Final Fantasy 3/III - Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy III (3), released by Square (Later to become Square Enix) in 1990, is the third title of the flagship Final Fantasy series made for the Family Computer (Nintendo Entertainment System). The game was directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the music scored by Nobuo Uematsu with Yoshitaka Amano responsible for image design. Later released for the Nintendo DS, Wii U, iOS, Android, and other systems, it was the first game in the franchise to use the job change system. The story focuses on four orphaned youths who encounter a wind crystal which gives them some of its power and instructs them to bring order and balance to the world.
Prologue
The earth is restless... Four young orphans investigate a newly formed cave just outside their village, only to be attacked by savage beasts. Fighting through, they uncover the long lost Wind Crystal with an urgent message upon which the fate of everything rests. A long-contained force of evil is ready to make a power play that could leave the world in ruin, and only the four mythic Light Warriors can stop it!
Final Fantasy III Plot
A thousand years ago, a hovering continent floated over an unnamed planet. In the village of Ur, after an earthquake, four orphans under the care of Topapa survey the damage and find a crystal of light. The light crystal grants them some of its power and asks them to bring back order and peace to the world. The party venture below the floating continent and meet Xande an apprentice of Archmage Noah who wishes to collect the crystals of light and bring forth chaos to the world. The adventures battles enemies and complete quests in various chapters. Important locations and quest ares include the Altar Cave, Sealed Cave, Dragons Peak, Nepto Temple, Tower of Owen, Molten Cave, Hein Castle, Cave of Tides, Goldor Manor, Saronia, The Airship Nautilus, Cave of Shadows, Doga's Grotto, : Ancients' Maze, Crystal Tower, and World of Darkness. The final boss of the game and primary antagonist is the Cloud of Darkness, whose goal is to cause world-wide destruction and reduce the world to nothingness through a flood of darkness.
Gameplay
Final Fantasy III reintroduces the experience system from the first game that was absent in the second, whereby experience points and potentially levels are gained after defeating enemies. The combat system remains in turn-like style, where the enemy and player attack in sequence.
However, Final Fantasy III introduced a HP bar that appears over characters in combat. Unlike Final Fantasy II and similar to Final Fantasy I, characters must decide on a class to use, each having different weaknesses and strengths.
Characters begin as Onion Knights (Freelancers in other versions). Unlike any previous game, a job change system is implemented whereby a player can change a character’s class upon completing side quests and finding crystals.
The physical oriented jobs are:
- Onion Knight
- Freelancer
- Warrior
- Monk
- Ranger
- Knight
- Thief
- Dragoon
- Viking
- Dark Knight
- Black Belt
- Ninja
The magic oriented jobs are:
- White Mage
- Black Mage
- Red Mage
- Scholar
- Geomancer
- Evoker
- Bard
- Devout
- Magus
- Summoner
- Sage
Characters
The main characters of the game are:
- Luneth- A courageous orphan boy from the village of Ur who finds the wind crystal and is tasked with saving the world’s crystals.
- Arc- Luneth’s best childhood friend. A kind, intelligent boy that accompanies Luneth in his quest.
- Refia- A blacksmith’s daughter from the village of Kazus. Fed up with training under her father, often runs away and joins the group.
- Ingus- A knight of Sasune that has a crush on Sara.
The supporting characters of the game are:
- Cid- Cid Haze is an energetic old man with a large beard wearing a wizard’s hat. When helped by the main characters he gives them use of his airship.
- Sara- The princess of Sasune and the party’s first guest character.
- Desch- A man suffering from amnesia that becomes a guest character. He is a strong and capable fighter and a womanizer.
- Aria- A young girl with long blonde ponytailed hair and blue eyes. Also known as Elia, she is one of the party’s guest characters.
- Alus- Prince Alus Restor is the young crown prince of Saronia. He is a shy leader and has gone through some hard events in the story.
Moogles make their first ever appearance in the Final Fantasy franchise in the Final Fantasy III game. Moogles are cute furry characters, and alongside chocobos and cactuars are the franchise’s mascots. Moogles make appearances in every Final Fantasy game following Final Fantasy III.
Development
Designer Hiromichi Tanaka, character design lead Yoshitaka Amano, director Hironobu Sakaguchi, composer Nobuo Uematsu and writer Kenji Terada continued work on Final Fantasy III after completion of the first two games of the series. The team was forced to relocate to Sacramento, California to finish the work due to the expiration of Nasir Gebelli’s Japanese work visa.
Final Fantasy III was one of the most popular games produced by Square for the Famicom/NES, and was released on a 512KiB2 cartridge. Since Nintendo was releasing the 16-Bit super-famicom console during the time of Final Fantasy III’s production, the company was forced to sacrifice a release of an English version of the game for development on the new hardware.