Tagged Finished in 2024

Final Fantasy 3 (Pixel Remaster)

23/11/2025

Platform: Nintendo Switch
Genre: JRPG
Developer: Square
Publisher: Square Enix
Director: Hironobu Sakaguchi
Designer: Hiromichi Tanaka, Akitoshi Kawazu, Koichi Ishii
Writer: Hironobu Sakaguchi, Kenji Terada
Composer: Nobuo Uematsu
Finished: 2024
Playtime: 15h 21m
Rating: 4/5

At first this game felt like a step back from the second. It does away with having a party of named characters and goes back to you creating a faceless party of four and selecting a job for each of them. To me this made the game feel a lot more generic than Final Fantasy II and felt a lot closer to the first game. My first encounter with the game was actually the DS remake which does address this by adding in named characters and fleshing out the story with them. That said the DS game had some... weird balancing and I had some trouble getting into it though I think I got pretty far. I loved the low poly 3D look of it so maybe I'll give it another go in the future. I had similar issues with the DS version of Final Fantasy IV.

On the other hand as soon as I started the Pixel Remaster version I was hooked. It's very fun to play and going through it felt like a breeze, I don't think any point felt like it was dragging and it certainly didn't overstay its welcome. There was a good level of challenge but I didn't really feel the need to grind a lot and any grinding needed was thankfully quick due to the experience gain tweaks the remaster has.

The big thing this game introduced was the fantastic job system which really paved the way for future Final Fantasy games. If you've ever played the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV then you've probably experienced one of the jobs from Final Fantasy III. There's a lot of versatility in the jobs and it really encourages trying out different combinations which really adds to the replayability of the game. This version of the game removes the penalty for switching jobs which makes it a lot easier to try out new things and find what works best for you. My final party was a Dark Knight named Frodo, a Ninja named Sam, a Sage called Merry and a Magus called Pippin. There's a great Twitch streamer called PJDiCesare that has been playing through the game solo with every single job and it's really fun to watch.

Like the other Pixel Remaster games this has lovely pixel art and great boss designs. The concept art for the jobs is incredibly cute as well and they've really put a lot of personality into the designs (the Summoner's horned headwear will be familiar to anyone that's played FF XIV). I've probably gushed over the music and art enough in the previous Pixel Remaster posts and it's no difference here. I think this might be the best soundtrack out of them so far, the arranged version is particularly fantastic. Maybe I should do a ranking of Final Fnatasy battle themes at some point...

What I liked

I'll keep repeating myself but of course the music
The job system, it was really innovative at the time and it still feels fun
The pixel art continues to be fantastic
The game didn't get bogged down with grinding, the pace was great
It's just really fun to play

What I didn't like

The story was pretty basic and felt like a step back from Final Fantasy II
The final dungeon was a bit of a slog but thankfully the auto save saves you from having to redo it if you wipe

Final Fantasy 2 (Pixel Remaster)

12/10/2025

Final Fantasy 2 is sometimes treated like the red-headed stepchild of the series since it tried a few things that didn't necessarily work out. I haven't played the original version so I went into this with some pretty low expectations based on things I'd heard but I feel like the pixel remaster has sanded off the rough edges and I ended up liking this one quite a bit more than the first. To me this game feels like it set the direction for the series.

This entry adds a more in-depth story with actual named characters that you play as compared to the randoms that you create in the first game. The game also does away with the class and experience based systems of the first and introduces a system where you improve based on what you do in battle e.g. the more you use a spell the stronger it'll get. In the original this apparently lead to people just having their party punch each other in order to improve their health, strength, etc, etc. I didn't actually try this in the pixel remaster version so not sure if it's still in there. Apparently the original also took quite a lot of grinding to actually level things up but it didn't seem so bad in the remake. Kawazu continued with a lot of these mechanics in the SaGa series. I liked the system but it also meant that none of the characters were very distinct from each other since you could train them up to do pretty much everything.

This game introduced a back row in battle and also introduced Cid and chocobos to the series. The game also added an interesting system where you can learn different words from conversations that you can then use in other conversations. The biggest innovation of all has to be the series of over the top dramatic (borderline melodramatic) deaths and betrayals that happen throughout the story. From what I've played so far this has definitely carried on through the third and fourth games.

See you in hell

The story doesn't drag along and has its fair share of exciting and funny moments. It's straight forward and and has its own charm. I'm not sure if it was the first JRPG to do it but it seemed to introduce the great trope of the Evil Empire vs the Kingdom that we're still seeing a lot of today. The top moment has to be when the evil emperor you kill comes back, revealing that he is now the ruler of hell. You end up having to go to the underworld to face him as the final boss. I honestly can't remember much more about it since it's been a while since I finished it.

The extras are the same as the first pixel remaster - music player, bestiary and more of that tasty Amano concept art. I'm not interested in tattoos but some of the black and white Amano art would make some pretty sweet ones.

What I liked

It's a Final Fantasy game so obviously the music
The lovely pixel art
I enjoyed the story for what it is
It's just fun to play

What I didn't like

While the progression system is interesting I felt like it meant the characters weren't very distinct

Final Fantasy 1 (Pixel Remaster)

16/09/2025

I love Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy X is probably my favourite game of all time.

The first Final Fantasy game I played was Mystic Quest back on the Super Nintendo which was a spin-off title aimed at beginners. I was pretty young at the time so I don't think I really understood what I was doing so the game never hooked me and I never ended up finishing it. I've still got my copy sitting around so maybe I'll give it another go one of these days.

The game that really got me hooked on the series was Final Fantasy VIII. That opening cinematic of Squall fighting Seifer was the coolest shit I had ever seen and I would just watch it over and over again. I was starting my angsty teens so of course I thought Squall was awesome and of course I had a crush of Quistis and Rinoa (sorry Selphie). I used to rent it from a videostore here in Australia called Video Ezy whenever I could but I don't think I ever made it past the first disc. I remember asking my mum for it for christmas but she ended up getting me Final Fantasy IX instead (which I loved anyway).

Final Fantasy 1 Opening Sorry I only took one screenshot! It sure is a lovely one though.

Last year I started a stupid challenge to play through every Final Fantasy game, including all the different spin-off titles, so naturaly I started from the start. Before playing the Pixel Remaster version my experience with Final Fantasy I was mostly with the Final Fantasy Origins remake on the PlayStation 1. I found the Origins version pretty grindy and it looked pretty ugly on my TV so I didn't get too far in it. The Pixel Remaster version is the complete opposite. The game looks fantastic thanks to the updated pixel art (they even brought back the original artist for it!) and their tweaks to the XP curves meant I barely had to do any grinding to get through the game. The original and the updated arranged soundtracks are both great (I'm listening to the in game music player while writing this).

The game has a few nice bonus features such as a beastiary where you can view the lovely pixel art of all the enemies, a gallery where you can view some absolutely gorgeous concept art by Yoshitaka Amano, and a music player where you can listen through the original and arranged soundtracks.

I finished this almost a year ago now and I'm getting too old to remember that far back so I won't go into details about the story or what I remember from it. I think maybe time travel was involved?

If you're interested in trying out the game that started a phenomenon then I think this is by far the best way to play.

What I liked

Of course the music
The visuals, it gives a really nice glow up while staying faithful to the original art
How cute are the little white and black mage sprites
The gameplay is still challenging but doesn't feel grindy

What I didn't like

The sprites for the advanced classes are not as good as the starting classes, let me keep the little cute mages