REVIEW: Final Fantasy III 1994 SNES
	By: SquareSoft Type: RPG Players: 1 Difficulty: Normal

Firstly I wouldn´t describe Final Fantasy 3 is just a SNES game, more like an 30 - 40 hour interactive adventure movie. The truth is that the story is way better in FF3 than in any other movie I have ever seen! It´s filled with intrigues and interesting characters each with very different personalities. Before I go any further I should present the background story of the game in short terms: Over 100 years ago a powerful force known as magic existed over the world but after a while the people began to misuse the power and the War of Magic broke out between the people and the Gods. The Gods emerged victorious and the peoples whole civilisation had been destroyed and magic had ceased to exist. Now 100 years later the technical evolution have passed by and inventions such as steam engines and gunpowder have been reinvented. in this world lives a little girl named Terra who miraculously has got the gift of magic.

The evil empire in charge by evil Emperor Gestahl hears of her gift and captures here and gains complete control over her by putting an slavecrown on her head. They uses her powers to gain even more land and is now starting to drain energy for creatures to produce their newly invented Magitech Battlesuits that uses some kind of  magical imitation. During one mission she gets attacked by an esper and Terra gets rid of the curse of the slavecrown. She wakes up in an Inn and has completely lost her memory and can´t even remember her own name! The old man explains that she´s an soldier of the empire and suddenly some imperial soldiers knocks on the door and she escapes out the backdoor in to the mines but unfortunately some of the guards had seen her when he fled and runs after...... This is just the beginning of the greatest RPG yet all platforms. As you plays through the game you´ll Terra as she joins the Returners (a small group of people that tries to overthrow Gestahl and destroy the mighty Empire). You will follow each member of that group and other people that they meet on their journeys. Let me introduce some of the games characters:

Terra
The pure little girl with the gift of magic.

Locke
The adventurous young Treasure hunter that travels all around the world to seek ancient treasures and relics of the past, but most of his friends normally uses the term "chief" which he doesn´t like.

Edgar
The hopeless ladykiller and proud king of Figaro, that "tries to hit everything that moves" (including Terra which isn´t approved by Locke!)

Sabin
Edgar´s long lost brother who choosed freedom instead of the demanding duties that a King must do. He fled up in mountain and  after being trained by an old man he´s now a real martial arts expert who´s powerful blitz attacks makes the journeys much easier to complete.

Kefka
Evil (with a capital E!) officer of the empire that does anything to win his battles even if that means that many innocent will be killed. The real evil guy!

Gau
A little boy that has grown up with the monsters on the Veldt. Once he joins you he got the neat ability to mimic the monsters that he meat on the Veldt and be able to use their attacks later in the game!

Shadow
He comes and goes like the Wind and allies with nobody. This strange Ninja/Assassin joins up with you when you lest expect it and disappear as sudden.

You actually care about the characters and what happens to them. this and the magnificent story is the things that keeps you going through all those hundreds of Gold Point collection and level raising fights that you´ll have to fight. The story is so good that when you do stop playing the for meals, homework or to work on the NintendoLand you find yourself thinking things like: How will it end? What's Kefka up to now? Will Locke make it? etc, so soon you´ll find yourself sitting in front of the TV playing FF3 again! How about the graphics then you might ask... Well they are nothing short of outstanding with all the varied and detailed scenes (Ranging from small timber houses to dark industrial complexes). The special effect ie. magic etc. are one of the coolest I have ever seen in an video game! Does it have great music too.... Yes it does, it´s so goos that it has been released as a CD in Japan that went high up the charts. When I played a part of the music for my Mother she couldn´t for a minute believe that it was from a SNES game! It´s like you´ve got a while classic orchestra in your SNES (no awful techno music here!). The musics are so moody and well composed that they would easily fit in almost any classic music collection!

A RPG with great story interesting characters, Great FX and music that will last in at least 30 - 40 hours.... Sounds to good to be true eh! Well I tried to hard to find faults and finally I found that FF3 has 2 main drawbacks and it´s 1. FF3 just might be to complex for players that haven´t played any RPG before before. Then games like Super Mario RPG, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest or Secret of Mana would be more suitable. 2. As I said earlier the only thing that decreases FF3´s score from 100% to 96% is all the boring and repetitive Gp and Level raising battles to be able to buy all those new flashy weapon and to learn new cool Magics and fighting techniques. Don´t be put of be all the talk about boring fighting sequences because that´s really what RPG´s are all about. The fact that the game takes 30 - 40 hours to complete isn´t because it´s so hard to complete, it´s because it´s so big, have also in mind that it´s only an very good RPG player that will finish it in 30 - 40 hours! Another good thing is that the game is so packed with secret characters, relics, weapons and items so you won´t leave this game to collect dust in a drawer somewhere once completed. FF3 is a game to return to again and again of not to find all the secrets but to experience the magical and touching story of FF3 once more! The dialog in the game is also very well thought-out, serious and deep but at the same time fresh and interesting with nice touches and funny dialogs and scenes.

Final Fantasy 3 is THE RPG game for all rpg fans out their but also to patience players that wants to try something different than all the american made action, racing and sport games. FF3 is THE RPG OF ALL TIME so stop reading and go buy it and become as engulfed by it´s story and great graphics as I am! - Mattias Liedholm 94%

[Key to the reviewing system]

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