Final Fantasy III
Description official descriptions
A thousand years ago, the War of the Magi occurred. People remember it as one of the most horrible tragedies in history. Since the War of the Magi, magic has been all but forgotten, technology began to grow, and people returned to seemingly normal lives. The only true worry people have is the Empire, whose leaders are looking to revive the great force once known as "magic".
The Empire had heard word of the remains of a mystical being, known as "Esper", being found in the mining town of Narshe. Quickly, three soldiers were dispatched to find this Esper and bring it to the Emperor. One of the soldiers, a young girl, triggers a power in the Esper that initiates a dangerous series of events. The only ones who can help her are a rag-tag band of rebels and heroes, who offer their very hearts and souls to save the world from the mad plans of the Empire.
The sixth entry in the Final Fantasy series was dubbed Final Fantasy III in the West because three out of the five previous installments of the series had not been released there at the time. Similar to its predecessors, this is a role-playing game where the player controls a party of characters, traveling between various locales in the world, fighting randomly appearing regular enemies and bosses, and making the characters stronger by improving their skills and getting better equipment for them. The game maintains the ATB (active time battle) system of the two previous installments in the series, spicing traditional turn-based combat engine with a real-time element.
In battle, every character can fight using weaponry and items, and each has a special combat skill as well. It is also possible for nearly every character to learn magic spells. By finding various Espers and equipping them on characters, the player can improve their parameters in different ways and choose the magic spells the characters should learn.
Unlike most other Japanese RPGs, the game does not have a single main character. Rather, the player-controlled party can be considered the game's collective protagonist. The first part of the game develops linearly, with one of the characters playing a central role; however, during the second part, the player is associated with a different character initially, exploring the game world, recruiting characters, and completing sub-quests in a non-linear fashion.
PlayStation re-release of the game includes new FMV cutscenes, bestiary, and artwork galleries. Game Boy Advance version and later Android, iOS, and PC releases remove FMVs but instead include two new bonus dungeons (the Dragons' Den and the Soul Shrine), new bosses, espers, weapons, and gear, as well as many other minor additions and changes.
Spellings
- γγ‘γ€γγ«γγ‘γ³γΏγΈγΌοΌΆοΌ© - Japanese spelling
- ζη»εΉ»ζ³6 - Simplified Chinese spelling
Groups +
Screenshots
Promos
Videos
See any errors or missing info for this game?
You can submit a correction, contribute trivia, add to a game group, add a related site or alternate title.
Credits (SNES version)
64 People (48 developers, 16 thanks) · View all
Producer | |
Director | |
Main Programmer | |
Graphic Director | |
Music | |
Image Designer | |
Battle Planner | |
Field Planner | |
Event Planner | |
Effect Programmer | |
Battle Programmer | |
Sound Programmer | |
Effect Graphic Designer | |
Field Graphic Designer | |
[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Discussion
Subject | User | Date |
---|---|---|
Named wrong? | te_lanus (523) | 2018-10-07 06:23:35 |
M A G I C | Simoneer (29) | 2010-10-01 16:07:34 |
Holy crap. (another game music post) | J. P. Gray (115) | 2008-06-22 16:20:05 |
Trivia
1001 Video Games
Final Fantasy VI appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
Characters
The names of some of the player-controlled characters were changed from their original Japanese counterparts: * Tina (γγ£γ) Branford became Terra Mash (γγγ·γ₯) Rene Figaro became Sabin Cayenne (γ«γ€γ¨γ³) Garamonde became Cyan**
Development
Development of the game was rushed and several superbosses are included in the game's code but were not actually used. There are also several glitches in the game, possibly a result of the rushed development.
Extras
The European PlayStation release also contains the Final Fantasy X demo disc.
Manual
The game manual in the PlayStation version contains a major spoiler, by casually mentioning a major plot twist while listing the bonus content available after completion of the game.
Multiplayer
In the configuration menu of the original SNES release, characters can be set to either Controller 1 or Controller 2, making this in effect a two-player game. However, this control to the second player only works in battle and not on the overhead view maps or levels.
References
- In the SNES version (it is unknown if this applies to the PSX remake), the two soldiers that escort Terra at the beginning of the game are named Vicks and Wedge. This is a mistranslation, and a reference to Star Wars, where there are two pilots named Biggs and Wedge.
- Larry, Curly, and Moe are named after the slapstick comedy threesome The Three Stooges.
Sequel
Sometime in the mid-1990s, Square released several models showing off their new 3-D system. Much of what they used were characters and images from Final Fantasy VI, modeled into new 3-D. For this reason many people were expecting a sequel using these same characters or some kind of spin-off game. Much speculation was around Project Reality (the Nintendo 64) which promised to be a console system built around rendering 3-D graphics. In the end, nothing developed from these rumors about Final Fantasy VI and Square's following game in the series, Final Fantasy VII became the first to use 3-D modeling techniques.
Setzer
One of the main characters in this game is an avid gambler named "Setzer" (he even has a casino build on his airship). Supposedly, this was meant to be the German equivalent of "one who places a bet" or "placer". While it technically means this in German, it is never used that way; "Setzer" is rather used for "typesetter" (well, not that typesetters are common nowadays anyway). Yet another example of Japanese usage of German "names".
Soundtrack
The entire 25-minute opera sequence is available on CD as played by a full orchestra with singers. It's on the album Orchestral Game Concert #4, (translated, CD is Japanese) which is, itself, hard to find.
There have been multiple albums released with the game's soundtrack, all of them in 1994: a three-CD set with the original music, two CDs with orchestral and piano arrangements of certain tracks, and a CD with unused or remixed tracks. More details are to be found at Wikipedia.
Translation
It is a popular rumor that the lead translator for the English version, Ted Woolsey, apparently lacked professional translating experience. The discrepancies in translations have been attributed to this fact for several years. As with many translations, name changes and dialogue 'corrections' are left entirely up to the staff, but there are many who believe that these erroneous changes are due entirely to the fact that Ted did not have the knowledge to translate the text fully.
Version differences
There were two SNES releases of Final Fantasy III, the later release contains minor hardware revisions, as well as tweaks to the game itself such as the disappearance and renaming of certain items (Hero Ring, etc).
In the original SNES release of the game, Relm's "Sketch" ability is very buggy. Using it consistently against certain enemies can cause all sorts of interesting problems such as graphical distortions, random status effects and/or inability to use party members, a hacked inventory full of items/spells that are not even possible to get, large amounts of various items/spells and sometimes even a wipe of all the game's saved battery data.
Awards
- Electronic Gaming Monthly
- October 1994 (Issue 63) - Game of the Month
- November 1997 (Issue 100) - ranked #7 (Readers' Top 10 Games of All Time)
- November 1997 (Issue 100) - ranked #9 (Best 100 Games of All Time)
- FLUX
- Issue #4 - #28 in the "Top 100 Video Games of All-Time" list
- GameFan
- 1994 (Vol.3, Iss.1) - Overall RPG Game of the Year
- 1994 (Vol.3, Iss.1) - Best SNES RPG Game of the Year
- 1994 (Vol.3, Iss.1) - Best SNES Music
- Game Informer
- August 2001 (Issue #100) - #7 in the "Top 100 Games of All Time" poll
- Game Players
- January 1995 - Best SNES RPG Game in 1994
- GameSpy
- 2007 β #4 Handheld Game of the Year
- 2007 β GBA Game of the Year
- 2007 β GBA RPG of the Year
- VideoGames
- March 1995 - Best Role-Playing Game of the Year
Related Sites +
-
FF-Fan
A fansite that offers all kinds of information on the entire Final Fantasy franchise, including walkthroughs, game media, discussion boards and fan art. -
Final Fantasy Compendium
Contains an insane amount of information on every Final Fantasy game and the series in general. -
Final Fantasy Extreme
Site that contains movies, wallpaper, codes, guides, walkthroughs, and general information on the Final Fantasy series. -
Final Fantasy Online Strategy Guides
Tips, tricks, walkthroughs, and just really useful information for Final Fantasy VI. -
GameFaqs Files
FAQs, Walkthroughs, multiples guides... -
Wikipedia: Final Fantasy VI
Information about Final Fantasy VI at Wikipedia
Identifiers +
- MobyGames ID: 5202
- Steam App: 382900
Contribute
Know about this game? Add your expertise to help preserve this entry in video game history!
Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Satoshi Kunsai.
Android added by Fred VT. PS Vita, Windows added by GTramp. Wii U added by Michael Cassidy. iPad, iPhone added by firefang9212. Fire OS added by Sciere. Wii added by Joshua J. Slone. Game Boy Advance added by Unicorn Lynx. PSP, PlayStation 3 added by MAT.
Additional contributors: Roedie, Unicorn Lynx, SAGA_, Alaka, Mobygamesisreanimated, Bregalad, JudgeDeadd, DarkDante, Big John WV, DreinIX, β-, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack, 64er.
Game added October 22nd, 2001. Last modified April 4th, 2023.