Originally Posted by
Forsaken Lover
So the game is hard because the Jobs it gives you don't work? What kind of defense is that?
I don't remember being upset at the difficulty in FF3D, though. It actually sort of curves downward in difficulty and by the end it's pretty easy. Cloud of Darkness was a decent challenge for a final boss but she was the first challenge in a long time. The start of the game is harder because of limited Job selection and stuff.
But overall, yes, it was probably among the hardest FF games. Not always for the right reasons, much like your "FF3NES is broken therefore it's challenging" counter.
I never said the classes were broken. With the exception of the Geomancer class, which was poorly conceived in its original form, I would actually argue the classes of the Famicom version are far more balanced from a challenge perspective than their DS counterparts which are balanced against each other, but mostly overpowered in general for the games difficulty
. I mean Magic Fencer was an okay class that was imperative to have against dividing enemies in the NES version. Dark Knights are just overpowered in general in the DS version and even then; dividing enemies are hardly a threat anymore and the boost to mages makes the DK less useful for the role it was meant to play in the game to begin with. Likewise, dual wielding is a risky strategy in the NES version since the loss of the extra defense would make even the tankiest class a glass cannon against several enemies. In the DS version, there is rarely anything outside of boss battles that would make you want to have a shield and the extra damage from a secondary weapon gave ridiculous damage bonuses whereas it was a bit more modest in the original.
The other element that makes the game more challenging was the fact that most abilities can actually miss including magic and skills like Jump, so they weren't guarantee damage, damage itself would fluctuate due to the game recreating the "dice" aspect of roll playing games so an enemy could easily one shot your knight or viking with a concentrated spell whereas in the DS version, these classes take scratch damage from that kind of stuff when defending. In fact, it's pretty much the whole idea that FFIII still adheres to table top dice mechanics in general, that makes this game more challenging whereas the remake utilizes the more streamlined design of the 16-bit era and onward with damage rarely fluctuating, classes with powerful skills with near perfect accuracy, and the game often favoring the player in terms of damage and speed. The DS version also can't recreate the amount of enemies on the screen like the NES/Famicom era due to hardware limitations, as having eight enemies on a screen with enemies that can either divide to keep that number constant or inflict nasty status ailments like confusion or paralyze with their physical abilities. I can easily name dungeons that I absolutely dread in the NES version whereas I wouldn't spare a thought for them in the DS version.
So while the DS version is still challenging in today's standards, it does way more to favor the player than the original which was more of a free for all. I wouldn't even call it broken design as I often don't feel a game should cater to the player.