The game that turned "who you are" into something you could change at will.
Before this, your party was simply who they were. Final Fantasy III handed you twenty-three jobs and let four orphans from Ur become anyone — mage this dungeon, knight the next — and for the first time the question wasn't "what character did I get?" but "who do I feel like being today?" The strange thing is how freeing that felt. You stopped grieving a bad choice and started enjoying the changing itself, which is closer to how a real life is actually lived than any fixed class ever admitted.
About this game
Final Fantasy III is a 2021 japanese role-playing video game for the famicom, developed by Square Enix. It belongs to the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series.
Tricks & Tales
Final Fantasy III introduced the series' job system, letting characters freely switch between 23 classes — and it was also the first FF with unique battle commands like Summon, Throw, and Jump. Despite shipping 1.4 million copies in Japan and outselling its two predecessors, the Famicom original never reached the West — the overseas localization was scrapped so the team could focus on the Super Famicom. Players outside Japan waited until the 2006 Nintendo DS remake. The four party members start as "Onion Knights," and that humble starting job became iconic enough to represent FFIII in the later Dissidia fighting games.
Collector's Guide
Region & Compatibility
Famicom and NES are the same hardware family but use physically incompatible cartridge formats — Famicom carts have a 60-pin connector and a narrower shell, while NES carts use a 72-pin connector with a wider housing. You cannot insert a Famicom cartridge into a North American NES slot without an adapter, and vice versa. The Famicom itself has no lockout chip, so any Famicom cartridge from Japan will run on a Famicom console regardless of origin. If you are buying a Japanese Famicom cart to play on a NES, you will need a 60-to-72-pin physical adapter; if you own a Famicom, Japanese-market software is your native format and no workarounds are needed.
Maintenance Tips
The gold-plated edge connectors on Famicom and NES cartridges pick up skin oils and oxidation over decades — a gentle wipe with a cotton swab dampened in 90% or higher isopropyl alcohol, stroking along the length of the pins rather than across them, is the accepted standard. Let the alcohol fully evaporate before reinserting. The old habit of blowing into a cartridge is folklore: the moisture in breath causes slow corrosion of the contacts over time, and any improvement you felt came from the act of re-seating the cart, not from the breath itself. Nintendo eventually updated its own troubleshooting guidance to say explicitly: do not blow into your Game Paks.
Going deeper
Explore the machine this game ran on, and what to check before you buy or care for one:
What to Watch Out For
Before buying, these are the points worth knowing — from someone who handles original Japanese Final Fantasy III copies regularly.
This is the Famicom cartridge — does it play in English?
No. The 1990 Famicom original is Japanese-only and was never localized; it stayed in Japan until the 2006 Nintendo DS remake. If you want to read the story in English, that DS version is what you need — this cartridge is the original 2D Famicom experience in Japanese.
Is the Famicom version the same as the 3D "Final Fantasy III" remakes?
They share the story but play quite differently. The Famicom original is the classic 2D job-switching adventure where everyone starts as an Onion Knight; the 2006 DS remake rebuilds it in 3D. Collectors who want the first appearance of the job system want this Famicom cart specifically.
Before You Buy
Things worth knowing before you buy Final Fantasy III
A short checklist for buying a used Famicom cartridge wisely — useful with any seller, anywhere.
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Choose a seller who tests it before shipping
A copy that has actually been powered on and checked is a known quantity. An untested one is a gamble you only settle after it arrives.
Look for a seller who states it was function-tested and says what they confirmed. A serious seller can tell you exactly what was checked.
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Make sure it fits your console
This is a Japanese Famicom cartridge with a 60-pin connector; a North American NES uses a 72-pin slot, so it will not fit directly.
Play it on a matching Japanese console or a region-free system, and confirm the listing states the region.
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If this title saves your progress, check the battery
Cartridges that save use a small coin-cell battery that fades over decades — a dead one wipes your save without warning.
Ask the seller whether the save function was tested. Replacing the battery is possible, but doing so erases any existing save.
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Check that the contacts are clean
Dirty edge contacts are the most common cause of startup and sound trouble in cartridges of this age.
Choose a seller who cleans the contacts before shipping. A note that it was tested and cleaned means the basics were handled.
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Confirm it is genuine, not a reproduction
Sought-after titles are targets for reproduction boards with replacement labels.
Ask for a photo of the circuit board and look for factory markings. Favour a shop with a licensed second-hand dealer permit (古物商) — by law its stock has a traceable origin, your simplest guard against fakes.
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Read the seller's reviews and return policy
A 100% positive record across thousands of sales is close to a guarantee — packing, communication and problem-solving all work for everyone. A return policy protects you if something is off.
Read the feedback and confirm a clear return window before you buy.
The last step before buying anywhere is knowing what it's worth.
See what it's selling for on eBay →Unexpected Discoveries
Games you weren't looking for — but might be glad you found.
Rooms this game lives in
Wander deeper — explore the themed rooms where Final Fantasy III sits alongside its kin.
Memories from around the world
This is a young museum, and this page is still waiting for its first voices. The memories people send reach Taisei personally, and the ones that move him find a home here over time — always with the writer's blessing. Yours could be the very first for this game.
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