Final Fantasy III

A lengthy game merits a lengthy post, and when it comes to the 35-hour Final Fantasy III, there is so much to talk about. I could discuss the job class progression I chose for my characters. I could complain about the light and uninteresting story. I could do my best to describe my affinity for the Final Fantasy series to an audience that may or may not have a working knowledge of RPGs in general. I could bitch about the brutal and relentless final dungeon and boss, bemoaning the lack of save points. Instead though, I'm just going to keep this light, simple, and informative rather than introspective. FF3 came out in Japan in 1990 for the 8-bit NES (or as it was known in Japan, the "Famicom" - Family Computer). But it never came out in America until this 2006 DS remake. I bought it and played through the first two thirds of it in 2008 and, on a few key days in the past couple of months, beat it entirely. And having finally done so, I really don't feel all the richer for the experience. FF3 just wasn't as good as I wanted it to be. That doesn't mean I'm disappointed I put thirty hours of my life into it. It just means I don't think you should do so unless you absolutely love the series and feel the need to play every Final Fantasy game there is. (Like me.) I'm glad they finally released an American version of this game, and it was actually a huge contributing factor when it came to my decision to buy a DS. But would I play it again? I highly doubt it. There are better games out there. There are better handheld games, better RPGs, and even better Final Fantasy games on the DS. (Well, at least one: FF4, the other reason I bought a DS.) I'm just glad to be done with this one. Maybe they were in no rush to Americanize it because it just wasn't that noteworthy. Anyway, it's nice to take a thirty-hour game off of my backlog. Two DS games remain, but neither should be as long as this one was. Time will tell.