Final Fantasy III [Model SQF-FC]

Final Fantasy III was released on April 27, 1990 in Japan. It sold 1.4 million copies in Japan.

It is the first numbered Final Fantasy game to feature the job-change system.

As with the previous two installments of the series, Final Fantasy III was programmed for the Famicom by Nasir Gebelli. It was the last original Final Fantasy title on which Gebelli worked. Midway through the development of the game, Gebelli was forced to return to Sacramento, California from Japan due to an expired work visa. The rest of the development staff followed him to Sacramento with necessary materials and equipment and finished production of the game there.

The completed game was one of the largest ever released for the Famicom, published on a 512KiB cartridge, the second-highest capacity available for the console.

Square developed and released Final Fantasy III during the same period that Nintendo released its 16-bit Super Famicom console, intended as the successor to the original 8-bit Famicom. Designer Hiromichi Tanaka said that the original game was never released outside Japan because Square was focused on developing for Nintendo's new console.