Final Fantasy III - Official Companion Guide

Final Fantasy III[a] is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the Family Computer. The third installment in the Final Fantasy series, it was released in 1990. It is the first numbered Final Fantasy game to feature the job-change system. The story revolves around four orphaned youths drawn to a crystal of light. The crystal grants them some of its power, and instructs them to go forth and restore balance to the world. Not knowing what to make of the crystal's pronouncements, but nonetheless recognizing the importance of its words, the four inform their adoptive families of their mission and set out to explore and bring back balance to the world.

The game was originally released in Japan on April 27, 1990. The original Famicom version sold 1.4 million copies in Japan. It had not been released outside Japan until a remake was developed by Matrix Software for the Nintendo DS on August 24, 2006. At that time, it was the only Final Fantasy game not previously released in North America or Europe.[11] There had been earlier plans to remake the game for Bandai's WonderSwan Color handheld, as had been done with the first, second, and fourth installments of the series, but the game faced several delays and was eventually canceled after the premature cancellation of the platform. The Nintendo DS version of the game was positively received, selling nearly 2 million copies worldwide.

It was also released for many other systems: the Japanese Famicom version via the Virtual Console on July 21, 2009 (Wii) and January 8, 2014 (Wii U), an iOS port of the Nintendo DS remake on March 24, 2011, an Android port on March 12, 2012, a PlayStation Portable port in late September 2012 (downloadable-only format outside Japan via PlayStation Network) and a Microsoft Windows port via Steam in 2014.