Final Fantasy III

The Good
Final Fantasy III was a nice little game back in its day. The visuals were fancied-up from its predecessor (Final Fantasy II for North American gamers), the music was infused with some techno beats, and the storyline is just completely nutsoid in comparison to the elegant and compelling plot line that followed Cecil, Kain, and Golbez.

As close as I can figure, the ultimate baddie of this game, Kefka, is a hideous, unfunny clown with a penchant for wild and imaginative behavior, none of which makes a whit of sense to me.

FF3 does, however, sport a wealth of tertiary characters that join sides with our amnesiac green-haired protagonist, Terra.

For example, Celes is an ice queen with tremendous magical prowess and a woeful history of being used by 'The Empire', Kefka's organization. Cyan is a compelling dark-haired lord whose family has been slain, but who is not acting out of vengeance, but altruism. And Shadow is a ninja with a companion wolfhound and a black sense of humor. Some of the other characters are a little half-baked, a few are very wild, and in sum total there's much more variety in combat than in Final Fantasy II -- though I still prefer the latter for its elegant simplicity.

The score of FF3 is perhaps its strongest feature, and was composed by the inimitable Nobuo Uemetsu, whose work arguably declined in quality after this title. The key events in the story are all accompanied by a compelling musical piece, while battles and overworld travel are invigorated with one of many lively tunes.

My personal favorite is a rollicking jungle beat, which plays as your party travels across the Veldt, a savannah region populated by a variety of tame-able beasts. I can still remember just letting the game run, not doing anything, to listen to the track for a few minutes -- it's just that good.

The Bad
There's no flaw at all in Final Fantasy III, except that it's not as well thought-out as Final Fantasy II. It's still a great game, but the overall plot concept does not leave the player in a sublime state of satisfaction as its predecessor does. Simply put, Kefka is no Golbez. Also, needs more Crystals.

But... perhaps not. FF2 is FF2, and FF3 is FF3. It's just that the first features a far more sensible, interesting plot, while the second strays into some pretty zany territory. For example: a ghost train, an end-of-the-world cataclysm, mech suits, human experimentation and mind-control... and a few dinosaurs thrown in for good measure. It's an eclectic mix to be generous, and haphazard to be critical.

The Bottom Line
Hands down, Final Fantasy III is the finest RPG from the mid-90s, superior to anything else on the Super Nintendo, the PC, or the Genesis -- from the 1994-1997 period. 1993 gave us Betrayal at Krondor on the PC, a vastly deeper, richer game, and 1998 saw the release of one of my personal favorites, Baldur's Gate. FF3 did a great job of holding me over between these stellar releases for the PC.

So -- play it on an emulator today? Mmmm if you have a strong nostalgic hankering for one of the four finest RPGs on the SNES. I'll stick with Team Fortress 2 for now, personally.

And yes, the other three are FF2, Secret of Mana, and Chrono Trigger.

The Good
In 1994, Square released the third and the last Final Fantasy game for Super Nintendo. Made during a particularly creative period of video game development, Final Fantasy VI remains until now one of the most revered Japanese RPGs. It was a story-driven game with great emotional intensity; at the same time, it expanded the gameplay almost beyond the boundaries of the genre.

The approach of Final Fantasy VI towards story-telling is unique for several reasons. There are two different "planes" of narrative in the game. While the outer storyline is fairly standard, traditionally epic, serving to tie all the events and the destinies of the heroes together, the inner layer of the story concentrates in turn on each one of the many characters of the game, telling their stories in a very warm and detailed fashion, bringing the player as close to them as it was only possible.

What makes the narrative remarkable is not the course of the events depicted by it, but the small individual "sub-stories" of each one of the game's characters. Every character joins the rebel group for his (or her) personal reasons, and those reasons are explained and shown in detail. The typically epic plot line becomes almost obsolete when the player dives deeper into the intimate worlds of the game's characters, discovering their fears, hopes, joys, and grievances.

Final Fantasy VI introduced mature themes that were unseen in Japanese RPG before: suicide, teenage pregnancy, complicated moral problems, love, etc. It is true that they are treated in a melodramatic way, but that's precisely what makes them so endearing, especially when they are presented against the background of a typical "world-saving" epic. The "opera scene" is, for me, one of the single most touching moments in the history of video games.

A brilliant move Final Fantasy VI did was eliminating the concept of one lead character. It is a unique example of a Japanese RPG in which it is impossible to point out a single protagonist. At least three people can be called "main characters", but it is impossible to say which one of them is more "important". This technique fit the melodramatic tone of the game extremely well, allowing quick shifts of focus that moved the story forward in a graceful, involving way. I can only say it's a real pity that the even more melodramatic sequels didn't use it, preferring to return to the old "lone hero" concept.

RPG designers have been always struggling to create a perfect balance between a focused narrative and exploration. Final Fantasy VI solves this problem in a simple and elegant way. Its first part is linear and intensely story-driven, like most Japanese RPGs. However, the second part (World of Ruin) throws the player into an absolutely open-ended environment, with only one main quest: defeat Kefka. The player is free to explore this world, travel to any location, and recruit any party members he/she sees fit. But the story doesn't simply disappear; the characters offer plenty of interesting side-quest, and gradually gathering them together for a fight against the ultimate evil is an unforgettable experience. World of Ruin is a phenomenon; I don't think there is any other Japanese RPG world that can compete with it.

Final Fantasy VI also manages to solve another common Japanese RPG dilemma. Should characters belong to a particular class, or should they develop freely and be able to learn any abilities? The fourth game chose the first path; the fifth the second. The sixth once again finds the golden mean. The characters do have clearly assigned classes: you can easily recognize the typical Final Fantasy classes of monk, thief, ninja, samurai, etc. However, later in the game the characters can learn any spells on top of their old, "pre-defined" techniques, essentially allowing completely free customization.

The series has always been famous for its exceptional music. But I think many fans will agree that the main theme of Final Fantasy VI is the single most memorable musical piece of the entire series. Like many outstanding compositions, it conveys strong emotions while being very simple.

The Bad
Final Fantasy VI suffers from occasional bad translation, though perhaps the original writing wasn't exactly stellar to begin with. Writing has been the Achilles' heal of the series during its entire existence. It is, however, possible that much of the writing was intentionally goofy. Personally, I find the awkward dialogues endearing, but I can see how they could detract from the serious themes of the game.

Same can be applied to "cutesy" elements such as recruiting a moogle into your party and teaching him "dance" abilities, etc. The main villain is also decidedly "cartoony", having no other motives for his deeds other than simply being evil.

The graphics of the game are considered by some the best example of 16-bit art. However, those graphics also showed the limits of the Super Nintendo console in the age of full-screen animations and CD. They were barely enough to express all the rich ideas and emotions of the game. Maybe it sounds odd, but sometimes I wish Final Fantasy VI were made for a console with superior storage capacity, like TurboGrafx or Sega CD.

The Bottom Line
Some people would perhaps name the next installment as the highest achievement of the series; and while it is correct when applied to ambition, presentation, and influence, from the point of view of soul (and perhaps gameplay perfection as well) Final Fantasy VI takes the crown. It contains everything there is to love in the series and in Japanese RPGs in general, and remains a timeless classic that is admired by loyal fans and newcomers alike.

The Good
- excellent soundtrack by the one and only Nobuo Uematsu. The music adds plenty of atmosphere and emotion to the game. Terra's theme is truly inspirational (heard in the intro and on the world map of the world of balance and some other places throughout the game). - brilliant plot with many twist (one brilliant twist in particular, but can't give spoilers so you will just have to find out for yourself). - characters all have unique abilities. All of them have personality helping the player to become more engaged into the story. There are characters you can care for like Terra and characters you hate such as the epic villain, Kefka. - Many, many side-quests to uncover character backgrounds and extra items, etc to go with the 20 - 70 hours of fun you can get playing through the game depending on the amount of secrets, level building, etc you can be bothered with - a generally all round classic RPG with great story, great characters, great music, and has to go down as one of the best games of all time.

The Bad
However the game isn't faultless: - too many random encounters - the story pretty much fades away after the world of balance (near the end of the game anyway though, which is pretty much all side-quests, so not that bad) - leveling up system automatically levels up characters not in your party, and your characters gain more attributes when they have espers equipped making those levels gained without espers equipped semi-useless. - maybe too many characters (i think about 14 or so including secret characters). Some of the characters you get too late on and don't develop much, e.g mog.

The Bottom Line
Snes version is better that playstation. The playstation one has extras such as fmv's but there are annoying loading times. A MUST play for all Japanese RPG and final fantasy fans. However some people find it hard to play 2-d RPGs in this day and age of 3-d brilliant graphics but they will only miss out on one of the best games in existence, some people even believe that all the newer final fantasy's have threw away all the good plots in exchange for graphics (except maybe FF7, of course). If you are like that then you should try Final Fantasy 7 - also a classic for playstation.