Final Fantasy Legend 3

Final Fantasy Legends I and II are two of the best fantasy role-playing games (FRPG) carts for the Game Boy. Final Fantasy Legend III proves how much better things can get with age. This is the best Final Fantasy cart yet!

A Long, Strange Journey

What's notable about FFL III is its expanded scope: In this game, you time travel! Central to your quest is The Talon, a galactic battle cruiser missing 13 key mechanisms needed to make it fly. To find its missing pieces, you must first explore the present, then you travel back in time. What's cool about shuttling between time zones is encountering characters in the past that you've already met in the future. This puts you in a fortune teller's chair, because you'll already know what the future holds for people you talk to along the way. Dialogues in these situations can get pretty humorous.

Stimulating Simulator

Like any FRPG, it's important to increase your party's strength before venturing into dangerous territories. Unlike other FRPGs, however, FFL III lets you increase character levels quickly by "training" in the town's battle simulator. After 15 minutes in the simulator, your characters can reach Level 5 status - strength enough to fight early battles without losing. What's more, the party gains "real" gold points for battle-simulation wins, which help if you go broke later in the game.

As for combat, Weapons don't expire or wear out in this Legend the way they did in FFL II. The Auto Combat feature, which leaves Weapon, Talent, and Magic Spell decisions to the computer, makes for quicker, easier encounters with foes. In the beginning, you may want to disable Auto to get a feel for the strengths and weaknesses of your party's individual Weapons, Talent, and Spell-Casting abilities.

Another improvement involves monstrous munchies. Slain monsters leave behind nutritious chunks of themselves, and done-in cyborgs drop useful parts. Pick these up to transform yourself with new attack and defense ratings, plus new evolutionary additions. Transformations are a little confusing at first, but after a few changes you'll be cruising up the evolutionary ladder.

Legendary Feats

Sights and sounds are both good. Scenes, settings, transformations, and Magic Spells are depicted in super-fine detail. FFL Ill's steady music score is typical for FRPGs, and eventually needs shutting off. Flowever, there are decent sound effects to accompany Spell-Casting, Weapon, and Talent scenes.

Square Soft has done a fine job in packaging FFL III. Included with the game are a map, a directory, and a manual with an Adventurer's Log, which walks you through the initial stages. Since it isn't necessary to have played FFL I or II to enjoy Legend III, new players can jump right in with the latest and greatest Legend. Once again, Square Soft has created another Legend in its own time.

All of the Final Fantasy fans that appreciated Square Soft's fine line of RPGs will be anxiously awaiting this hot title! The story is, as always, novelistic and very involving. Enter three warriors who were sent back through time to prevent waters from flooding the entire lands. The world is, of course, large and vast. To also increase the playability by twofold, you can time travel to the past and even to the future by collecting the 13 units of the Talon and assembling them in the ship! An excellent finale to a fine line of RPGs!