FFIII NES Prototypes?

PheonixMMKC777

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So i was poking around the internet and came across are what i beleive to be a couple of NES FFIII prototypes
There is nothing documented on them besides the fact that they exist on Data Crystal
Their names are as so
Final Fantasy III (J) [b1] PRG0

This one wouldnt run for me on mesen or FCEUX

Final Fantasy III (J) [b1]

This looks like a lost US localization.
This one looks quite early old but its in english which makes me skeptical of it being a lousy hack, but the font and UI is limited to 6 chars and Menus are bolder and more ff1 reminiscent
Also i checked out all the translations and the font and the short characters match no translation that im aware of, so it could be legit

Final Fantasy III (J) [b2]

This wont run

Final Fantasy III (J) [b3]

Wouldnt run

Final Fantasy III (J) [b4]

had lots of bugs like dialgue being incomprehensible, equipment menu screwed up, can only select monk and warrior, red mage isnt even there


Final Fantasy III (J) [h1]

this one seems pretty complete, and nepto is inescapable, even with theif skill

Final Fantasy III (J) [o1]
Final Fantasy III (J) [o2]
Final Fantasy III (J) [p1]
Haventreally got around to these 3

Keep in mind most of these i tested to Tozah or owens tower

the few screenshots are from [b1]
what are you guys opinions or speculations on these, namely [b1]. :)
 

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Welcome to the forums!

These are some interesting finds.

At first I wondered (wrongly) if these could perhaps be screenshots of the cancelled Wonderswan Color version of the game. There was originally going to be a 1999 release of FFIII on that particular handheld and they did create quite a lot of assets for it before they scrapped it and began working on the DS Remake.
However, these screenshots are clearly NES-era and do not match the cleaner sprites of the cancelled port.

Also, if these files are actually listed as NES then that speaks for itself.

As far as I know according to some interviews there were no attempts to officially localise FFIII during the NES days. The game was pretty huge and stretched the console (particularly the cartridges) to its limits, and they didn't have time or the manpower to get a localisation team on board. This was in the early days of Final Fantasy, so localisations weren't a given at the time.

It is possible that they did make a start before scrapping the idea, and that somehow these files have got out. If I was to take a guess, though, this could be another fan translation. The weird symbols and the font are suspicious though, but I'm afraid I have no leads.
 
Sorry about the late response, Ive done some more research and the [b1]/[b2] etc, specify that they are different builds, so they could be protos or newer release versions.
im still a bit puzzled about [b1], it would be strange for it to be in english, but the way the UI is styled and character lengths/textboxes is something beyond what the current hacking tools we have at hand, plus this matches no translations that i know of. The broken text is strange as well and random graphics for the naming character screen.

The wonderswan remake looks cool, too bad it was scrapped.
 
Yeah. The weird mixture of characters are curious for certain. I don't know what we are looking at here. I'm no expert on files like this, but perhaps there is a file missing or something so it isn't reading the characters it is meant to be reading.

I really wish they'd released a PlayStation port of FFIII. FFIV-FFVI and FFI-FFII had wonderful ports which introduced me to these classic titles at the perfect time in my life. FFIII ended up being the 'game that got away' for me. Lacking a DS, I couldn't play the eventual DS remake myself so I had to rely on YouTube playthroughs and the internet to access FFIII information.
 
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