I think the reviewer needs to get his googles checked. Sure, the battles still had a lot of black, but at last the blue menu and stuff appears during battles! And also that annoying battle glitch off missing instead of choosing a new opponent is gone.

And lol, the story of III was by far better than II, sorry for that, II fans. Sure II had character development, and had the most unbelievable people-die scenes in it. At least [SPOILER] Elia's Death [end spoiler] was a lot sadder, IMHO.

I agree about the inventory that it was rather small, but it was not a big problem. Find some fat chocobo and drop away, I woudl say. or when you get that gorgeous Invincible Airship, you can always have a Fatty, as long as you have the stuff to make him appear^^.

The enemy sprites and battle backgrounds in III were also a lot more coulorfull and more detailed than the sprites and backgrounds in II.
All in all, III pwns II in many, many ways.

And the fact that he thinks the bosses are hard, just prove that he can't play a challenging game. Sure there are bosses who smurf you, like Bahamut as an example, but nothing too serious.

And he even gives the music an underrated score. Elia's theme, Battle2, Dark World (!!!) were all examples of great songs. And this was also teh first FF in which the Final Boss got it's own battle music!

So, it's not FF III that's wrong, it's just the reviewer. He wouldn't even recognize a good FF if he was playing one. Just ignore him.
FF III got everything out of the NES that there was to get out, pitty if you can't even see THAT. A pure fact. ^^"