Final Fantasy III - Fantasies Remade

With Final Fantasy XVI just a few months away, I'm writing a series of posts about each mainline FF. I won't write reviews, provide in-depth analysis, or even attempt to explain why VIII is the best one. Instead, I'll write around themes or topics related to these games. 

I first played Final Fantasy III on the Nintendo DS. A fairly common way to have experienced it, unless you lived in Japan in the early 90s.

I lived in rural England at that time, and the only Fantasy I was interested in was the Fighting kind. Roll a five and turn to page 61.

Page 61: You have been fully eaten by a zombified Yeti until dead.

Final Fantasy III launched in Japan on April 27, 1990. It was the last in the series to appear on the Famicom, and it went on to shift 1.4 million copies. Despite this success, it would be another sixteen years before it was released outside of Japan, when the aforementioned remake launched on DS.

Part III might be the least available Final Fantasy. An updated version was announced for the WonderSwan Color, but never materialized. The DS version was a complete re-make, but ports better resembling the original came to Virtual Console (Japan-only). We also got PSP and mobile ports, and most recently the Pixel Remaster. But there was a good stretch, almost 20 years, where you simply couldn't play III anywhere other than on a Famicom. Legally, anyway.

That makes III the odd one out in a series that has never been shy about re-releasing, remastering, and in some cases re-making, old favourites. And I'm not complaining. My shelves are lined with re-packaged and re-jigged versions of my favourite RPGs. Yes I roll my eyes each time a new remake or remaster is announced, but I'm guilty of buying my fair share of them. The opportunity to revisit an improved favourite on a console that's already plugged in, with gameplay improvements and prettier graphics, is one I rarely pass up. Remasters can also serve as the encouragement I need to try something that I missed originally.

Since those initial FFI and FFII remasters on the WonderSwan Color, Square Enix has strived to bring its back catalog to new generations. This trend largely started out on portables. I'm speculating here, but perhaps we can trace that format choice back to a belief that modern gamers would be more forgiving and willing to embrace "dated" games on their portables, rather than on their big TVs, being that certain compromises were accepted by the player on portable devices. This was before the mainstream audience had fully embraced "old" games. Lower development costs and decreased risk may also have been contributing factors. I don't know; ask an expert.

Several improved re-releases would follow on PS1, as budget titles. Each was given CG intro cut-scenes, so we could watch characters that were once made of 8 and 16-bit pixels transform into pasty, smooth-faced, mannequin-looking motherfuckers. Game Boy Advance received re-issues of IV, V and VI, and I-IV came to PSP in later years. You could even play many of these games on your phone, if you were weird like that. Several entries were also straight-ported to online stores during the seventh gen. 

In more recent years, we've been treated to upgraded versions of VII-XII on almost every modern platform. This is how I most recently visited those games, and now I can't imagine replaying any of them without the ability to increase battle and movement speed, thus saving you several hours on a single playthrough. An absolute boon to all us grindin' fans. The Pixel Remasters have lavished the same love on the pre-CD releases, and should be heading to consoles in the coming months. I'll be on those almost immediately.

Final Fantasy III is one of the few entries that actually got remade, from scratch. The DS version was a complete overhaul and succeeded in bringing the lost FF to a modern audience, on a system that was doing gangbusters. The original story was retained and expanded, the characters fleshed out, and the visuals given a complete 3D re-work. As I've never played the original version of III, I can't make any meaningful comparisons, but I certainly enjoyed the remake at the time.

While it was fairly successful, it has of course since been eclipsed by a much higher-profile remake. We'd been hearing, or making up, rumours about a FFVII remake for many years. Fanboys had been fantasizing about it in their filthy corners of the internet. The rest of us were debating not just the likelihood of it happening, but whether it should happen. Much like III on the DS, VII Remake has thus far honored the original while also deviating from it in several key areas, and justifying its existence as a very separate experience to the source material. I certainly enjoyed it at the time, but it has absolutely failed to stay with me. Whatever impression it made has long since worn off. In this respect, it couldn't be any less like original-VII.

Remakes aside, it's fair to assume that Square Enix hasn't finished repackaging old fantasies. Surely we're due a remaster of the XIII trilogy, and perhaps that threesome deserves a critical re-appraisal. Or not. Outside of the mainline series, I'd be very surprised if we're not playing a Final Fantasy Tactics re-release within the next 12 months. And I will absolutely eat that up, day one.

Final Fantasy III didn't start the FF re-release trend, but it certainly took it to a new level. It was an early demonstration of Square Enix's commitment to making previous entries more available to a far wider audience, removing the barriers that once made them difficult to access. This commitment has served SE, the player, and the series exceedingly well.