With a series of reincarnations of the series on Game Boy Advance and PlayStation, gamers have been able to see the series in its nearly complete form. But for Final Fantasy III, Square Enix has taken its production efforts to the next level and completely remade Final Fantasy III for the Nintendo DS, utilizing a new 3D engine and a host of new gameplay features to present this chapter in the saga as never before. We spoke to producer Tomoya Asano, who was part of the original Final Fantasy III team over fifteen years ago, about the process of remaking this 'lost' classic.
IGN: Why did you decide to bring Final Fantasy III specifically to the Nintendo DS?
Tomoya Asano Well, the PS2 and other consoles were taken into consideration at the start, but when the DS system was announced, FFIII was already in the making -- we knew we wanted to bring this game back in some form -- and it was just a matter of timing. We were fortunate that the Nintendo DS has become such a success, selling so much, so it turned out to be a good decision for us.
IGN: What did the Nintendo DS offer you in designing this version of Final Fantasy III?
Asano The main thing that we did with this game was to make use of the touchscreen. I feel it is very intuitive to use this in an RPG such as this one.
IGN: Were there any technical difficulties in arranging so many characters on the screen and finding ways to create emotional scenes that Final Fantasy games are known for?
Asano Of course, there are limits to the DS. You can actually see that more in battle, because the original game had a lot more enemies on the screen at the same time. We did our best to keep the balance of the original in this new version for each of the battles. And then each of the maps is filled with a lot of detail. The team has done their best to draw these characters in 3D with as few polygons as possible and still match the feel of the whole game. The biggest challenge was in actually having the Jobs models, because you have four characters, each with distinct looks for each of the jobs, and all of this had to fit onto the cartridge of the DS. There are 92 job models, because you have multiple characters and the variety of jobs for each of them, so it's a lot
IGN: Can you explain more about creating graphics this beautiful on Nintendo DS. Was there anything you concentrated on specifically in colors or design or graphic techniques? Did you have to experiment a lot to get the game to look like this?
Asano The art designer, the director, and the development team put a lot of effort in trying to retain the look and feel of the original game, especially in the colors. The world feel of the original NES game, that was important. In order to do that, there are a lot of scenes in the game that only use one of the screens of the Nintendo DS, that's one technique that allowed us to realize these beautiful graphics.
IGN: Can you talk a little bit about working with Matrix, the development team that collaborated with Square Enix to create this Nintendo DS game? What was that process for you and Square Enix?
Asano Matrix originally had worked on the PlayStation remake of Dragon Quest V, so they had a lot of experience in remaking games for Square Enix. Core members of this project were from the Final Fantasy III team, the original NES version -- myself as the producer and Mr. [Kazuhiko] Aoki in charge of the battle balance, plus we also had people from the Square Enix side, including Mr. [Ryosuke] Aiba and Mr. [Akihiko] Yoshida who worked on Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy: Tactics, come onto the team. Of course, the original composer, Mr. [Nobuo] Uematsu was also a part of the project. Overall, the whole thing came together very well, as you can see from the final product.
IGN: What was it about Final Fantasy III that encouraged you to remake it in 3D and on DS with Game Boy Advance still active and many games of the series coming to that platform? Why specifically FFIII to receive such special treatment?
Asano The port of IV, V and VI was actually planned before the decision to remake Final Fantay III, so those projects are unrelated. It just so happened that when the Nintendo DS was to be released, there was talk about making Final Fantasy III after 16 years, so the timing worked out right.
IGN: Now that the project is completed in Japan and will soon be finished in the English-language version, are you eager continue exploring Final Fantasy chapters from the past, or are you thinking about other directions now?
Asano Well, obviously Final Fantasy XIII is our big production at Square Enix now. But Final Fantasy III is the only classic FF to be completely remade, and that is an angle that we plan on continuing to explore.