Final Fantasy III (Famicom, 1990)

Final Fantasy III is the last game in the franchise on the Famicom (Japan's NES), and yet another title that American audiences would miss out on.  The first North American release of this game did not come until it was remade in full 3D for the Nintendo DS handheld system.  Regretful, since Final Fantasy III is possibly the most realized RPG experience of the 8-bit era.  Once again, Square Soft reinvented the series, combining some of the best elements from the first two games, and adding some vast improvements to their mechanics.
Final Fantasy III follows four children who find that they are destined to become the light warriors, heroes called by the sacred elemental crystals to fight back the forces of darkness and restore worldly balance.  It is prophesied that this happens every thousand years, and last time there were four warriors of darkness who were called to defeat the overpowering light.  If balance cannot be restored, then the elements of nature will fall into chaos.  The seas will run wild, the earth will decay, the winds will stop.
Upon coming into contact with one of the four major crystals, they are bestowed with small crystals that can grant them the abilities of different job classes.  Yes, Final Fantasy III is a return to the old job system from Final Fantasy I, with some major improvements.  Now you may change any party member's class at any time, and there are many additions to the jobs you have to choose from.  New here are the likes of summoners, dragoons, and blue mages.  There is high incentive to experiment with multiple class variations and combinations.
Some of these jobs are somewhat useless, such as the viking class which is too similar to the superior warrior class to be of much use (the only difference is they use axes).  The additions that are original are some of the most powerful in Final Fantasy though.  Summoners are a must-have in the party.  They may use the brand-new summon magic, which calls holy beasts to fight alongside you, often dealing massive amounts of elemental damage.  These summons, interestingly enough, come from the lore of Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam.  Blue mages may learn bestial abilities, which, with some patience, can be helpful.  Dragoons are swift fighters who can use jump, which makes them temporarily invincible, and then they deal massive damage after two turns.
One of the most refreshing improvements to this game are how the sins of the previous games were completely removed.  Ineffective hits are a thing of the past, since now, when a party member is about to attack a felled enemy, they intelligently move on and attack the next living thing.  Back is the charge-and-level system of magic, but it is easier to use now that there are magic-restoring ethers in the game, and levels of magic are allowed to have charges in the double-digits.  Once again, experience points are earned for defeating enemies, but not only do they go toward building general character statistics, they go to building class levels.  The higher your class level is, the better you are at their skills, and changing jobs will not remove any of the experience you gain.
Like the previous games, Final Fantasy III is not perfect, but can be counted as a major improvement to the series as a whole.  Its weakest point is its story, which is not very cohesive throughout the game, plus the story can get repetitive, and fails to carry as much weight as Final Fantasy II.  The strength of its gameplay alone makes up for this though, since it allows more customization than ever, and offers enough incentive to keep playing just to experience more powerful jobs and build characters.  The only direction Final Fantasy had to go from here was up.