I'm not going to lie. I wasn't much of a Final Fantasy fan before Game: Final Fantasy VII on the original Playstation. In fact, that game was the reason I got a Playstation. Call my a fair-weather fanboy, I don't care. Other FF games, such as the PSP rerelease of the original, have been enjoyable but just don't grab my attention like FF7 did back in the day. This game, however, comes pretty close to replicating the experience.

Final Fantasy III is similar to the original in plot, featuring crystals of power wielded by four legendary warriors who come to the fore in a time of crisis. The difference here is that these four crystals of power are held by the light warriors, and are balanced by four more crystals being used by dark warriors. FF3 is all about balance, and it's up to the two sides to keep each other from becoming too powerful and preserving the entire world between them.

The game presents a visual styling that fits right into the Final Fantasy motif. For the DS, these graphics look okay; not great or mind-blowing but pretty good. Once you consider how large the game world is and how much there must be to render in total, Square Enix did a good job striking a balance between quantity and quality. The character models are reminiscent of Game: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, albeit a bit more pixelated. The dual screen concept is a bit of a letdown, however--most of the time the top screen is wasted, just displaying black space while your character runs around or battles. This screen would have been perfect to display character stats and battle commands, and frankly I'm surprised that Square Enix let this fall through the cracks.

Final Fantasy III is the first of the FF games to feature the job system, aka the class system. What differs from traditional classes in other RPGs is that your characters cannot multiclass, but can change jobs at any time outside of battle. They suffer from a transition phase during which their abilities are crippled, but otherwise this system makes it easy for you to constantly adapt your party to different situations. Some jobs have specific skills, such as the Warrior's Advance, which allows said character to attack with extra damage at the cost of defense and damage mitigation. Most jobs have some advancement into "higher" jobs, allowing new skills and more powerful characters. It's a refreshing change from more rigid class systems in some other games.

The combat system is the classic "everybody line up and wait your turn" arrangement, with the order predetermined and changing between battles randomly. Characters can be ordered into the "rear", moving them into the back row where they take less damage but also deal less damage; this area is the preferred location for healers. There isn't a whole lot more to this, it's an age-old system with no real deviations, not that that is a bad thing.

The game's controls are straightforward. You can either rely on the well-established D-pad and ABXY buttons, or use the touchscreen to select commands and "drag" to move your character around Phantom Hourglass-style. Personally I prefer using the old school arrangement, as the onscreen commands are quite small and hard to zero in on, a result of Square Enix feeling compelled to cram everything onto one screen for whatever reason they felt required it. The X and R buttons execute the same command--that is, to pull up the game menu--which feels a bit redundant, though I honestly can't think of an extra command that could have been mapped to one of these buttons.

Final Fantasy III is a bit of a mixed bag, to be honest. The game's plot and characters are classic Final Fantasy, deep and complex and timeless. This ends up being corrupted, however, by the opportunistic DS interface and typical overreliance on the touchscreen to execute redundant commands already readily available to the user. But ultimately, if you are a Final Fantasy fan, this is a game you want to play. Now if you will excuse me, I need to go play Final Fantasy VII.