Final Fantasy III for Nintendo DS Reviews by Gamers

What do you get when you combine the graphical, dialogue, and gameplay improvements of the current age and the "no holds barred" attitude of games from the NES era?

Final Fantasy III, of course. This review wouldn't make much sense otherwise.

I'm only 19, so I'm too old to have played the originals for NES, but I as most people have tried them on emulator. They're unpolished and the story is a distant afterthought.

But there is a defininite appeal there. The game is linear, but don't confuse that with the hand-holding of modern games. You can figure out where you need to go, but your characters will not have this dialogue which you might find in games today.

Stereotypical warrior guy: We have defeated the Great Mouse Man, so now we should continue on the goriama highlands!
Magic-casty woman: Yes! The Goriama highlands! They're north-west of here, right?
guy: Correct! Off then! Goriama highlands! North-west! I have a feeling we should bring something to cure petrification. Just saying.

Okay, so maybe i'm exagerating a bit. No, i'm exagerating a lot. But my point is that this game feels much more open, and as a result you'll enjoy it more.

Jobs are in this game, which you may or may not be familiar with. The basic idea is that you have two levels. Your normal level and your job level. Your normal level determines HP and such, while your job level determines your aptitude with that job. A white mage job level determines the number of spells he can cast, for example.

This is a blessing. You get to pick the jobs of your party. It's all up to you. So strategy is abundant here.

It's not all good, though. The pure need to grind for EXP is still there, slightly. You'll spend 15 minutes fighting battles just for EXP once in a while.

Now, for the new improvements. Better dialogue, the story makes sense now (not great), and the graphics are 3D.

Will you enjoy this game? If you like Final Fantasy games from the SNES era, CERTAINLY. Otherwise, maybe or maybe not.

I'll start by saying I'm not a big Final Fantasy player. I love RPGs like Fable and KOTOR and Golden Sun, but I've never really have a Sony console since PS1, and I didn't play any of those. This being my first Final Fantasy, I was excited to get started. I really enjoyed the experience.

Cons to this game are that it is definately a cliche RPG. If you've played a handheld RPG before, or something like it, you won't find anything new. However, being an early Final Fantasy, it's really what started the genre, so I guess it made the cliches what they are. I'll look past that. The story was lacking and unoriginal, and it wasn't hard to figure out what to do next. Don't expect any Zelda style puzzlers here. Now on to the pros.

Good things about this game are that it's fun. It's great fun battling monsters and I don't tire of it like other RPGs. The music in the game is really well done, which is what Final Fantasy is known for, so kudos to that. I had fun playing the game, no doubt.

Personally, I love this type of RPG, and there's nothing really new. It reminds me a lot of Golden Sun, even though it came before that. If you think it looks good, pick it up, you won't regret it. As long as you don't mind the cliches, you'll have a fun experience. This is one of the best RPGs on the DS, but there are few in this genre still. If you're waiting for a real stand out RPG on DS, you can try this out, and it may be what you're looking for. You'll have fun, no doubt.