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I've been waiting for Final Fantasy III since I first learned many years ago that it was not the one with Locke and Terra in it. It was on my wish list along with Final Fantasy II and V, but both of those were removed during the original Playstation era. Why never FFIII? Square Enix went through the trouble of remaking one of the more painful Final Fantasy games when they took on FFII, so it left us to wonder why they were not spending some of their time on FFIII. How long would this game stay on my wish list?
I recall being intrigued by both Final Fantasy III and V when I first started reading about them. They both had some rather interesting job class systems and I was eager to learn more about them. As I began reading through FAQs online about the job classes and such, I was getting more and more excited about Final Fantasy V. It just seemed more in depth in both interaction and story. When the Final Fantasy Anthology was released in 1999, I finally got to try out FFV's job system. The system was very deep and enthralling, but the game still left me feeling very underwhelmed.
I would imagine that most of my disappointment came from the fact that I was playing the exact same game that had been released on the SNES around seven years past. The graphics were the same as were the job system and story; it was just in English. Now while I was thankful for the chance to finally get to play it, the fact that it was still the same old game left me wondering why it took so long. They didn't improve anything. It was on the Playstation after all, the home of Cloud and Squall and the rest of the high tech crew. Why couldn't I have more than just a flashy CG intro?
After that my hopes fell at Square Enix's feet. Would I ever get to play a non emulated version of Final Fantasy III? The year 2000 hit and Square announced that the WonderSwan Color would be the savior. Just a few months later, after a remake of the original Final Fantasy made its way to the WonderSwan in Japan, Square assured gamers that FFIII was still being developed. The next thing you know 2002 is here and it looks as if the Game Boy Advance will be getting a double pack of Final Fantasy titles with yet another remake of Final Fantasy I and II while Final Fantasy III has dropped off the list completely. The year 2003 brought confirmation that the title was still WonderSwan bound, but was delayed once more only a few months later. It looked like the release was never really going to happen.
Thankfully, in 2004 better news arrived. After a poll was taken of Japanese gamers, Square Enix finally brushed aside all talk of the WonderSwan Color and announced that Final Fantasy III would be completely remade on the Nintendo DS. Two year later, we had a release date, September 2006 in the US. The DS version of Final Fantasy III is really coming and soon. This is not going to be the same title that Japanese gamers played on the Famicom nearly sixteen years ago. Final Fantasy III for the DS will feature full character development, improved graphics, and a tweaked, developed story among other improvements. It's like a brand new game and I can finally say that the game of my dreams is coming home. Can it live up to my expectations? Only time will tell.
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