I was thinking of giving Final Fantasy 3 (the real one, on the NES) a whirl but I got a couple of questions:

1. On the Jobs system, can you max them all out in some way like you can with Final Fantasy 5 (or the skills learned from Espers in FF6)?

2. Are you still limited on the items you can carry?  If so, is there a Vault/Bank/Bag/Barfing Chocobo (FF4) to carry extra items at in some way?  Because in games like this I try to get one of every item...but of course that's not possible in FF1/FF2 (I would give that another shot but it's way too unorthodox on the leveling/character development for my tastes).

3. Are there Save Points inside the dungeons/caves?  I hated being forced in the NES FF1 to go back out the dungeons to save after getting all the chests to save and then re-enter to face the boss.  

PS: Incidentally I finally got around to doing Tales of Symphonia (GC)...I'm right before the Tower of Salvation so far, and I'm just like Colette in the sense that I say I'm sorry way too often  

Why don't you just give it a try and see if you like it?

FF3 has the fat Chocobos to store extra goods, one of which is on the final airship you get. No saving in dungeons, which is not a problem in this game, except for the final tower that is a looooong gauntlet to go through to get to the final boss...

I honestly thought FF4 was the first game with the eh, Big-Boned Chocobo Bank!  How much can he store and how much can your team carry in the NES version?

It's been a long time since I played it, but yes, IIRC you can max every job. Then if you need fighter #1 to be a black mage for a fight, you just switch to BM, assuming you had the BM equipment somewhere too.

The skills do not accumulate on the person like in some other FFs, so you can't be a mage-warrior simultaneously.

The first playable FF game! Leaps and strides beyond FF 1 or 2. The lack of save points in dungeons is the only real drag if playing on hardware, but it makes the novelty of them in FFIV stand out all the more (and why they have to explain them to you). The final dungeon took me many tries due to that, but left like a real achievement once completed.

Why is FF1 "not playable"?

It's clunky. The magic system, the pacing, the balance, the dialog, pretty much everything. To me the SNES is where RPGs become more balanced and polished, less archaic. FFIII plays a lot like a SNES game in that regard. Fewer 8-bit quirks, and more evolution. I don't find most NES RPGs to be playable, in terms of enjoyment anyways. Good to experience, but one time through is enough for me. FFIII and Metal Max are on my shortlist of very playable 8-bit entries.

Yes you can max out jobs even when you're done leveling your chars (not required tho)

Yes inventory is limited, yes you have access to a vault and fat chocobos (not required in my playthrough)

No save points in dungeons/caves that I remember

This is from my recent playthrough on DS tho.
 

1. On the Jobs system, can you max them all out in some way like you can with Final Fantasy 5 (or the skills learned from Espers in FF6)?
Short answer: yes.
Long asnwer: job has it's own exp pool, like FF5 where you gain ABP and can max out a job by maxing out the ABP required for the job, in FF3 it's based on a different exp table and *i think* it maxes at lvl 99 or some absurd lvl
From my experience, you simply don't have the means to max a single job in a realistic amount of time if you're going for a steady playthrough.
The game also punishes you for changing jobs by giving you a 10-battle penalty before you can reap the job's benefits. (this may only be applicable to the DS version, I haven't gotten around to playing thew NES)

Unfortunately, I can't answer the other 2 questions based on the NES playthrough.

Also; FF1 is definitely playable, and completely enjoyable. It's got its flaws but it compares well to other RPGs in the NES era imho.
Comparing it to snes FFs ins't fair since FF4 really pushed the serie's limits.
 

Maybe, but when I first started doing RPGs back in 2013 (before then I wasn't so sure about the whole turn based combat thing; which is basically what makes RPGs what they are), I had to naturally start at the beginning with the major NES ones (FF1, and DW1-DW4)...I mean these were major grand epic games in their day and they're the same games now as they were then, are they not?  Sounds like I should really like FF3 if I already have experience with say, FF5 (I first played the PS1 version and then the first half or so of the SNES version once I fogt my SD2SNES a few years back.

On my RPG journey though I've only done 3rd-6th gen so far.  I'm also working on Tales of Symphonia (GC); I'm at right before the Tales of Salvation.

 

That they are, but if you enjoyed the ones you mentioned then FFIII is smooth as silk gameplay-wise. I didn't enjoy the NES versions of FF1 or DW back in the day much ('93-94 or thereabouts), as much as I wanted to, and FF 1 and 2 have only been positive experiences with the remakes (FF2 on GBA especially!).

I did find the job system in FFIII to be better than FFV in terms of being able to make some progress at mastering more than half of a single class.

Enjoy, you won't be disappointed!

Just use save states to get around this limitation.


Personally, I thought FF3 was not that great compared to FF5 (in terms of "similar" job system based FF games), but a lot of that was looking back through the lens of already knowing better stuff was out there.

On the flipside, I actually enjoyed FF1 quite a bit as a kid, and did really sit down to beat it until i was an adult.
If I was going to play that one again, though, I'd do it with a hack to cut the grinding in half.  (and if a hack exists that fixed the broken spells, I'd use it)


From other threads, I know you have different views on a lot of this series than I do, so I'm sure you'll like it just fine.

The DS version is probably one of my favourite Final Fantasy tapes.

I didn't care for the chibi character designs in the DS remake. I loved the FFIV remake though.

PS1 or GBA remake of FF1 would be up your alley then.

I think FF3j is one of the best FF's in the 8 and 16 bit series (behind 6 and 4, of course). The DS remake is garbo in comparison.

dra600n: The DS remake is garbo in comparison.

Like Greta Garbo?   As I've done with all the others, I've always done original version first. I mean that's how most who played these games did it, right? They played them when the original first came out, and then maybe used any remakes as an excuse to give it another go around.

You know what? I might even give the GBA FF ports a go...I like how they offer a beastality feature as well as bonus dungons/goodies.  

Given the age on it unless you had to go 8bit I'd just play the DS release of FF3. It's got a few changes, notably giving the characters names and personalities to make it less generic and dry like FF1 was in that way. The job system is a little less detailed than FF5 but it's not bad either, and I think I recall it does cap out at levels too. The advantage other than the eye and ear on top of the rest, you can save far easier in that game if you can't commit to stretches of time against the clock of life. The game I would say is like FF5 also in that it's harder than many of the other Nintendo release games. If you had take a shot at the DS titles, 3 is the good one as with 4 they greatly damaged how certain random enemies and bosses behave making the game sadistically hard due to its demands of wanting a specific move at a specific time or it just outright gang hits your party to death in a move or two tops probably to sell strategy guides.

I remember discovering FFIIIj on emulators back in the mid to late 90s. I was blown away at thentimenby how good it looked, and played! The job system was so fun.

A Bestiary feature. I'm not sure this is the forum you want if you're gonna be looking up Beastiality.

Well why is it called that? I mean it sounds like a weird word for an enemy listing/database.

It's called a 'Bestiary' because the dictionary says it fits, while what you had is more about having sex with animals of a non-mythical creature type (unless you're some furry I suppose):

1. a descriptive or anecdotal treatise on various real or mythical kinds of animals, especially a medieval work with a moralizing tone.
   
   
    

 

What happens in Ivalice stays in Ivalice

Viera. True.
 

I guess that's a new word for my vocabulary!