I’m an RPG junkie. This is a well established fact. Before I knew what they were called, I was addicted to the games. Thus, it is no surprise that I’m also quite fond of the Final Fantasy series (at least most of the series :))
For a very long time, my favorite installation in the series has been FF3. I’m sure anyone reading this doesn’t need the clarification that I actually mean the 16-year-old FF3j and not the mid-90’s US localization of FF6j that they released under the wrong name (though that’s probably my second favorite :P).
Also, for the longest time, I’ve bemoaned the fact that there hasn’t ever been an official release of FF3 in English. Well, that changed a few weeks ago with the remake of FF3 for the Nintendo DS. I placed the pre-order for it at the same time I ordered FF12.
Remake, not re-release.
They completely overhauled the game. Plot tweaks and fixes (and additions - the actual story element of the original was kind of thin), class rebalancing, and of course the graphics… oh the graphics. The game went from being a rather unimpressive 8-bit Famicom offering to a brand of 3D love that makes something like FF7 look like… well, a rather unimpressive 32-bit PSX offering 
It looks too good to be running on a handheld.
One thing they didn’t change was the difficulty level. FF3 has always stood out as the most difficult game in the series, and the remake is no different. It’s not just hard. It’s (as we said when I was a kid), “Japan hard”. The game is merciless and unforgiving. It will kill you for no reason and then /spit on your corpse like a 13-year-old undead rogue.
Oh, and nobody sells phoenix downs…
And unlike most other FF’s, back attacks in this game are practically a death sentence. They’re not terribly common, but when they happen, somebody’s gonna die and that whole phoenix down shortage suddenly becomes very relevant.
Playing through the game has been an exercise in déjà vu for me. But not your standard issue déjà vu… more of a “frequently wrong because they changed something on me” variety
plot changes
I won’t spoil any major plot points, I’ll just mention a few things that have changed since the way I remember them:
- Your characters have names and backstories - in the original, you started with four “onion kids” and no direction whatsoever.
- The party doesn’t start out fully formed - you have to collect all 4 members over the course of the initial plot arc.
- There are a lot more little story sequences than I remember - your characters interact and talk to each other over the course of the game.
A lot of the reason the original was a bit thin on story is just the limitations of the system it was written for compounded by translation. Old NES games weren’t measured in megabytes. They weren’t even big enough that the authors of Famicom RPG’s could use kanji. This (using their phonetic alphabets) seriously damages the words per character ratio in Japanese.
balance changes
The original FF3 was difficult. This game is equally difficult, but in slightly different ways. Old-school RPG’s never really seemed to care about such fuzzy concepts as “balance” or “playability”. FF3 was no different.
The most notorious example is that you go from farming cuddly little one-shot goblins to potentially wandering into a cave full of +10 skeletons of infinite death in the SECOND TOWN IN THE GAME. You are not expected to kill the skeletons, but that doesn’t stop you from wandering into the cave and getting pureed by them. It is entirely probable that you didn’t save your game before this happened, so you’ll just have to start over.
Well, the skeletons are still there, and there’s still no warning about them. And… despite my vague recollections of previous experiences with this particular cave. I still wandered in and was ground into so much zombie chow.
No, the balance changes seem to be in that they actually tuned the fights you were supposed to fight. Some bosses that were too difficult seem a bit easier than I remember, and the boss I remember as having been the easiest in the original is now the first point in the game where i’m going to have to grind and try again.
They also juggle the classes around quite a bit. And this, I like. See… in the original, most of the classes were largely pointless. The game is all about inflicting mad DPS on your enemies and healing up afterward if anything lasted long enough to hit you. So, classes who weren’t built for sustained reliable high damage output (like the viking and bard and summoner and numerous others…) were useless when compared to monks and stuff. Shields were useless. It was all about dual-wielding. It still is, to some extent, actually 
Well, they’ve added abilities to classes that didn’t really have them. They’ve improved classes that were weak, and nerfed classes that were overpowered. I like the viking class now. And geomancers, who were fun in the original but not terribly practical… are just plain cool now.
They’ve also changed the limiter on how frequently you can change jobs. In the original game, you had to earn up points to spend in order to change classes. This meant you could save up points and then go into an area ready to switch to a different class for one reason or another - only to switch back again w/o any penalty.
Now, you don’t have to earn up points in order to change, you simply suffer a penalty after you change. This makes changing jobs in order to pass a particular obstacle kind of difficult. You’re essentially being encouraged to change classes at safe points in the game and grind a few fights before going back into the thick of things.
It makes for some interesting changes to the strategies I remember.
class changes
As I’ve mentioned, the classes have been juggled around slightly from the original. I hereby list the new classes in the order they arise in the new game.
freelancer
available: very beginning abilities: lvl 1 black/white magic role: making you wait until new classes come along utility: necessary evil
This is a new class to the game. It basically replaces the ‘onion kid’ default class in the original. They can use most early game equipment as well as 1st level spells. They don’t get much mana, but then again, you don’t need much at this point. Either way, you’ll grow out of the class soon enough and will never look back.
black mage
available: wind crystal abilities: lvl 1-7 black magic role: elemental damage utility: very useful
The black mage is the obligatory early game heavy hitter. They get a lot of good spells and can do a lot of lovely damage. It is generally advisable to have one around for boss fights. Equip them with staves to get infinite castings of their first tier nuke spells. These staves, when used regularly, still outdamage your physical characters - and their output scales with the caster’s stats. It’s literally like getting free fire spells, and it lets you save your mana for more important things (bosses and bad situations).
Maximum laziness mandates that you eventually dual wield staves and are thus easily able to select which element you hit things with.
I kept one black mage around for a while, and she proved to be the luckiest member of my party - frequently surviving wipes. In fact, at present, the XP lead still stands, with my ex-black mage well over a level higher than the rest of the party. Part of the luck is no doubt the result of the mage’s ability to pretty much decimate anything you encounter at this point in the game if necessary.
I finally replaced my black mage with a geomancer.
monk
available: wind crystal abilities: retaliate role: melee dps utility: average
Squenix apparently really wants/expects you to use monks. They are, after all, one of the staples of the FF franchise. After a while, you start getting tons of monk eq. However… I never really found a reason to use a monk. They don’t hit as hard per punch as some other dps class would get when wielding a weapon. They don’t have very good armour options early on, either.
The monk’s retaliate ability is a sort of strange upgrade/replacement for the ‘guard’ command. They stand still and counter… if a mob happens to attack them physically. The damage they do with retaliate is higher than their normal damage… but the ability is so unreliable as to be generally not worth the trouble.
I tried a monk for a few levels but he just couldn’t keep up with any of my other characters for damage output (the holy grail of this game, remember?), so he went byebye.
red mage
available: wind crystal abilities: lvl 1-5 black/white magic role: pinch hitter utility: extremely useful
Red mage is traditionally a twink and a munchkin. He’s no different in FF3. He can use most early game equipment (including staves), gets a few spells, and is generally a great choice if you can’t figure out what do do with the fourth member of your party. It’s probably the most effective single class in the early game - so if you had to pick only one job… this’d be it.
Like all of the early-game classes, however, red mages quickly lose their utility. In general, the red mage became obsolete to me the minute his wimpy mana pool started failing me during my run to the fire crystal.
Happy red mage strategy: Wield a staff like any other mage… but wear heavier armour and stand in the back row with a shield (only sensible use for a shield, really). Now you get free elemental dps + mana for heals + way more durability than a black mage.
thief
available: wind crystal abilities: steal, flee, pick locks role: potion farmer utility: average
Thief wasn’t originally one of the original classes… in the Famicom version it didn’t come until after the fire crystal. But this change doesn’t much bother or excite me much, thieves still aren’t all that spectacular. They can’t wear good armour and they don’t get very good weapons until much later in the game.
Steal in this game isn’t nearly as good as it is in later FF’s. Bosses don’t drop good eq or anything. Mostly… it’s potions. So not worth the trouble there.
Flee is good - it means a much happier running away experience, especially when you consider the thief’s tendency to act near the beginning of the combat turn order. Unfortunately, in a game like this, you can’t afford to run away from fights very much. You need that XP. So… flee is only really useful when you’re already in over your head.
The lockpicking ability happens when you set a thief as your active party member and try to open a locked door. However, since magic keys only cost a whopping 100 gil… that’s not really much of a reason to keep one around either.
I tried a thief and didn’t like it.
warrior
available: wind crystal abilities: advance role: I like swords utility: very high
Warriors dish out a lot of hurt with their two fisted monkey style of sword-fu. Give them the biggest, hurtingest weapons you can find and let them do their magic. They wear good armour and are the closest thing you’ll have to a tank for a while.
The advance ability is sort of an improved attack command. They hit for even more damage (compounded further if you’re dual wielding - shields are bad, remember?). The only downside at all to advance is that any damage taken after using the command is increased. But… that doesn’t much matter when the mobs don’t last long enough to retaliate.
Silly warrior tactics: Warriors can pretend that they’re archers. Stick them in heavy armour on the back row and fire away. They’d do more damage advancing with a pair of big swords, but shrug.
I immediately upgraded my warrior to a knight.
white mage
available: wind crystal abilities: lvl 1-7 white magic role: medic utility: essential
A white mage is absolutely essential. They make the owies go away. They’ve also got a few spells necessary to get into certain places for plot reasons… and teleport.
Teleport is wonderful. In FF1, it was a stupidly high level ability, but in FF3, you get it really quite early on. And with the difficulty of some of these dungeons, that’s important. Run into the dungeon, explore until you’re almost dead, port out. Heal, repeat.
The best thing about white mages, though, is that they too can wield staves and get free fire spells. So… keep one around to play lazy black mage while grinding/exploring and then switch into boo-boo kissing mode during boss fights with a full tank of mana.
White mage dps FTW.
This is the only wind crystal class I haven’t replaced yet. I don’t plan on doing so until I get the upgraded version - the devout.
onion knight
available: side quest abilities: lvl 1-8 black/white magic role: twinkish badge of honor utility: lvl 8 white magic
The onion knight is an optional class with absolutely horrible stats until max level, at which point they apparently get max stats. The cool thing about onion knights is that they get lvl 8 spell slots from the very beginning.
So… if you wind up doing the side quest… and feel up to it, having the ability to switch somebody over to onion knight and play with lovely big heal spells just might make up for the lack of phoenix downs.
geomancer
available: fire crystal abilities: terrain role: free spell dps utility: high
The geomancer is like a slightly tougher mage w/o any mana points and w/o any means of choosing which spell he’ll use. I like it. They gave them a major upgrade in this version of the game, so much so that I’m relying heavily on one as my primary damage provider at the moment. The original geomancer class had a chance to backfire and hurt themselves…
The terrain command allows a geomancer to cast a random offensive spell based on your current location. There isn’t much variety here, but is there really any variety to using any other reliable dps class?
Every location seems to be able to cast “wind slash” (aero on a single target) and “ice storm” (blizzara on all enemies). In addition, you occasionally get lovely little effects like “shadowflare” in some places (thousands of damage on a single enemy - it’s never failed to kill whatever it’s hit for me).
I’ll replace my geomancer when you can pry her out of my cold dead fingers. Or when I get magus, whichever comes first.
knight
available: fire crystal abilities: lvl 1 white magic, defend, cover role: unreliable tank utility: average
The knight is better than the warrior, except that he loses the advance command. But you probably won’t miss it - his stats are higher that it doesn’t really make a difference.
Knights have a lot of utility in that they’re free cure dispensers, but they can’t use higher level magic like in other FF’s, and they don’t get much mana to work with.
Defend… is like an upgraded version of guard… which I guess you might somehow manage to find a use for… some time. Remember, DPS is king.
Knights supposedly will automatically cover for injured party members. But they only do so when the party member is being attacked physically and their hp is in the yellow. I guess this’d be the time to use defend… except I’d rather try to kill the mob off or use the knight’s magic to heal them…
Once I realized that the knight’s tanking was spotty at best, I threw him away in exchange for a viking as soon as possible.
ranger
available: fire crystal abilities: barrage role: machinegun dps utility: very high
I like rangers. Arrows are cheap, you pick up bows from treasure chests pretty reliably, and archers only take half damage since they’re on the back row.
My ranger was the first character in my party to hit for both 10 and 12 hits in one round. Arrows do extra damage to flying enemies, so there are certain places where my lvl 25 ranger can hit for well over 1500 damage… with bargain basement ammo. When using more expensive arrows it gets even more ridiculous.
Barrage allows the ranger to spray arrows at random. This generally translates into dividing their damage somewhat evenly among most of the mobs in the fight. It’s useful sometimes but is pretty random. You’re generally better off just using normal attacks.
Fun fact: Even though it says you hit numerous times with a single attack, only one arrow is spent per turn. So… those 150 gil elemental damage arrows aren’t as expensive as they first appear, and iron arrows are better than free.
I like my archer. I’m planning on keeping him until… I’m not sure when. I’ve not seen anything in particular that I plan on replacing him with just yet.
scholar
available: fire crystal abilities: study, lvl 1-3 black/white magic role: one boss fight utility: essential/low
Scholars got both upgraded and downgraded in this version it seems. I remember my scholar being an effective melee dps character whom I liked better than geomancers in the original, but this time around he was pretty wimpy. In stead, he gets a few points of mana now and an upgraded study command.
Study basically gives you free castings of the lvl 4 white spell Libra, which tells you a mob’s hp and elemental weaknesses. Except on bosses, when it refuses to tell you the hp. As an added bonus, the ability also now dispels positive status effects on enemies you scan with it - free castings of the lvl 5 black spell Erase.
During exactly one boss fight in the game, you’ll need a scholar to keep your mages firing the right damage type. You can get a full set of starter scholar gear from one of the locked rooms in the empty castle… and you can probably sell it off after the boss fight. It’s kind of sad, I remember this being one of my favorite classes, but it’s just not worth keeping around any more.
bard
available: fire crystal abilities: sing role: buff-bot utility: annoying but high
I don’t use bards, they’re too passive. I can think of any number of ways to replace one in my party, and have done just that.
The sing ability allows the bard to cast a free beneficial effect on the party. Like cure spells, provoke, and flee, sing is one of those abilities that tends to land near the beginning of a combat round, so it can be pretty useful if you have the right harp equipped.
Yup, the spell you get out of singing depends on the harp you have wielded. This means there’s some eq switching to be done if you want to pick your spell. This gets old fast. Unless of course you don’t have enough harps to choose from… then shrug.
Whenever I find some higher level harps, I’ll try bards again, but until then, I’m not terribly impressed.
dark knight
available: fire crystal abilities: souleater role: melee dps utility: good
They’re not as durable as knights or vikings, but they supposedly hit harder - especially against targets weak to dark damage. Unfortunately, I don’t have any katanas yet, so I’ve not played much with the class.
Souleater allows them to spend hp to deliver a good AoE hit.
dragoon
available: fire crystal abilities: jump role: unkillable dps utility: very high
The dragoon is a classic final fantasy job - but they started in FF3. They’ve got high defense, wear good armour, and can hit hard.
But the real reason you want a dragoon or four is their jump command. It takes the dragoon out of combat for a round, making all sorts of enemy attacks miss while they’re flying. Then they come down for increased damage. At higher job levels, jump does over 2x the dragoon’s normal damage.
I like dragoons. I’m currently a bit upset in that it feels like they’ve been downgraded a bit from the original, but we shall see.
evoker
available: fire crystal abilities: lvl 1-8 summon magic role: slot machine utility: low
Evokers are the first class able to use summoning spells. Summons in FF3 aren’t as good as they are in later games, but they’re decent enough.
The big problem with an evoker’s spells is that they’ve got a 50/50 chance of doing either an offensive or a defensive effect. And when you need healing or big damage, the last thing you want is to blow mana on a pretty animation that does exactly the opposite.
I played with these guys in the orginal and wasn’t impressed. I don’t plan on using them in the new version either.
viking
available: fire crystal abilities: provoke role: offensive tank utility: very high
Vikings are the most durable class in the game. They’ve also got the highest strength. Their only downside is that they’re slow and don’t hit very many times. But I don’t notice much difference between a viking’s damage output when hitting 4 times and a ranger’s when hitting 8.
They’re advertised as pure defense, and that may be possible - stick a viking on the back row with two shields and he’s invincible. However, in most cases, that is probably a bit extreme.
The viking is perfectly happy to stand on the front row and take hits for 1 damage and deliver hammery death to all who oppose.
Their provoke ability is pretty nice, when it works. It tends to fire earlier in the round than a viking’s melee attack might. When provoke works, a single enemy is forced to attack the viking in melee in stead of whatever else they may have done.
I’m currently loving my viking. I’m not sure if I’ll be upgrading him to anything else on a permanent basis.
black belt
available: earth crystal abilities: boost role: melee wrecking ball utility: better than monk
Black belts hit hard. When they boost, they hit doubly hard. It’s apparently possible to boost twice for even bigger hits. Also it appears that bad things happen if you boost three times in a row? Need to confirm this
I don’t have black belt yet, so I can’t attest to their usefulness, but it looks like they’re most certainly better than monks.
devout
available: earth crystal abilities: lvl 1-8 white magic role: medic +1 utility: essential
These guys are your upgrade to white mages. Not much to say about them except the costume is adorable 
magus
available: earth crystal abilities: lvl 1-8 black magic role: ultimate in elemental dps utility: better than black mage
These guys are the upgraded black mages. Also not very much to say about them.
ninja
available: earth crystal abilities: throw role: ultimate physical dps / trash compactor utility: very high
The ninja got a most heinous nerfing in this version. They used to be unstoppable. Once you got them, there was no point not to use them for all of your physical characters.
Well, now, they’re simply good damage. I’d upgrade any dark knight to ninja as soon as I got the chance.
Throw is now a classic Final Fantasy ability. It allows a ninja to permanently discard a weapon in exchange for some obscene damage. Any weapon may be used for this purpose, but shuriken are built for it. They’re expensive, but if you can somehow afford a good stack of them… most bosses don’t stand a chance.
sage
available: earth crystal abilities: lvl 1-8 white/black/summon magic role: red mage on steroids utility: extremely high
The sage can use any spell in the game. This usually means that you’ll want to equip them with the full gamut of summons and healing spells with sprinkles of big black nukes to fill out their list.
They were the ultimate class in the original game. With a pack of sages & ninjas, there was no point to use anything else. However, like the ninja, the sage has taken a few hits from the nerf bat. They’re much more sanely balanced, but still make a great addition to any party.
The biggest thing you’ll notice is that sages get about half the mana that the specialized jobs do. The second biggest thing is that their nukes don’t do quite as much damage as a magus’s would, but they’ll still be worth using - especially if you want the flexibility to heal or smite depending on the situation.
In this version, their summons have also been downgraded. Originally, sages used to summon like summoners (ie, reliably for big dps). Now they’re like evokers - summoning randomly for a grab bag of effects.
summoner
available: earth crystal abilities: lvl 1-8 summon magic role: unreflectable spell damage utility: very high
Summoners get reliable results when they cast their spells. They’re all big bad nukes.
There are three optional pets (Bahamut, Odin, and Leviathan) that you’re gonna want if you want to use a summoner seriously. In order to cast these summons, you first have to fight the creature in question (they’re all lvl 40+ bosses).
The only real down side to summoners is their lack of variety. Every spell level has exactly one spell that they can use.
The plus side to summoner spells is that they blow through reflect.
Posted by Ammon as ff3, final fantasy, games, play at 12:06 PM EST
