Final Fantasy Legend III

SaGa 3: Jikuu no Hasha,[lower-alpha 2][2] released in North America as Final Fantasy Legend III, is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the Game Boy. The third entry in the SaGa series, it released in Japan in 1990, and in North America in 1993. A later edition released in North America in 1998 through Sunsoft. A remake for the Nintendo DS was released in 2011 by Square Enix, remaining exclusive to Japan. The narrative follows a group of warriors as they fight a god-like being in the past, present and future. During gameplay, players explore the different time periods, fighting in turn-based battles, and raising character power through a combination of experience points, skill leveling, and material-based character classes.

Final Fantasy Legend III
North American Game Boy box art
Developer(s)Square (GB)
Racjin (DS)
Publisher(s)Game Boy
Nintendo DS
Director(s)Kouzi Ide
Producer(s)Chihiro Fujioka
Designer(s)Masanori Morita
Hideshi Kyonen
Programmer(s)Takeo Fujii
Composer(s)Ryuji Sasai
Chihiro Fujioka
SeriesSaGa[lower-alpha 1]
Platform(s)Game Boy, Nintendo DS
ReleaseGame Boy
  • JP: December 13, 1991
  • NA: August 1993
Nintendo DS
  • JP: January 6, 2011
Genre(s)Role-playing game
Mode(s)Single-player

Production began in 1990 in parallel with the development of Romancing SaGa for the Super Famicom. Due to his work on Romancing SaGa, series creator Akitoshi Kawazu did not take part in the original production, with development instead handled by Square's newly-established Osaka studio. It was the final SaGa title developed for the Game Boy. Upon release, the game saw praise from Japanese and Western critics, with praise going to its graphics and narrative. As of 2002, the game had sold around 650,000 in Japan. It was the last Western SaGa release until SaGa Frontier for the PlayStation.

Story and gameplay
A battle

SaGa 3: Jikuu no Hasha, known in the West as Final Fantasy Legend III, is a role-playing video game set in a science fiction-based world where players take on the role of a four-person party. In the world of SaGa 3, a god-like being called the Pureland Water Entity engulfed the world in a great flood. The entity drew monsters onto the land and low lying cities have been abandoned. As a party of four warriors sets out to confront the entity, several youths from the future arrive to help, and it is realized that the Entity's destruction is occurring in the past and future as well. The group then collects pieces of the ship Talon in the past, present, and future to defeat the Entity.[2][3]

The party explores different environments from a top-down perspective, talking with characters to advance the narrative, using shops to buy and sell items and equipment, and entering battles during exploration. Battles play out using a turn-based combat system, where party members attack enemies using their equipped weapons or magic spells.[3][4]

Players choose their basic characters from two different races, Humans and Mutants, who have different ways they can raise their experience levels.[3][5] Humans raise their level using experience points in battle, while Mutants raise their attributes and kills based on usage in battles.[2][5] Humans and Mutants can evolve into Monster or Cyborg character classes using items gained from enemies; Meat triggers evolution into Monsters, while mechanical parts help transform characters into Cyborgs.[3][5] Characters are further customised by equipping magic stones, gaining access to new abilities.[3]

Development and release

Production for SaGa 3 began in 1990, following the completion of the previous game.[6] At the time, developer Square had started production on two parallel projects; SaGa 3, and a Super Famicom entry titled Romancing SaGa begun at the request of Nintendo.[2][6] Series creator Akitoshi Kawazu was completely occupied with developing Romancing SaGa, making SaGa 3 the only series title he was not involved in.[7] Production was given by Kawazu to a newly-founded Square studio in Osaka, with Chihiro Fujioka producing the game. SaGa 3 was the first game produced by the Osaka studio.[6][7] The game's title included the term "Final Chapter", as Kawazu was at the time intending to end SaGa with SaGa 3. These plans changed and the SaGa series continued, leaving Kawazu confused in retrospect about his choice of the title.[8][9]

Fujioka noted that in addition to creating the game, they were also establishing themselves as a department, and as a result a great deal of effort was put into the game. The team decided to overcome the Game Boy's limitations by leaving some aspects to the player's imagination instead. In the case of graphics, this meant establishing first an object, then its shadows, allowing the player to visualize the missing colors themselves; a similar concept was applied to the game's music to overcome the limitation of working with only three notes for composition.[10] In contrast to the previous SaGa titles, SaGa 3 was designed to be more like a traditional role-playing game, though it retained character growth elements from earlier titles.[11] The Japanese cover art was created by Katsutoshi Fujioka, who designed covers for the previous SaGa releases.[12]

SaGa 3 was released by Square in Japan on December 13, 1991.[5] In North America, the game was released by Square in August 1993.[13] Sunsoft later licensed the game for a reprint in April 1998 alongside the other three Square titles for the Game Boy.[14] As with the first two SaGa games, SaGa 3 was retitled Final Fantasy Legend III for the West by Square, capitalizing on the popularity of the Final Fantasy brand to grow their regional presence.[1] The English translation was the first project of translator Ted Woolsey at Square. He was given the Final Fantasy IV translation as an example and instructed to ensure "there were no 'repeats' of that mess".[15] It was the last SaGa title for the Game Boy, and the last SaGa title to receive a Western release for five years until SaGa Frontier for the PlayStation.[2]

Music
Main article: Music of the SaGa series

The game's music was co-composed by Ryuji Sasai and Fujioka. The two had worked together before Fujioka joined Square, so he brought on Sasai to compose the soundtrack.[6] As Fujioka worked on the game's programming, Sasai stated he would handle the game's music; though a musician himself, Fujioka opted to contribute four additional songs to the game. Sasai compared the limitations with the audio to a guitar capable of only six tones, though the cartridge capacity for the Game Boy at the time provided some difficulty. As a result, they concentrated on smaller songs, reducing the length of the tracks until they felt the music gave the proper impression.[10]

Nintendo DS remake

A remake for the Nintendo DS titled SaGa 3 Jikū no Hasha: Shadow or Light[lower-alpha 3] was announced in September 2010. It featured many staff members from the remake of the second SaGa game, including producer Hiroyuki Miura, and character designer Gen Kobayashi. Sasai returned to work on the music alongside Kenji Ito.[16] The remake retained the original story, but removed the experience point-based leveling while incorporating established SaGa mechanics of skill and statistic leveling based on player actions, nonlinear storytelling and exploration, and upgrades to the party's ship.[17]

Production began following completion of the SaGa 2 remake, with the team using experience from that production and applying it to remaking the third SaGa title.[18] As with SaGa 2, the game was developed by Racjin under the supervision of Square Enix.[16][19] With the remake, Kawazu wanted to redesign the gameplay and scenario to be more in line with other entries in the SaGa series. He also wanted to incorporate mechanics new to the SaGa series, resulting in far more changes being made than to the SaGa 2 remake. This mechanic, dubbed "Time Gear", allowed the team to further incorporate the time travel elements into the whole experience.[7][11]

The remake was released on January 6, 2011.[17] Like the DS remake of SaGa 2, the SaGa 3 remake remains exclusive to Japan, though a fan translation was developed.[2] Kawazu attributed the lack of localization to uncertainty within Square Enix as to whether the West would accept such an unconventional title.[20]

Reception
Reception
Aggregate score
AggregatorScore
GameRankings71%[21]
Review scores
PublicationScore
EGM32 / 40[22]
Famitsu29/40[23]
IGN7 / 10[3]
Nintendo Life7/10[4]
Nintendo Power3.35 / 5[24]
Awards
PublicationAward
Pocket Games8th Best Game Boy Game[25]
Electronic Gaming MonthlyEditor's Choice Gold Award[22]

Final Fantasy Legend III received mostly positive reviews, maintaining a 71% aggregate score on GameRankings.[21] Electronic Gaming Monthly called it "a good RPG" and "definitely a good buy", citing the game's graphics and story as its high points, giving it four reviewer scores of 8 out of 10 and an Editor's Choice Gold Award.[22] Nintendo Power largely agreed, stating that the game had "[e]xcellent game depth and good graphics for a Game Boy RPG", but found the title's story and gameplay to be too similar to previous Final Fantasy Legend games, warning "don't expect anything new in this game", giving the game a score of 3.35 / 5.[24] IGN called attention to the game's dated graphics and "imperfect" soundtrack, yet still found the game's music to be better than most Game Boy titles. They additionally found fault with the game's "poorly designed" equipment screen, stating it "makes distinguishing equipped items of the same class almost impossible", though declared it to be accessible even to novice players.[3] GamePro applauded the game for the battle simulator feature, the ability to transform the character using parts of slain enemies, and the booklets and map included in the game box. The made special note of the time travel mechanic, commenting that the experience of encountering characters in the past that the player has already met in the future is empowering and often humorous.[26]

GameDaily named it alongside the related Game Boy Final Fantasy titles as definitive games for the system, describing it as providing "hours of role-playing excitement, whether you were waiting in a dentist's office or on the way to Grandma's house."[27] The sentiment was shared by gaming magazines Electronic Gaming Monthly and Pocket Games, the latter of which ranked the titles together 8th out of the Top 50 games for the Game Boy.[25][28]

As of 2002, the game had sold 650,000 units, making it the third best-selling title of the Game Boy SaGa releases, and the lowest-selling original SaGa title as of that time.[29]

Notes
  1. Rebranded in the West under the Final Fantasy moniker.[1]
  2. Jikū no Hasha ~ Sa·Ga 3 [Kanketsu Hen] (Japanese: 時空 (じくう)の覇者 (はしゃ) サ・ガ3 [完結編], lit. The Ruler of Time and Space ~ SaGa3 [Final Chapter])
  3. (サガ3時空の覇者 Shadow or Light, lit. SaGa3 The Ruler of Time and Space ~ Shadow or Light)

References
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  2. "The History of SaGa". Retro Gamer. Imagine Publishing (180): 80-85. 2018-04-19.
  3. Sy, Dexter (June 14, 2000). "IGN: Final Fantasy Legend III Review". IGN. Archived from the original on November 5, 2012. Retrieved April 10, 2008.
  4. Dillard, Corbie (2009-08-02). "Retro Review: Final Fantasy Legend III". Nintendo Life. Retrieved 2020-05-14.
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