Why is FF III so good?

[Crossblades]

I was wondering why is FF III so good? I heard it was just like FF V and not too many people like V. How is III different from V? Why is it better?

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

It's to the FC/NES games what FFVI is to the SFC/SNES games. Its story is more intricate than those of its predecessors, with numerous NPCS with their own backstories and sub-plots, and for the first time, the main villain actually had motivation for being evil and all. FFI and FFII were very similar in terms of graphics, but FFIII's graphics are miles beyond theirs and very impressive for a FC game made in 1990. It also was the start of many things that became recurring in the series--healing springs, the Onion Swordsman, Summoners, Geomancers, Bards, Magical Swordsmen, the Knight sprite, Thieves that can actually steal and pick locks, Dragon Knights that can actually jump, Ninja that can actually throw, the concept of "Scan," the Fat Chocobo, Frog status, multiple airships, submersibles, optional dungeons and side-quests, hidden towns, changing jobs mid-game, playing piano, wacky comedy, etc.

[Crossblades]

How is the job system different from FF V?

[omnitarian]

Like FFV, characters can change their job whenever and wherever.

[Crossblades]

But supposedly in FF III you need SP or something to change jobs. How does that work?

[Sir Bahamut]

You gain Capacity(C) from fighting battles just like money and exp.
Switching Jobs requires a certain amoint of C, affected by the difference in jobs(ie. it takes more C to switch from a Mage to a Fighter then Fighter to another Fighter) and the Skill points you've earned with the job you want to switch to(the more skill you eanr with a job, the easier it'll be switching back to it later on).

The difference between FF3 jobs and FF5 jobs is mainly that you don't learn the jobs skills like in FF5. Each job has a set command list which cannot be altered or brought along to another job. You can't make your Monk use magic in other words.

And why is it so good? Well, the gameplay simply enough works. Really well. The job system is very good(especially for it being the first FF job system ever), and almost all jobs are useful(save jobs like Bard, who really sucks). It's damn entertaining really.

[Crossblades]

Then i'm looking forward for it's release then!

[DJZen]

The job system is very good(especially for it being the first FF job system ever), and almost all jobs are useful(save jobs like Bard, who really sucks). It's damn entertaining really.

O.o

FFI had a job system..... And Bards weren't the only weak jobs, Scholars and Geomancers regularly got killed in my games.

[Sir Bahamut]

FF1 didn't have the same kind of job system. I'm talking about a Job system where you can switch at any time in the game, In FF1 you could only choose at the very beginning and that was that. Hardly a job system, it was just chosing your main characters.

And Bard was only an example, I wasn't saying that was the ONLY weak Job.

[Martyr]

I don't know what the modern version will be like, but I always found FF3, as played on a rom, far better because it didn't have stupid/horrible dialogue and empty plot promises.

FFV was a great game to play, it was simply wretched to deal with the idiotic conversations.

FFIII should have the same teriffic style of gameplay minus the idiocy.

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

FFV's script was salvaged from a 1992-era translation from when the game was still planned to be released in America on the SNES. That's why its quality is somewhere between that of FFIV's translation (horrendous) and that of FFVI's (good). Square has been a lot less lazy with its translations since then, though--fully retranslating FFI, II, and IV, for instance--so I'd say we have nothing to worry about when it comes to FFIII.

And you can change classes in FFI; it's just that you can only do it once per game, to your entire party at once, to nothing more than stronger versions of the classes your originally had. Give it a break; it was prototypical.

[Sir Bahamut]

I wasn't criticising FF1, I was merely pointing out why it's not comparable to FF3j as a Job System game. Because when I said FF3 was the first "Job System game" I meant the first one to contain Jobs you could switch at any point.

[Fredde]

By the way, sidequests weren't introduced in FFIII. The whole class-change thing in FFI could be considered a sidequest (I.E you don't have to do it to beat the game, but it sure makes it easier to do so). And the chocoboo of FFII could be considered a (tiny) sidequest as well, just as finding excallibur (I won't say how, 'cause that's spoiler-ific).

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

FFIII was the first game in the series with multiple side-quests/optional dungeons/etc., then.

[Fredde]

Nu-uh, FFII had both the chocoboo-quest and the excalibur-quest. Tough none of them were very big. So we could say that FFIII had the first big sidequests.