Final Fantasy III

Final Fantasy III (ファイナルファンタジーIII, Fainaru Fantajī Surī?) is a console role-playing game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) in 1990 for the Nintendo Family Computer as the third installment in the Final Fantasy series. It is the first numbered Final Fantasy game to feature the job-change system, and was one of the largest role-playing games created for Nintendo's console.

The story involves four orphaned youths who come across a crystal, which grants them a portion of its power and instructs them to go forth and restore balance to the world. Shocked but heartened, the four inform their adoptive family of their mission and set out to explore and bring back balance to the world.

Until an enhanced remake was released on the Nintendo DS on August 24, 2006, the game had never been released outside of Japan, at the time making it the only Final Fantasy game not released in North America and Europe. There had been earlier plans to remake the game for Bandai's WonderSwan Color handheld (as had been done with the first two installments and the fourth game), but the game faced several delays and was eventually cancelled after the premature death of the platform.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Final Fantasy III combines elements of the first two Final Fantasy games with new features. The turn-based combat system remains in place from the first two games, but hit points are now shown on top of the target when attacked or healed, rather than captioned as in the original versions of the previous two games. Auto-targeting for physical attacks after a friendly or enemy unit is killed is also featured for the first time.


The experience point system featured in Final Fantasy makes a return following its absence from Final Fantasy II. A class system is also featured; however, unlike in Final Fantasy I, where the player chooses each character's class alignment at the start of the game, and Final Fantasy II, where there are no specific classes, Final Fantasy III introduces the "job system" for which the series would become famous. Jobs themselves are basically interchangeable classes: In the original version of the game, all four characters start out as "Onion Knights," but before long the player is given the option to have them switch to a variety of other classes. Final Fantasy III is the first game in the series to feature special battle commands such as "Steal" or "Jump," each of which is associated with a particular job ("Steal" being the Thief's specialty, while "Jump" is the Dragoon's forte). It is also the first game in the series to feature summoned creatures and called with the "Summon" skill. Several classes were altered (such as additional abilities) in the Nintendo DS version to improve balance.

Setting

One thousand years before the game, on a floating continent hovering high above the surface of an unnamed planet, a technologically advanced civilization sought to harness the power of the four elemental crystals of light. They did not realize that they could not control such fundamental forces of nature. This power of light would have consumed the world itself had the light crystals not had their natural counterparts: the four dark elemental crystals. Disturbed by the sudden interruption of the careful balance of the light and the dark, four warriors were granted the power of the dark crystals to recontain the power of the light crystals. These so-called Dark Warriors succeeded in their quest, and restored harmony to the world. But their victory came too late to save the doomed civilization. Their culture was reduced to ruin, though their floating continent remained. On that continent, the circle of Gulgans, a race of blind soothsayers and fortune-tellers, predicts that events will ultimately repeat. The power of darkness can be just as abused as the power of light; when it occurs, then the crystals of the light will need to call forth their own warriors to restore balance.

Characters

Final Fantasy III features four orphans, two of which are raised at the remote village of Ur by the priest, Topapa. When the Wind Crystal sinks to the earth due to an earthquake one day, the four characters go to investigate. They manage to get lost, but eventually stumble upon the Crystal. The Crystal tells them of Xande's plans to conquer the world using Darkness, which could upset the balance of Light and Dark and lead to detrimental effects. It then proceeds to bestow the first Legendary Job Classes upon the four. From there on, the four become Warriors of the Light, and leave Ur in their quest. Granted the power of the Light, the Warriors begin to combat the darkness that increasingly consumes the world. As the other Crystals they encounter provide them more Jobs, the four Warriors become a formidable party strong enough to save the world from the darkness.

The remake of the game for the Nintendo DS features a new set of party members, each with new backstories and personalities.


Story

One day, an earthquake opens up a previously hidden cavern in Altar Cave near the village of Ur on the floating continent. Four orphaned youths under the care of Topapa, the village elder, go exploring and come across a crystal of light. The crystal grants them a portion of its power, and instructs them to go forth and restore balance to the world. Not knowing what to make of the crystal's pronouncements, but nonetheless recognizing the importance of its words, the four inform their adoptive family of their mission and set out to explore an overworld outside the area in which they were brought up to bring back balance to the world.

Their adventures bring them to discover that there lies a whole world beyond the boundaries of the floating continent upon which they were living. In the world below, they discover a demon named Xande is trying to possess the crystals of light to bring chaos and disorder. The adventures take four warriors eventually to the Crystal Tower where they discover that the Cloud of Darkness has been manipulating the whole situation, in an attempt to bring back a similar situation as the Flood of Light a thousand years earlier, so that they can pull the whole world in the void. The warriors from the light must traverse into the domain of the dark crystals to free the imprisoned dark warriors and defeat the Cloud of Darkness once and for all, therefore restoring the crystals and balance once again.