3D Remake
Following the failure of the effort to remake the game for the WonderSwan Color, and Square's merger with former competitor Enix to form Square Enix in 2003, the company posted assurance that the game's promised remake would not be completely forgotten, and there was speculation that it might find its way to Sony's PlayStation or Nintendo's Game Boy Advance as its predecessors had. Square Enix considered porting the game to the PlayStation 2, but was eventually convinced by Nintendo to develop the title for their new handheld system, the Nintendo DS, a decision that would later be positively reinforced by the commercial success of the Nintendo DS. The Final Fantasy III remake was first announced to be in development on October 24, 2004, but detailed information did not emerge until a year later. Hiromichi Tanaka headed the project as both the executive producer and director. His guidance and supervision were needed because the remake was not a mere graphical update as Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II's remakes were, but a total overhaul using the Nintendo DS's 3D capabilities. Along with 3D graphics, a full motion video opening scene was produced for the game, similar to those found in the ports of the 2D Final Fantasy games for the PlayStation. Developer Matrix Software handled the programming of the game.
The remake was produced by Tomoya Asano and co-developed by Square Enix and Matrix Software. In addition, Ryosuke Aiba (Final Fantasy XI) was the art director. Akihiko Yoshida (Final Fantasy XII) redesigned the original characters for use in 3D, and designed the looks of the new playable characters. The formerly generic and nameless party characters were replaced with more concrete characters with new personalities and background stories, and additional scenes were added to develop their individuality; however, the main storyline was not altered significantly. Along with these four, additional characters (called "sub-characters") also join the party temporarily, like in the original. Unlike the original, however, these characters may randomly participate in battle.
Final Fantasy III for the Nintendo DS features overhauls to the job system, including the rebalancing of the classes, the addition of new abilities, a new "Freelancer" class that replaces "Onion Knight" as the default job at the beginning of the game (Onion Knight is retained as a secret class), new events, a new crystal and dungeon, and the removal of capacity points. Unlike the original Famicom version, most of the jobs remain useful for the entire game. The ultimate jobs—the Ninja and the Sage—and some of the lesser-used jobs like the Geomancer were redesigned to have the same level of abilities as the Warrior. Also new are special job-specific items available only if a character has fully mastered a certain job.
In place of capacity points, each character incurs a small temporary penalty for switching jobs. This penalty decreases the character's statistics for the next zero to ten battles. This period is called a "Job Transition Phase" and its length is based on how similar the new job is to the old job, and how proficient the character already is at the new job.
The remake takes advantage of the Wi-Fi feature of the Nintendo DS in the form of a Mail/Mognet system similar to Final Fantasy IX. Various moogles in the game allow the player to send mail to others. Players are also able to send mail to various characters in the game as well as to other players. Side quests can also be unlocked using this system, such as the quest to unlock the Onion Knight. An interruption-save option is also available that lets the player turn off the DS and continue when turning it back on. Like in the original, there is no way to make permanent saves while inside a dungeon.
A port of the remake for iOS was released on March 24, 2011, in which the gameplay and graphics were improved and sound was also remastered. However, the Mail/Mognet to other players was removed, and the "Onion Knight" was found in another quest.
In June of 2012, another port of the remake for the Android operating system was released on the Google Play app store. PSP version was released on September 20, 2012. On July 31, 2012, Square Enix announced a high-definition port of the remake for the Ouya console released as a launch title.
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