FF games will just keep getting better in this journey, won't they? If FF3 is any indication, I'm expecting a resounding yes. It seems that every game I end up playing is going to raise the bar higher and higher, and that's exactly as I expected from the beginning.

I'm guessing the downside to this, kind of, is that I got my first taste of 3D gameplay in a Final Fantasy game (since back in X, the first game I ended up playing years ago, but it's not relevant at the moment) a little early. But I'm not considering it a downside quite yet, as it did indeed still feel like the Final Fantasy I've grown to know so far.

The story was very nice. Still not hitting god tier shit (I'm expecting that from FF4) but it's showing that it's getting better. Although, it's hard to judge the story of a remake of a game with barely any, or at least a game with less. Not sure which, but I know the original had nameless storyless characters to some extent.

The battle system was a little slower, I will say. But something different occured in this game compared to 1 and 2: I didn't overlevel. In 1 I was just starting out, and I grinded for a while longer than I should have, no big deal right? In 2 I was confused as fuck, there WERE NO LEVELS. I was CONSTANTLY paranoid I would never be good enough, CONSTANTLY grinding, and because of this I blasted through the game without so much as a drop of sweat, every enemy fell almost the second they saw me. Soul Of Rebirth was a different story at the start, same shit as it came to a close.

THIS game though is the first game I've been really challenged, although I'm not sure if I was challenged with the right kind of force. When you spend hours- no, days- in the final area grinding from level 51 to level 59, you sort of get a little too bored. In this way, the entire game was fun, it was a good challenge, but the end of it just did NOT sit well. I'm not the kind of guy to sit there grinding in a game (Pokemon is an exception, there's a certain element to Pokemon grinding that keeps me going that I can't put my finger on), so all that excessive grinding just because of FUCKING PARTICLE BEAM pissed me off to no end.

[spoiler](To be honest, it's kind of my fault. At level 55 I found out from someone that the best grinding spot was Bahamut Lair, after I had already made savestates(emulation is fun when developers decide to be complete asses) and made many levels. I had no desire in loading my Point of No Return save and going through those five bosses again, but in retrospect I suppose it would have been easier at a higher level...)[/spoiler]

Another challenge was getting used to the jobs, and that required a lot of internet searches and opinion viewing. I've NEVER played a game where I've had such an assortment of jobs, and it confused the hell out of me when there wasn't just upgrades to previous jobs. In the end, my team was

Luneth: White Mage - Devout (Gotta have a healer)
Arc: Red Mage - Scholar - Bard (so OP)
Refia: Monk - (Thief when needed) - Geomancer (SO OP)
Ingus: Warrior - Knight - Dark Knight - Dragoon (Some strong points, sometimes was a Dark Knight still)

Of course, the music is beautiful. And that's advancing. There are SO many songs, I just don't know how I'll choose my favorites for the OP picture...well, at the time you're READING this I'll have chosen already. But one thing stays guaranteed: The moment I walked onto the World Map and heard it's music, I knew it was going to be a hard choice.

Speaking of Music! I also did the Soul of Chaos extra dungeon, Earthgift Shrine, which contained the final 4 bosses before Cloud of Darkness, and the remix for the FF3 boss theme is going on my FF1 music list for sure. Well, you see that already, but yeah. I loved the walk through the first dungeon of FF3 in FF1PSP graphics as well. One thing that pissed me off was that they expect me to go through the dungeon 4 times, which wasn't flying. Nope. Forgetting that complete beastiary, it was fun beating the bosses again. I also looked up Ahriman because I recognized it, and turns out it's in every FF game. THIS will be interesting...

Overall: If you don't have the patience to go through FF1 or the changes of FF2, this is a pretty good game to skip straight to. Better than the first two without a doubt. But it's certainly becoming a great experience, advancing through the series in this way.