Game Debate #138: Final Fantasy III (VI)

[Reed Rothchild | 9,520]

[Nintegageo | 582]

EASY EASY 10. This is my favourite game.

[B.A. | 1,139]

On my shortlist of favorite games ever. 10

[RH | 4,903]

For me, this is like my personal, Oscar Bluth, 420 mile, annual hike.  I can't say I've never played it.  I've restarted it too many times to count.  But I've never gotten far.  I know I made it to the opera once.  I want to go farther, but I just don't/can't.

Edited January 25, 2023 by RH

[Jeevan | 8,910]

Just about the most perfect rpg   

[Brickman | 3,983]

10. See my featured members post for reasons. Play it right now if you haven’t. 

[Webhead123 | 675]

I haven't played it since the 90's but it was mind-blowing at the time. Kefka was one of my favorite villains from any RPG. I want to revisit it but I have a tough time devoting myself to finishing RPGs these days. Nevertheless, I started replaying FF IV and found myself greatly enjoying it again, so maybe I'll muster up the courage to dive back in to this one once that's done.

9/10 based on my recollection of it from my youth.

[spacepup | 2,404]

I had to give this one a 10.  It is one of my favorite FF games, one of my favorite SNES games, and one of my favorite classic RPG games.

I love the music, the story, the characters, pretty much everything about the game.  I won't say the game is perfect, but it is just a REALLY well done classic traditional turn-based RPG, in my opinion.

I first played it when I was just REALLY into this style of RPG game, and it just blew me away.  I love all the artistic touches they took to make it something special.  For example, the intro segment where they are walking up toward the town, with a different graphical view and music - it totally got me into the vibe of the game.  

There are so many iconic and memorable segments of the game, from the Opera Scene, to the train area, the tower, just lots of things.  And it has a very interesting and varied set of characters (including villains), each with their own unique backstories and personalities.

Obviously I enjoy the game quite a bit   Definitely recommend!

[Hammerfestus | 3,836]

Pretty good.  It’s no Final Fantasy VII though.  9.

[WhyNotZoidberg | 585]

9/10

 

As close to perfection as you’ll get.

[JamesRobot | 5,800]

On 10/10/2022 at 4:56 PM, Gloves said:

Never played it. 

Me neither.

[AstralSoul | 502]

Masterpiece.

[Tanooki | 4,932]

Clearly I'm in the minority here, while I don't think there's really anything game breaking (or game boring) wrong with the game, I do believe it's overrated only second to Chrono Trigger.  I really wished for and was disappointed that Final Fantasy II(IV) was on the SNES CE, not this.  FF3 is a fine game, but it kind of over stays the welcome and the teach anyone anything mechanic waters down the fun, challenge, and depth of the game a bit.  Incredible story, characters, environments and music though.

[YOURTURN | 1,256]

It's a solid 8 for me.

I am with Mister Thou @Tanooki on this one. A lot of the game is great. And I even highly prefer this over Chrono Trigger. But realistically playing it had me feel like they could have done some things differently, and other things just had me feel a bit bogged down. Especially when it came to seeking out new skills for Gau to use. Stuff like that had me miss the level of grinding needed to get select Jobs/Classes on Final Fantasy V.

Again, great content. And I miss the old commercial. But again, there are things about it that do not make me want to rank it even higher.

[PII | 1,884]

Back in the day, this was when every gamer who wasn't already, suddenly became a huge RPG fan.  Everybody was playing this at night and talking about it all day long.  So Epic.  Second only to Chrono Trigger for my taste.

[Sumez | 2,947]

Quote

Final Fantasy III (VI)

Really, we are doing this?

 

Anyway this game is one of my seven 10/10 titles. Loved it since the first time I finished it. Replayed it probably ten times or such, and every time I felt like it was better than I remembered.
When I first got the opportunity to import video games, this was the first game I bought. Had to mail physical D-Mark cash to a German seller in an envelope because online payments weren't really commonly in place at the time.

Edited January 26, 2023 by Sumez

[RH | 4,903]

6 hours ago, PII said:

Back in the day, this was when every gamer who wasn't already, suddenly became a huge RPG fan.  Everybody was playing this at night and talking about it all day long.  So Epic.  Second only to Chrono Trigger for my taste.

This was 100% true.  I remember either my freshman or sophomore  year in High School standing outside with my friends before the bell rang to start going into our classes how the SNES gamers were talking about this game like mad.  One friend had the Nintendo Power guide and had used it, passed it to a friend, then passed it to a new friend and everyone LOVED this game, and many of those guys were not RPGers.  They were more the sports types and this even made some of them RPG/DnD nerds for the rest of the time I knew them.  Adam, my friend that owned the guide, was probably the chief advocate for the game and seemed to have a 1.00 batting average on telling people this game was awesome, and them believing him after playing it.

Oddly, back then I never really heard about Chrono Trigger much.  Just this game.  I am positive if I had owned a SNES back in that time I would have been singing a different tune.  I know I have my opinions now and I can't imagine rating this game higher than Final Fantasy VII, but I also know my own history and that part of my hype for FF VII was because how much I loved the older games AND I saw how awesome this game was by proxy of the praises from my friends.

So yes.  This game is squarely a 6 for me now.  But I could see it ranking quite different, and probably ranked as 11, had my personal history been different.  FF VII was so hyped in my own mind, it almost HAD to be perfect too me and for all it's flaws it was actually a great game.  It caught the anticipation for the next great Final Fantasy I'd get to experience, and that's just a shadow that, today, FF6 will never grow out from under.

Edited January 26, 2023 by RH

[rdrunner | 422]

8/10 - My personal experiences with the game were less than stellar, so best I can do.

First playthrough was in 2002, so no nostalgia.  I had to quit that first run because I got caught under leveled on the floating continent and couldn't survive or run from any battles.

About a year later (was too annoyed to start over right away) I played through the whole game.  I really liked the first half where the story kept me engaged.  The second half dragged on though.  I ended up using a guide and got all the characters (except Shadow, who I learned about too late).  I think my completion time was about 50 hours, which seemed insane at the time (previous long was Final Fantasy 4 in 20).

It's been 20 years and I have yet to play through this again, even though I've loosely planned on it.  Most of this is I'm not much of an RPG guy though.

Some quick final thoughts:

• Loved the music.  Will always be in my playlist!
• Story was good, though it could have easily been about 10 hours shorter.
• 14 party members is a bit much.
• Hated the Esper system (just auto upgrade my stats when I level for crying out loud).
• On the same vein, hated that I could turn all my characters into whatever I wanted.  It takes away from their personalities when not used as intended.

[Abelardo | 154]

It's a 10 for me, but I realize it hasn't aged as well as Chrono Trigger, I only recommend it to players who are interested in classic RPGs after they're done with CT and want something else.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

10/10. I didn't play it all the way through until I had the Playstation collection, but even at that later date, it was still fantastic. Unrivaled depth, great characters, tons of secrets, fun gameplay, excellent graphics, and stellar music. Up there with Chrono Trigger as one of the all-time great RPGs.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,073]

I voted for an 8, or it could also be a 9. I would have to replay it from start to finish to really make up my mind. However, from what I remember I wasn't the biggest fan of certain elements of this game.

For example, the cast is way too huge. Some characters even seem like mere joke characters. To me it felt like they included certain characters just because and not necessarily because the game actually benefitted from that. As a result not every character got the same amount of depth. The balancing is also pretty off with some skills being way too powerful, others being underwhelming etc. Compared to FF VI, FF IV did a better job of giving (almost) every character something unique and useful, imho. On top of that, I remember there being a lot of splitting up and shuffling around with characters which I usually never really like in a(n) (J)RPG.

Another minor annoyance was the system with the Espers. While I did like the idea of it, it also annoyed the heck out of the obsessive-compulsive part of my personality. Because if I remember correctly, your characters gained bonus status points, if they equipped certain espers. However, the bonuses would only get better with stronger Espers. But you can assigns the espers only to one character, so only that character gets the high bonuses, whereas the others are out of luck. What this ultimately lead to was that I would swap espers every few fight in order to maximize my stat gains. Maybe most people don't care about this, but for me it was fairly annoying.

As for Kefka and the dark turn this game took, it did leave an impression and was remarkable in a way. However, I personally prefer more adventurous stories with a lighter tone. For me it was actually a bit too bleak.

But it's been roughly two decades since I last played this game, so I might be misremembering stuff. It's actually part of my backlog and would like to replay it in the near future.

[PII | 1,884]

4 hours ago, RH said:

This was 100% true.  I remember either my freshman or sophomore  year in High School standing outside with my friends before the bell rang to start going into our classes how the SNES gamers were talking about this game like mad.  One friend had the Nintendo Power guide and had used it, passed it to a friend, then passed it to a new friend and everyone LOVED this game, and many of those guys were not RPGers.  They were more the sports types and this even made some of them RPG/DnD nerds for the rest of the time I knew them.  Adam, my friend that owned the guide, was probably the chief advocate for the game and seemed to have a 1.00 batting average on telling people this game was awesome, and them believing him after playing it.

Oddly, back then I never really heard about Chrono Trigger much.  Just this game.  I am positive if I had owned a SNES back in that time I would have been singing a different tune.

Chrono Trigger was a much quieter event.  Everyone had been converted by then and mostly all of the same people were excitedly talking about it, only with a lot more bodily reserve.  FFIII/VI was the Big Blastorama Event by comparison.  I still have a vivid memory of a couple of guys having an overly excited hollering conversation about it in the hallway at school 50 feet or more apart from each other as they walked in opposite directions to get to their classes on time.    And one of those two guys I'd had over not long before who hadn't been aware that there was a Dragon Warrior II? 

Edited January 26, 2023 by PII

[Tanooki | 4,932]

I see where surprisingly some did kind of agree with me on a bit of it.

I did kind of hyper focus on the slog of the skills where anyone can basically largely be the same with not a huge amount of effort either, kind of de-personalized it outside of set tricks like painting a picture, mimic, etc.

rdrunner kind of captured most my gripes when it deserved the 8, fenrir too as the FF5 job system just worked better and took a bit more to earn it too effort wise.  The thing is with FF6 it over stays its welcome and the roster is just utter bloat, bloat they had to force too because how they worked the tail of the game in stages with teams.  I never hit it, knew others who did and forgot, but you can really trap yourself into a restart with this one especially on the floating continent.

I never felt a big level of attachment as everyone was just a different colors sprite, a prop, it had its moments, did it ever, but still at a gameplay level it's totally not as it's depersonalized badly.  Take FF4, a good 20-25 hours game depending on your first time (and not much under 20 even if it's not.)  People come and go, but they all have hard set classes, and in the case of not (Cecil) had basically had to meet a huge life changing point to shed the evil.  Everyone in that game had a true purpose, they fit the moment, they grew and died with you, everything was just more touching, memorable, sucked you in.  You felt very rewarded ranking up, stats improved, but better yet your work had true gains with new spells and skills just YOU could use, not someone else unless it was a cross over of classes (the twins, tellah, rydia, rosa) in the party at the same time.  You had to re-work stuff, not just grind out some crap, give everyone super speed, super strength, the best heals/curatives, and ultima and just steamroll the crap out of whatever dared pop up, Kefka included, which really watered down the end of the game badly.  That's why I said it's 8, too many poor choices that don't require huge effort to suck the life out of the game, suck the gameplay personality of it too.

[Estil | 1,264]

My wife actually cried when I showed her that opera scene and explaining how it was among the most iconic moments in Final Fantasy and perhaps all of JRPG history.  Which surprised me because I thought if anything she'd complain once again how it didn't "look realistic enough"    I once made a topic on the old NA about how she was a "graphics whore"   But above all else she insisted she would not play any driving games unless you can use a wheel  

[doner24 | 1,195]

Never played it, but open to it. Probably won’t be as good as Lufia 2 or Breath of Fire 2 though.