Re:Retro

FFIII Gameplay Video Preview - Neat

by Jonic Linley on August 11th, 2006

DS Fanboy serves up this delicious appetiser of in-game footage for the hugely anticipated DS remake of Final Fantasy III. Check it out, then let’s talk about it a little…

If you’re a fan of the series I’m sure you’ll join me in saying that this game looks damn fine… You know, like so fine you’d have to sing the word “fine”, like Usher or something.

Anyway. As you no doubt saw most of the action uses the DS stylus, and puts it to great use too. I was watching a friend of mine play Final Fantasy X earlier, and in the middle of a dramatic battle scene it can become pretty confusing when moving that cursor around trying to pick out who to heal and what to attack.

Having said that, she doesn’t really cope well under pressure when playing games, and refuses to listen to me bellowing “observe pattern - exploit pattern” whenever she can’t do an end of level boss. She gets cross with me. I get upset, devour savory dish.

Those problems are over with FFIII. It appears that the menus can also be navigated with the d-pad, but the stylus seems like a more convenient and much faster way of navigating through the abilities and items of your wretched little puppets.

Ignus, the game’s protagonist…

As you might expect from a Final Fantasy game (especially a remake of such an early title in the series) the combat is turn based, but those random battles might not be so annoying this time round. The use of the stylus speeds up play to the point where you could be taking turns twice as fast as you would be if you were using the regular d-pad. Now that the random battles don’t last as long you’ll have more time to immerse yourself in the storyline and exploration. Massive.

The graphics seem pretty tight, but the quality of the YouTube video isn’t that great, so it’s hard to say just how tight they are right now. The world map screen lacks detail, but that may be for the best to accomodate for the DS’s relatively small screen. It could also be due to the pre-release nature of the footage. I trust Square-Enix to deliver the goods graphically. This is a Final Fantasy game we’re talking about after all.

Once inside a village or town the view changes to the regular zoomed in view, with a nice level of detail and clarity. Nothing seems to be clutter up the screen and exploring the environment and confabulating with its denizens seems to be an entirely painless task thanks (once again) to the stylus. Just point and drag.

While we won’t be getting our delicate, brittle little fingers on the game until Autumn (or Fall if you’re like that), what we do know so far is that it makes great use of the stylus. I for one just can’t seem to shut up about that damned thing! There’s plenty of time to salivate yet, and what with this being a release on a Nintendo platform you can expect delays anyway. It’s only because they care…

Oh yeah, and box art == hotness.

All in all this game is looking to be one of those must-have titles that the DS seems pretty damn good at getting. Needless to say it will be on my wishlist. I missed FFIII the first time round and I’m actually yet to finish a Final Fantasy game in its entirety, so hopefully a remake of an earlier title on what is right now my favorite gaming platform could change that.

Do you have any memories of FFIII from first time round? I’d like to hear what I have in store. Leave a comment if you want to let me know. Don’t bother if you don’t like me.

Via DS Fanboy… Uh-huh…

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POSTED IN: DS, Nintendo, Re:lease, Re:make