Final Fantasy III

Not to be confused with Final Fantasy VI, which was renamed into Final Fantasy III in its initial North American release.

Final Fantasy III  is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square in 1990 for the Family Computer as the third installment in the Final Fantasy series. It is the first numbered Final Fantasy game to feature the job-change system. A 3D remake for the Nintendo DS was released in 2006 and subsequently ported to iOS and Android in 2011, PlayStation Portable in 2012, and Windows in 2014.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) It introduces the summons that would become a staple in the series.
 * 2) It also introduces a dynamic job system which would be later redefined in Final Fantasy V.
 * 3) Awesome storytelling and world building.
 * 4) It is bigger than the original game, clocking about 20 hours and, in a few cases (like the final dungeon), harder too!
 * 5) Many more locations and kingdoms to visit.
 * 6) Exciting bosses.
 * 7) Yet another plot involving the crystals.
 * 8) The enhanced remake gives the four protagonists unique personalities and backstories.
 * 9) This game introduces Moogles.
 * 10) A few quality of life features that the first two games lacked: for example, the player could be able to retarget to another enemy if one enemy dies. It’s only available for physical attacks, but it’s still a welcome addition.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Phoenix Downs are not available in shops and can only be obtained by enemies or treasure chests. There is plenty of water fountains which can be used to revive party members however.
 * 2) The steam port used to be a disaster until Square Enix made a patch which fixed all the problems people had criticized.
 * 3) The PC port has the "run" and "cancel" actions mapped to the same keys which absolutely no way to change it.
 * 4) The final dungeon is considered to be the worst one of the whole series, as well as a major reason why this game is considered difficult. Cloud of Darkness, the final boss, is reviled in particular, considered by fans to be the worst final boss in the series: she has only one attack, which causes a lot of damage.
 * 5) * Though the remake fixed that by giving her more attacks.
 * 6) In the Original game, none of the protagonists has any backstory nor personality.
 * 7) * To make matters worse, they don't even have names.

Reception
Upon release, Famicom Tsūshin (now Famitsu) gave the Famicom version a score of 36 out of 40, based on a panel of four reviewers giving it ratings of 9, 9, 10 and 8 out of 10. This made it one of their three highest-rated games of 1990, along with Dragon Quest IV and F-Zero, both of which scored 37 out of 40. It was also one of the magazine's six highest-rated games up until 1990.