Ah, Final Fantasy III. One of the Final Fantasy titles that has received some of the most ports in the series. Now we have a port of a port of a port to add onto that list! Final Fantasy III for Steam is just that – it’s a port of the iOS/Android version which is a port with adjustments of the DS version. Unfortunately… it shows. Badly.
The Steam release is a direct port of the mobile version of the game. Right down to the GIANT buttons in battle to scroll through the battle menu. You are also able to see every-single-pixel of every character and map as the screen is now gigantic. These things were all nice and masked when they were on smaller screens. Sure, still slightly visible, but masked.
Another issue arises from the fact this is a port of the mobile version – the PSP version, which was released AFTER the mobile versions, had one very needed addition. What addition, you ask? The addition of Auto-Battle. Oh Auto-Battle… You made the exceptionally slow combat and animations of this game BEARABLE. Don’t worry, though. This later Steam release doesn’t have that because it’s a port of the mobile version.
There is one good thing out of this – the game sounds great on PC speakers. It really sounds great.
One final thing – the game is glitchy as all heck. Some of my friends who played through the title were actually resetting storyline triggers and getting themselves stuck or heck… becoming able to skip some required things! This absolutely screams terrible coding and it makes me wonder how the title even made it through QA.
If you want to play Final Fantasy III get your hands on either the original Famicom version or the PSP version. Avoid the Steam version if you are at all able to as it is incredibly buggy and just downright slow.
Final Fantasy III Steam Review Score
1.5/5
This score is based on the quality of the port and not the game itself.
Please read back for the review.
I would like to thank Square Enix for providing me with a copy of the game for review.