triumphant tune when you returned there. The overworld theme was solid. The final dungeons were epic enough.
Plot & Villains
I followed a guide for 100% completion but I am still invested in the twists and turns of the plot. This is a weaker one for sure, no evil empire or whatever to fight against. The villains only reveal themselves here and there. Not much of a spoiler 30 years after its come out but there is a Giant Space Flea from nowhere bad gal just like in other entries. And that takes over from a paper thin villain IMO an evil mage dude who feels slighted because he is designated mortal.
I realise I don't have a score for World or Setting which I feel is probably more important, must revise that. The World is cool you got from a Floating Continent down to a drowned world you must save halfway through the game. There are also underwater sections, an entire underwater layer indeed but you don't spend that much time down there.
Allies/NPCs/Dialogue
Like any classic JRPG, there are plenty of amusing NPCs to interact with in every town and village that repeat themselves. Whenever your character, in my case Fire spoke, it was blue text so he gets a few words in here or there in important scenes but it's nothing exciting.
It only became clear at the end of the game but I had helped out 5 'souls of light' - good people I encountered along the way who I rescued or assisted in some way and they woudl all band together to help in the final confrontation between light and dark. If only they weren't the most forgettable bunch of Allies ever. Oh and they 'joined the party' but don't assist in combat they just sort of tag along. Whatever.
I say all that but the scene where they all assisted did bring joy to my heart so there is that, lifted this title from being completely average in score.
The Gooey
The big difference here is Jobs take over completely. A return to spell slots but no more levelling up your skills by using them. You have a Job level and an overall level. By the end of the game my characters were all around level 50 but in their Jobs it was different:
Fire was a Warrior 80+ for most of the game, then I switched him to Knight and he got almost as high up in that, maybe 70+. He briefly experimented with being a Black Mage in one other thing I must mention in a moment. All he did was Attack and he was good at it too.
Water was a White Mage 99, the one who unlocked that achievement. All she did was cast variations of Cure on the group. The occasional Raise for the dead later on. I would sometimes bother to remove peoples' status ailments with her instead of items. I switched her to Devout when that became available and she continued to heal people.
Earth was a Monk 70+, then a Black Belt for a while, then finally a Ninja. While the guides and internet in general celebrated the Ninja and all these he was very solid and not as flimsy as the Thief in FF1. I was advised at the final boss to use the Throw ability to fling like 10 Shurikens at her to win and I did. The rest helped just as much. Other than that, all game he attacked. He was briefly a Red Mage in one or two sections.
Air was a Black Mage almost to 99 before he became a Magus for the rest of the game. While a lot of the guides suggested having a Dark Knight or something to stop the splitting/multiplying enemies that appear in 2-3 dungeons I just went with classic magical artillery. All he did was cast spells and while the Black Mage kind of petered out midgame the Magus swung back and was really useful later in the game. Maybe not the most optimal anti-group weapon but I liked him. End of game he just spammed Meteor and every few battles toward the finale I would use an Elixir on him and the healer to have them at full spell slots.
So that's it really, there are a ton of jobs many of which I never bothered with Bard, Ranger, Summoner (I gave all the 8 summon spells to my fighter just for the achievement) and loads more. I kind of dithered on changing jobs a few times but eventually just decided to plough on as far as I could with the basics and get what I wanted above, namely the ultimate mage jobs and Ninja. I thought of making my fighter a Viking as a final step but Knight was perfect.
Oh I almost forgot - there were a few locations where you had to cast Mini on yourself in order to move around tiny places and Toad to go underwater. Was not a big fan of these locations but mercifully they were short. You pretty much had to change job to have mages in the whole party but as I said the sections were short and the monsters were thankfully weak.
Graphics
It's tied with FF1 and FF2, another gorgeous sprite remaster. Not much else to say about it! I will say this here - while in FF1 there were very few if any secret tunnels and such, in 2 there was a few but 3 is RIDDLED with secret tunnels. If you didn't have a guide you'd be looking forever for these. Everywhere, every town it seemed every dungeon was perforated with tunnels and secrets. Kind of cool but dangerous for the achievement hunter.
Conclusion
Ultimately a fun if forgettable entry in the series. By my scoring it's the lowest at 58/100 but who knows, I still have 4,5,6 to play as well as 15 and of course stuff like X-2, XIII's two sequels and maybe the MMO 14 so it could be lifted up. Oh and 11 how could I forget ^_^ . Not a bad FF just feels like a step backwards after FF2, maybe they were scared they made that too difficult so in 1990 they released a back to basics, polished 3.
Onto FF4! Probably sooner rather than later.
