iPod Touch Review: FINAL FANTASY III

Well, well, well. What do we have here? One of the most classic games of the Final Fantasy series has been brought to life by Square Enix and ported over to the iOS. Fantastic! And being the lover of anything epic/cute/RPG-related, I just had to give this a go, especially because it’s from Square Enix (and I’m a bit guilty for having never played a Final Fantasy series game on the PS3/Xbox 360).

Just like the original version, you play as main character Luneth (or whatever name you want to give him but I stuck with Luneth, so not too sure if the dialogue changes according to what you name your character - I assume that your chosen name will be displayed correctly). You wake up in a cave and consider yourself lucky because an earthquake just shook the continent and you were in a cave. My thoughts? The earthquake isn’t strong enough to, you know, kill you, but it’s strong enough to disturb the sensitive balance of the world and unleash monsters. Yeah. Kinda funny how that all works out, I say. As Luneth, you are one of the chosen ones to go and help save the world. Also funny how that works out because it seems that these kinds of games can never survive on their own without your help. Oh wait, that’s how the game was written. I digress.

You are joined by your best friend Arc, the blacksmith’s daughter Refia, and the king’s loyal knight, Ingus. These members join you at the beginning of the game during the aftermath of the earthquake and you travel to Kazus to discover that a Djinn put a spell on the townspeople of Kazus and where the king resides, making them all…invisible? I mean, you still see the outline of them. I think transparent is a better word, but it’s…interesting. And off you go saving people and fulfilling your destiny, like how all RPGs go.

To be honest, despite that price tag of $15.99 (one of these days, Square Enix, you’ll make your games affordable), I really enjoyed the game. It really has the feel of an RPG, the adventure, the action. My definition of an RPG? On the likes of Golden Sun and Pokemon, but Final Fantasy III reminds me of Golden Sun, even though the former came out before the latter. The graphics of Final Fantasy III may not be up to par with the Golden Sun graphics (very few games, if any, could match Golden Sun and its wonderful graphics for its time), but it has a fun storyline and ultimately, that counts for a lot. Of course, since FFIII is a Square Enix product, you can count on the graphics being decent for a game that was released back in 1990 (and ultimately released as a port game).

Of course, the game isn’t without its flaws. One thing that I noticed (and irritated me quite a bit and resulted in me searching online on the answer) was that there is hardly any way for one to find a way to revive downed characters. Ooh, that irked me so so much. And I discovered that it seemed to be a problem in the other versions as well. Just let me buy a phoenix feather! Oh wait, not really. So then give me a revival spring in every town I frequent. Oh wait, there are few of those as well. And the bad thing is this - your characters don’t receive any EXP whatsoever when they are down. Brilliant. Are you telling me every time I meet monsters, I can’t give my downed characters any EXP? No! Don’t like at all. I went to Kazus because it was mentioned as a place with a Revival Spring. When a Healing Spring and Revival Spring look the same, I have no clue. I did check my characters’ status after going to the so-called Revival Spring, but they weren’t revived so I was miffed. Then suddenly, after walking around a bit, they had 1 HP. I have no clue what happened but I’m glad they were revived. So annoying. Square Enix, please do something about that…

Besides that, the game was fine. I loved the music and the characters (though close-ups of the characters were amusing, ha). What I found funny as well were the concept pictures of the characters (seen in the second picture of this post) and they all look sleepy or bored, ha.

Overall, I did love the game. Just the price and the reviving method. Urgh.

Interested in wanting to know more or to purchase the game? Click here.