Nintendo and Matrix software are looking to bring Square Enix’s FFIII to the forefront of the handheld RPG genre. Final Fantasy III puts you in the role of Luneth, an orphan from the village of Ur. FFIII starts you playing the game almost instantly, forgoing any CGI movie intro. Luneth finds himself in an underground cave fighting for his life. Luneth quickly is introduced to a floating crystal that instructs him to locate others like him and return to the crystal for the start of his real adventure.

Unlike the NES version, which gave you four basic characters from the start, Luneth will have to seek out his three party members. Luneth will eventually team up with Arc, Refia, and Ingus. Each of these three new characters will have their own unique past instead of the original generic versions from the NES. Once the story begins, it progresses very quickly giving players the feel of the old school RPG. This may be a turn off for people new to the genre.

Fast pace battles

The battle system is a standard turn-based combat system. This will allow you more options before and during the battle. Using the DS stylus you will be able to equip different weapons, change order and all that jazz you loved in the older Final Fantasy games. The battles move fairly quickly, but load times will start to frustrate you as move through them. FFIII has a fair amount of random battles, but it should not be overly excessive. Also, unlike the Final Fantasies of past, the monsters will be harder, especially for the un-experienced or ill prepared. Take your time leveling up your characters and equipping them well, or watch Luneth and his friends die a quick death.

A feature that is sure to assist Luneth and his party members are the integration of jobs. After about an hour of playing, Luneth will have a choice of jobs: Thief, Fighter, Monk and the White, Red and Black Mages. Luneth will have over 20 jobs to choose from in all, as he makes his way through FFIII, all of which of unique strengths and weaknesses. FFIII, is going to stress the importance of fine tuning Luneth’s job as well as the jobs of his party. Don’t expect to have all 4 party members in one job. Though this may look great at first, it will not help as you progress through the game. As a final note, you will not be able to change jobs as the characters progress, so choose well.

The DS has done very well in almost all genre categories. With Square Enix handing over the development to third party Matrix Software, Nintendo is looking to FFIII to have the same success in the RPG genre. Old-School RPG players are already anticipating the success, as for the rest, we will see in November, but for now check out our gallery.