Once standing as Final Fantasy's only anomaly - the only game in the series not only to never see a release outside of Japan but also to never even see a port within its homeland - Final Fantasy III has finally broken through both barriers, sixteen years after the fact. A modest success that pushed the NES to its technical limits, it quickly became the forgotten child of the series, partially because it was released in 1990, the same year that Japanese gamers received and wholly embraced the 16-bit (and not backward compatible) beast known as the Super Nintendo. As ports of every pre-PlayStation Final Fantasy game became realities among numerous consoles and handhelds throughout the years to come, Final Fantasy III was still strangely absent.

This seemingly silent treatment, with help of the Internet, began a hearsay revolution that eventually imbued Final Fantasy III with near-legendary status outside of Japan. After two false starts, Square-Enix announced in 2002 that FFIII, with a new presentation wrapped around a nearly unchanged game, would finally make its encore appearance in Japan, taking the stage on the Nintendo DS, as well as taking the act off the islands to share it with the rest of the world. Now there is only one question left to answer - was it worth the wait? Unless you still enjoy minimal story RPGs that require you to submit into a tedious circle of mindless levelling up using dated gameplay, then that answer is a disheartening no.

Final Fantasy III follows four youths as they discover their secret fates as the much prophesied Warriors of Light, a role that stays dormant in the chosen four, unless, like now, the world's balance between dark and light becomes threatened by an evil sorcerer named Xande. Their quest of Light sends them across the world in search of the four crystals of Light, as each one will grant them with the power necessary to complete their goal. This is a pretty standard "world threatened, prophesied heroes appear to save it" plot that, while stale and boring now, wasn't quite so dry in 1990, even with the characters of the original lacking the individual personalities seen in this remake.

In an attempt to add meat the original story's chattering bones, the four youths have been given names, genders and back stories, with additional scenes added to flesh this out. Even with this change however, the storytelling aspect fans of every Final Fantasy to come after this one that we have come to expect is still lacking. Character development never really seems to get started, leaving this new party only slightly deeper than the blank sheet characters of the original. The story simply stands as the "where to go next" catalysis, simply pointing you to your next destination with very little alteration to the initial quest. Are you able to play through an RPG without a story? That question alone can make or break the Final Fantasy III experience alone.

If you hit a snag with the story, don't expect the gameplay to bail you out either; Final Fantasy III takes the random battle, "fight, magic, skill, item" fighting of Final Fantasy I and II and adds its own twist - the first appearance of the renowned Job System, which became a household system in the States with Final Fantasy Tactics. This system lets the player customize their party by choosing one of 23 "jobs" for each of the characters, such as warrior, thief, black mage and white mage, which grants them access to special skills, armor, weapons, magic and stat growth. These jobs, which grow in level outside of the characters level, can be switched between battles, though this doesn't come without a pair of consequences. The first is that you will not inherit abilities when switching jobs, a trait introduced in later appearances of the Job System. The second is that, depending on the level difference between the two jobs, switching between jobs causes a temporary stat decrease that can only be removed by fighting through a certain amount of battles.

Despite the variety of possibilities provided by the job system, on the surface it will appear as if your characters are experiencing very little growth other than their job level. This is because Final Fantasy III hides many of the factors of the Job System behind the scenes, bringing them out slowly and subtly. You might not notice right away the boost given to your stats with every gained level or that the amount of times your character can attack or use a certain level of magic has grown - but it's all there. This drawn out process can lead to frustration for players not used to being forced to spend time outside of the quest to level up jobs to useful, noticeable levels. Hardcore players who enjoy level grinding will find nothing short of bliss.

In the end, the basic gameplay and subtle Job System have completely lost the fresh taste they packed sixteen years ago. Forcing players to level grind for hours just to transform themselves into a competent party becomes as entertaining as flogging a dead chocobo. If battles were fast paced, as they were in the original, then this complaint might not have ballooned as it eventually did, but the sluggish pace of handing out orders to the party, along with the completely unnecessary victory screen, are like hands reaching out to slow down progress.

While the story and gameplay portions of Final Fantasy III were left as intact as possible, the entire presentation was rebuilt from the ground up, specifically for the Nintendo DS. Sporting a fresh paint of fully 3D, PlayStation-style graphics, amazing FMV and a remixed orchestral score, Square-Enix proves that the techniques they displayed on Mario Hoops were not accidental. Character models are excellent, especially for enemies, despite consisting of only as many polygons as necessary. Every single area, be it a small town, sprawling castle or volcano, is rendered beautifully, with unique textures and visual features meaning that no two areas appear the same. The FMVs that appear throughout the game carry the same realistic look utilized since Final Fantasy: Advent Children and are jaw-droppingly gorgeous. When you play all of this through the high quality DS Lite screens, a bright, hi-resolution clarity is spread across the whole graphical package. The graphics, especially when up close, suffer from a large amount of pixelation, but if Square-Enix hadn't maxed out the space allotted by the current SD cards used for DS games, I doubt this would have been an issue - a statement to Square-Enix's abilities, as no other company has even come close.

The rearranged musical score, originally penned by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu, is phenomenal and will leave you questioning if these songs really did have an 8-bit start. From the quiet tones of a sleepy town to the playful Chocobo theme to the epic boss tunes, all blasting out in stereo, you will find your mood dictated almost exclusively from the score, as the story fails at filling that emotional need. A weaker score would have caved in under such pressure, but this soundtrack is nearly unstoppable and easily earns the right of being called a classic.

When it comes to lasting appeal, Final Fantasy III can be a bit misleading. Finishing the initial quest can take quite a few hours, but too many of those hours are filled with levelling up just to progress. That's not to say that there aren't many extra endeavours to indulge in to increase play time though, and they include sending letters to other DS users through the newly added Mognet system and brand new side quests that unlock jobs and equipment new to this version. If you can make it through the game, there is plenty here to justify the $40 purchase.

Classic is as classic does, and Final Fantasy III, despite the presentation overhaul, follows that thinking to a fault. Your ability to deal with an RPG that brings stale gameplay and little in the way of a story - 'classic' RPG traits - will ultimately decide if this game is for you, not the title to the left of the "III". There are plenty of rewards for the player who can look past the mold, but my apathy towards the quest became too much to bear and forced the game into an early shelf retirement. Don't let the same happen to you.

Reviewed by Tony Peters for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).