well uh, this isn't where i was expecting to end up. i didn't make a mistake, there are supposed to be two Final Fantasy IIIs on the table of contents. when i briefly touched upon the 3D remake of Final Fantasy III in the last review, i was planning on just leaving it at that. it didn't interest me very much, and i was just gonna pass on it. but then, just on a whim, i decided to boot up the PSP port of the DS remake, just to give it a shot. i then passed out for three days and fourteen hours, and woke up with a retroachievements mastery and a strong desire to take a shower. i don't think i've ever fixated on a game THIS hard, i somehow crammed nearly 41 hours of gameplay into three and a half days, all of which were pretty much just spent playing FFIII. and not only playing FFIII, 100%ing FFIII. i did everything. got all the bestiary entries, got every chest, got to level 99 on every job, beat the Iron Giant, i did it all for that sweet sweet award on my RA page. this won't really be a review of the game as a whole, since i feel like it'd retread a lot of ground from the Famicom version review. this is moreso me going over what's new, what's different, and all the changes that were made between the original and the remake. so let's get started with the basics...

it's in 3D now. in 2006 (or, i guess 2012, since that's when the PSP rerelease came out...) they were pretty gung-ho on these fancy new portables that could handle polygons, and wanted to use it all they could. overall, while i do think the game looks good, it doesn't really hold a candle to the original's pixelart. they definitely tried to stylize it to cover up the imperfections of 3D at the time, but even compared to something like the DS remake of FFIV, i think it still just looks okay. additionally, the PSP version goes for a more colorful, saturated look, compared to the original DS release's more muted palette, and i'll be honest, i think the original looks better. i dunno, the oversaturated look of the PSP release just doesn't do it for me, and it kinda messes up some character designs. i mean, Refia is basically blonde now, she was supposed to have red hair originally. hey, speaking of which...

this was something i made a big stink about originally, but yes, your portagonists have names and designs now. i'm definitely still a little mixed on this, but after actually playing this version i can say that i like them marginally more now. Arc is cute, i like him and a lot of his job outfits. Luneth is also neat, and i really enjoy the detail that each of them has a unique color that appears in their job designs, with Luneth's being purple, Arc is green, Refia is blue, and Ignus is red. they all have pretty cookie cutter personalities though, Luneth's a little brash and laidback, Arc is shy and quiet, Refia is Girl, and Ingus is the voice of reason. i don't think it adds that much to the game compared to how they were in the NES version, but it is at least a neat difference. i like that they kept the detail that they're all orphans and that's what they bond over, it's a little cute. plus, everyone has unique designs and models for every job, which is an INSANE amount of extra effort on the developers. i don't know if it's quite as impressive as FFV's smattering of unique sprites for every character, but it is still cool nonetheless. some of the job redesigns, though... they just don't sit super well with me. i don't like that not a single character gets the "glowing eyes in a void face" treatment for any of the jobs, not even the Black Mage. additionally, the Viking's super tall helmet looks kinda stupid, not a fan of that one. the Knight isn't nearly as iconic without a single lick of red on its outfit either, it just looks naked without it. if there is one design i do prefer over the original, it might be the Bard. i like the tied, olive-green poncho with the red and white design on it, it looks really good.

now, something i heard pretty much universally before starting FFIII 3D is that it's HARD. i feel like i got several messages from friends telling me that yeah, they were never able to beat it because it got too hard. and like... i hate to be that kinda girl, but it was kinda REALLY easy? like, sure, there's a little bit of grinding at the beginning and that can be a little annoying, but you get access to the Thief and Monk classes at the very beginning of the game, and they can deal some of the most over-the-top, insane damage out of any class. for most of my playthrough, i had Luneth as a Thief, Refia as a Monk, Arc as a White Mage/Devout, and Ingus was kind of whatever i felt like at that time, though i most commonly switched between Bard and Summoner for him. i feel like the healing magic heals WAY more in this version, Curaga was more than enough to fully heal my party by the time i reached the final boss, and Curaja felt like overkill until i started doing Iron Giant. additionally, some of the sticking points for me like the mini dungeons and the Ancient Ruins were REALLY toned back, i was able to beat Nepto Temple in one try and i got like two total encounters in both Cave of the Circle and Ancient Ruins. it was to the point where i was wondering if they took out the encounters from the latter, and i certainly didn't see any of the enemies that gave me so much trouble before. Crystal Tower is still a little bit of an endurance test, no save points for what is essentially two dungeons crammed together is always gonna be a little intimidating, but i was dealing so much damage by that point that even the bosses were pushovers. i didn't get Ahriman'd once in this playthrough, the dude was pathetic! sure, bosses generally have more HP in this version, but again, you deal so much damage with the right classes that it barely even matters. now, let me make something clear; this is not a negative. i like my RPGs easy, so this is actually a positive in my book. i did not mind this change of pace at all, because the difficulty of the original was one of the few issues i had with it. in fact, of everything in this remake that challenged me, it was the RetroAchievements set i was doing for it.

i've mentioned them a couple times on this site before, but allow me to reiterate: i really enjoy doing RetroAchievements. they're a great way to add incentive to do stuff in games you wouldn't normally feel like doing, and the set for FFIII totally clicked for me. i had a ton of fun with this set, with only one exception. (we'll get to that later...) one standout was beating Garuda without dragoons, which had me using jobs i wouldn't have used otherwise. i think my strategy i employed in the end was having Luneth run Scholar, and using magic items with double damage to really lay into him, while having Refia sponge up damage as a Viking. now, unfortunately, not all sets are all sunshine and rainbows. there was one part of this set that drove me absolutely nuts, and it was... the level 99 job achievements.

so unlike the original, FFIII 3D does actually reward you for maxing out a job level. there's an NPC named the Legendary Smith, who you meet in a sidequest to fix Princess Sara's broken pendant. if you max out a job level and go talk to the Legendary Smith, she'll give you a really good piece of equipment for that job. there are a few annoying parts about this though, for one, she shows up in random spots in the world. this is cute when you're wandering around doing unrelated stuff and you find her by chance, get a cool piece of equipment, and then move on. it's less cute when you've been grinding for 8 hours and just wanna get the damn equipment. i employed a strategy chronicled in the ancient texts of GameFAQs, using the Nautilus to fly between Gyashl and the Healing Copse, since those are two places she can potentially appear. for two, HOLY SHIT LEVEL 99 JOBS IS A LOT OF GRINDING. so, let me put this into perspective for you: there are 23 jobs in this game, and getting just one to level 99, with my method, took about 33 minutes of non-stop monster battles. that totals up to about TWELVE HOURS OF STRAIGHT GRINDING. now, to give the game some credit, this is rough estimates, and i had already maxed out some of the jobs i'd been running all game, as well as having a couple levels on other jobs. but still, this took me pretty much an entire day of just sitting there, waiting for levels to go up. FFIII turned from an RPG into an idle game, i swear. and yes, that does mean i found a way to automate it. luckily for girls like me, there is a ray of hope in this sea of anguish. y'see, i only found this out while going for this set after using PPSSPP, the PSP emulator i use, for nearly ten years, but there's a bind you can set in the menu that automatically rotates the stick when you hold down a button. so what i ended up doing was binding rapid fire, X, and rotate stick to my space bar, toggling fast forward, and then i let my controller weigh down the key in the Ancient Maze. now, i later found out that due to how job levels work, this isn't the most efficient method. ideally, you would get into a battle, use guard with everyone for about 10-15 turns, and then defeat the enemies, which gives a guaranteed level on everyone's jobs. but i didn't know about this until i had one job left, and my other method was automated, while what i just described requires a lot of input from the player for each encounter. so i did that for nearly eight hours, occasionally switching out jobs once one was maxed out, in misery. this was not particularly fun, and if i wasn't using fast forward, this would have taken well over 120 hours. wanna know how i know that? the game tracks what your playtime was when you beat the final boss, and mine was around 48 hours. once i was finished with the grind, my ingame playtime was at 175 hours. (the conflicting numbers between this and the playtime listed in the details at the start of this review is due to ingame playtime being increased by speedup, while real playtime recorded by the emulator itself is not.)

and finally, the last thing i did for this playthrough, the Iron Giant. well, technically not the last thing, since i also had the grind for the Onion Armor to do after that, but it was the culmination of everything i'd done up to that point. the Iron Giant is the dedicated superboss of FFIII 3D, and after steamrolling the final dungeon and Cloud of Darkness, my ego was large enough to believe that i'd stand a chance against it with my current team. i was then immediately humbled by it flattening everybody in one turn. this is a tough fight, you pretty much have to be level 99 to do it, and it requires a very specific team setup and strategy to stand a chance. additionally, there was an achievement for beating it without the Onion Knight AND without a single party member dying, so i was further handicapped. the strategy i ended up employing was one i saw in the comments on RA, using a Ninja to deal damage with shurikens and provide additional support, a Viking to absorb damage with double shields, a Devout using Curaja on everyone for every turn, and a Bard dealing damage with Requiem and occasionally switching harps to provide support if needed. the fight was pretty simple after that, though i did get unlucky a couple times when the giant started using Swipe late into the fight, dealing massive physical damage to everyone. i would say this is far and beyond the most difficult fight in FFIII 3D, but it is a satisfying one to beat all the same. plus, it's a cool reference to Tetsukyojin (literally Japanese for Iron Giant), a similarly powerful enemy you can find in the final dungeon of Final Fantasy II, which is always cool to see.

so, in conclusion, is FFIII 3D a good remake, and more importantly, should you play it over the original? if this were me from four days ago talking, i'd say no, you should absolutely prioritize the original. but now that i've played it? it's honestly a way harder choice for me, i really can't decide... while i do prefer the original overall, i can't discount the remake either, as it does make things a lot more approachable for newcomers. it also provides some extra content, while unfortunately stripping away a lot of the charm and style of the original. also, the rearranged soundtrack kind of fucking sucks compared to the Famicom tracks. they do provide an option to listen to the original music, but it clashes so hard with the new visuals that it just kinda feels like chocolate covered broccoli. if you want my opinion, play both. i think they are good companion pieces to each other, like any good remake should be, and are both very worthwhile experiences. just... make sure to pace yourself a little better than i did, okay? don't rush through the whole thing in like, three and a half days. your friends and family may begin to worry about you like mine did.