[Ginkasa]

III would be a lot better if it did less to discourage experimenting with the job system. Job Levels means that a job you use more will be stronger which highly encourages sticking with a job for longer. There's a transition period that weakens a new job for X amount of battles after you switch penalizing you for trying out a new job. There are no save points in dungeons so if you whiff on a boss you can't just swap out jobs and try out that new strategy; you have to slog your way back through the whole dungeon to get back to them.

Finally, except for a couple of instances the game isn't really designed in a way to encourage messing about with jobs. I was negative about the few times it does this last time I played (and the time before that), but now I think it could be really cool if it were emphasized more and the above points were corrected. The focus would become less on grinding levels and more on figuring out the right team for the right situation.

Anyway, III defeated me this time. I got right near to the end of the game in the World of Darkness and died to one of the minibosses as his strong attacks came too often and on just the wrong characters. I reviewed my prior take on the game from 2010 and I see now that my characters were stronger before, so maybe I could have spent a night grinding and got through it just fine, but I don't have that kind of time anymore and I was anxious to get to IV.

Speaking of IV, I have decided that, when considering the first four games back to back, IV feels like I-III were games and then they made a Final Fantasy animé with an original story that was then adapted into a video game and that is Final Fantasy IV.