Plot
One thousand years before the events in 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 light and dark, four warriors were granted the power of the dark crystals to recapture 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, predicted that these events will ultimately repeat.
An earthquake opens up a previously hidden cavern in Altar Cave near the village of Ur on the floating continent. Four young orphans under the care of Topapa, the village elder, explore the earthquake's impact 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 lays a whole world beyond the boundaries of the floating continent upon which they were living. In the world below, they discover that a warlock named Xande, one of three apprentices to the legendary Archmage Noah, is trying to possess the crystals of light to bring forth chaos and disorder. The four warriors eventually arrive at the Crystal Tower where they discover that the Cloud of Darkness is the source of the recent events. The Cloud attempts to bring back a similar situation as the Flood of Light a millennia earlier so that the world is pulled into the void. The warriors from the light traverse into the domain of the dark crystals to free the imprisoned dark warriors and defeat the Cloud of Darkness, thereby restoring the crystals and balance to the world. In the DS remake, there are also several "side quests" that can be completed.Characters
Final Fantasy III focuses around four orphans from the remote village of Ur, each of them starting off as Freelancers. The Nintendo DS version of the game individualized the party members, giving them unique appearances (designed by Akihiko Yoshida), backstories, personalities and names:
Luneth (ルーネス Rūnesu?) who symbolizes courage, an adventurous orphan boy raised in the village of Ur; Arc (アルクゥ Arukū?) who symbolizes kindness, Luneth's childhood best friend and a timid yet intelligent young man; Refia (レフィア?) who symbolizes affection, a girl raised in the village of Kazus who tires of her father's blacksmith training and often runs away from home; and Ingus (イングス Ingusu?) who symbolizes determination, a loyal soldier serving the King of Sasune, with a (mutual) soft spot for the princess Sara.Though Xande (ザンデ Zande?) is the one they have to stop for the most of the game, he is eventually revealed to be merely a pawn of the Cloud of Darkness (暗闇の雲 Kurayami no Kumo?), a malevolent and vicious deity who wishes to push the world into a state of chaos and destruction by upsetting the balance between light and darkness, allowing the Void to consume the world. Appearing in a female-like form, she refers to herself in first-person plurals because her two tentacles have minds of their own. Although she initially defeats the Warriors of the Light, they are resurrected with Unei and Doga's help, and, with help from the Dark Warriors, they defeat the Cloud of Darkness.
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 (HP) are now shown above the target following attacks or healing actions, rather than captioned as in the previous two games. Auto-targeting for physical attacks after a friendly or enemy unit is killed is also featured for the first time. Unlike subsequent games in the series, magical attacks are not auto-targeted in the same fashion.
The experience point system featured in Final Fantasy makes a return following its absence from Final Fantasy II. The character class system featured in the first game in the franchise also reappears, with some modifications. Whereas in the original game the player chooses each character's class alignment at the start of the game, Final Fantasy III introduces the "job system" for which the series would later become famous. Jobs are presented as interchangeable classes: in the Famicom version of the game, all four characters begin as "Onion Knights", with a variety of additional jobs becoming available as the game progresses. Any playable character has access to every currently available job. Switching jobs consumes "capacity points" which are awarded to the entire party following every battle, much like gil. Different weapons, armor and accessories, and magic spells are utilized by each job. A character's level of proficiency at a particular job increases the longer the character remains with that job. Higher job levels increase the battle statistics of the character and reduce the cost in capacity points to switch to that job.
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" is the Thief's specialty, while "Jump" is the Dragoon's forte). Certain jobs also feature innate, non-battle abilities, such as the Thief's ability to open passages that would otherwise require a special key item. It is also the first game in the series to feature Summoned Creatures which are called with the "Summon" skill.
With the release of FFIII we see that they don't venture too far from the first two games released. we find our selves on a different world with different characters. Returning to the concept of multiple main characters the 4 orphans turned into Warriors of Light take the stage, knowing only the town and area in which they have lived an earthquake (destiny) brings them in contact with a crystal of light. Here we see a return of the elements from the first game, but instead of Orbs we have transcended to the Final Fantasy trademark of the Crystal, crystals as we will see have a mythos all there own as the games progress. We also see the villain in III is not so much a person but an entity, The Cloud of Darkness, taking the appearance of a woman, she appears to have a split personality, but as it would appear she has two tentacles that show the personality of the two different ones she possesses. Her goal is not to just destroy the world and control it, but to return it to the Void, into a state of nothingness, maybe even a state of new beginnings.
As we see some of the main elements of FF I reappear as the individual leveling system makes an appearance, as well as the specific job classes, which can be chosen for each individual character. And yet a couple new elements were added to the character job classes, such as the steal special ability linked to the Thief class, or the Jump ability linked to the new Dragoon Job class. As such we see once again, weapons linked to the job classes as well as equipment and accessories. Magic and Spells, along with Items can still be purchased in shops, and as we can see the Overworld Map, Towns and Dungeons continue to be consistent within the games. Chocobos, Ships, and Airships as well are brought back along with the infamous captain of an Airship Cid.
So were now through the first 3 titles of the game, the points we seem to develop tend to be the different stories, characters and they are attempting to begin messing with battle system slightly by adding special abilities. It also continues to be a Turned based game. One addition that I would like to mention is the summoned creatures. These beast of might and magic continue to appear through out the history of final fantasy as well, in different forms and names, some have continued to show up consistently, such as Shiva the diva of Cold, Ifrit the demon of Fire, Ramuh god of Thunder or Queztcotl the Thunder Bird, and many more. Although in XII we have a completely different set of summons some of these names appear in the game as names of Airships. And lastly there was a word mentioned not sure if it was caught "gil" this is the name for money in the FF world, every game has called money Gil.
Now I have only played very very little of all three of these games. I have a hard time getting into them, there are no real graphics to be had, as the characters are all bit characters, no real cut scenes to be had. Let me give you a little of my history playing Final Fantasy.
I discovered FF with the release of Final Fantasy VIII in 1999, the cinematic opening with dramatic music and CGI characters hooked me the moment I saw one of my step brothers playing the game for the first time. This was my first game, I then preceded to go back and play the infamous FFVII. This was the game that hooked most people. I liked it a lot, though VIII to me was better. I will touch on these games when they come up of course so I am not going to go into too much detail. But I followed from VII on, playing VIII and XI then of course the groundbreaking release of the first FF on the PlayStation 2 Final Fantasy X. It wasn't till this game came out and the more intricate they get, the longer it takes for them to make the game that I decided to check out the titles previous to VII. I am attracted to the more real looking characters and cut scenes and CGI that I have just not finished any of the titles previous to VII, even the remakes for the DS which have some of the cut scenes and CGI at the beginning and end of the games I just get bored.
While I can appreciate the story lines and the characters I think I just jumped on the bandwagon too late for me to really love the previous games. I have researched these previous titles so that I can continue mapping the history of how this great franchise has evolved over time into what it is today, an ever growing and continuing project for Square Enix the company who has brought us these wonderful stories.
So in continuing on next is Final Fantasy IV;
Things to keep in mind:
Items
Shops
Jobs
Classes
Weapons
Armor
Overworld Maps
Towns
Dungeons
Summons
Cid
Chocobos
Airships
Crystals
Magic
Summons
Battle Systems
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