Original Release: Gameboy, 1991. Version Reviewed: Gameboy, 1993.
THE PLOT:
A great flood has engulfed the planet, and only a small group of rebels stand between the Pureland Water Entity and total annihilation. Borgin, the rebel leader, sends young Arthur and his friends back in time in hopes of averting the disaster. They soon discover that their enemy is working against them simultaneously in the past, present, and future. To save the present, they will need to use an advanced time traveling ship, the Talon, to save the past and the future as well!
CHARACTERS:
Though the character names are fixed, the actual characterization is thinner than in Final Fantasy Legend II. We're basically back to having a party of young heroes who are motivated to do good, because they are good, because they do good things. It is clear enough that the savior character, Arthur, is roughly modeled after King Arthur, but this is more a trivia bullet point than anything that enhances him as a character.
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| Arthur discovers an objective. |
GAMEPLAY:
Similar to the other Final Fantasy Legend titles, the gameplay is a mixture of exploration, random encounters, and boss battles. As I played this directly after Final Fantasy Legend II, I found it entirely intuitive - though, as I discovered the hard way, if you complete a couple objectives out of order you can miss key story scenes!
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| Arthur and his friends engage in battle! |
THOUGHTS:
Given how much I loved Final Fantasy Legend II, I moved onto the final entry in the Gameboy trilogy with great eagerness... And soon encountered great disappointment.
Final Fantasy Legend III is a good game by any objective standard. It's graphically strong, with every bit as much detail as Legend II had. The story is coherent and fairly ambitious, making good use of past and present timelines - such as when you meet a character in the past who already assisted you in your adventures in the present. Objectively speaking, this may not be as strong as the second game in the trilogy, but it's far better than the first game.
Except... I had fun playing the first game. And, somehow, as it went along, I felt like a sense of fun was missing from Final Fantasy Legend III.
It's hard for me to put my finger on why this game doesn't quite work for me. Sure, as mentioned, the characters are thin sketches. But it's a Gameboy game - Any level of characterization has to be regarded as a bonus. The story works structurally, the gameplay is intuitive, there's even a modicum of world-building. But to write this review, I had to look up an online summary of the story, because I couldn't remember it. The game is competent (honestly, better than competent) in every respect - but I never found myself particularly engaged, and I was ready for it to be over long before I reached the endgame.
Ultimately, I'd fall on the side of not recommending this as anything other than a curiosity piece. It is well made, and it should be noted that most contemporary reviews were positive. However, I found that it never quite "clicked" for me, and I enjoyed it less than many games that I'd say were objectively worse.
I respect its ambition, and will acknowledge the things it does well. At the same time, of the Gameboy not-quite Final Fantasy titles, this is by far my least favorite... And probably my least favorite of the Final Fantasy franchise that I've reviewed thus far.
Overall Rating: 4/10.
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