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This should be a DS title RPG fans won’t want to miss, especially considering this is the only Final Fantasy game that has not been previously released in North America.

Final Fantasy has one of the most convoluted numbering schemes in history. Now this fall, Square-Enix is releasing a remake of Final Fantasy III for the Nintendo DS. I’m sure some of you are thinking right now, “Hey, I remember Final Fantasy III! That was a great Super Nintendo game.” That would be too simple. In Japan, the SNES game we know as Final Fantasy III is the sixth game in the series. This Final Fantasy III has never before been released in the United States. It was previously released on the Famicom, the Japanese equivalent of the NES, but this is the first time Americans will get to experience the true third entry of the Final Fantasy series.



If you have ever played a traditional Final Fantasy game, FF III will offer no surprises. The formula is the same as all of the earlier games in the series: you wander around a local town until somebody gives you a quest to go on. From there, you head to a cave or dungeon or hideout via the world map, fighting random encounters along the way. You then proceed to hack and slash your way through the dungeon, collecting treasure and fighting monsters, eventually encountering a boss of some sort. This process is repeated time after time while a grand story of corruption and injustice unfolds around you.

There really isn’t much else to say about Final Fantasy III other than that it plays just like every other game in the series, and that it is glorious. If you have ever played a Final Fantasy game before, you will instantly feel right at home. The adventuring and town-wandering is wonderful, and the traditional turn-based battles are fast-paced and exciting. I only had one complaint about the battle system: you choose all of your characters’ actions at the same time, and then everybody moves. In every Final Fantasy game since IV, you do not choose a character’s actions until it is their turn to move.