Final Fantasy III Maeson is a rom hack of, obviously, Final Fantasy III for the Famicom/NES, and now has received its latest update, the 1.3.0 Version.

This new release is a huge overhaul that tweaks, polishes, fixes and extends many of the changes previously made in older versions. Generally speaking the changes are:

• Reworked Class data to be better thought out and designed. Initial Stats and Stat Gains have been improved and now characters grow organically and in a far more balanced way.

• Reworked Equipment, with more subdued bonuses, more varied properties, tweaks on which Classes can use certain pieces and such.

• Reworked Magic. Sometimes to adjust damage, others to make certain Spells more useful, and a few other changes.

• Reworked Monsters. Unlike previous versions, 1.3.0 brings large changes to the Stats and abilities of enemies, and it is one of the biggest modifications of this release, as besides changes in their properties, there are some changes to enemy groups and even bringing back a number of dummied monsters. Expect a more challenging journey.

• Prices, Treasures, Shops and other elements also had tweaks.

• While this hack is no longer a “mix and match” effort, there’s still a number of optional patches, such as being able to start with all Classes, enabling the ability to save in any situation, colour customisation and graphical enhancements.

Pretty much every aspect of this hack has been touched upon on this release to try and make the best version of it. You can, as always, check the long Readme included for more details.

Because this game has several fan translations, and this hack requires text editing for a number of things, the author has made specific patches to work with:

• The Alex W. English Translation.
• The ad0220 English Translation.
• The Chaos Rush English Translation.
• The author’s Spanish Translation.
• And another for the original Japanese (which will also work with any other translation that doesn’t shift around game data, although it will lack the text changes, so beware).

This release also comes with a manual-like PDF that lists all the details on Classes, Equipment, Magic and such so it can help the player as it plays along. The old 1.2.3 Version is also included, untouched, in case anyone still wants to mess with it.

The author would like to still show his appreciation to Kea and STARWIN for helping back in the day.

• Final Fantasy III (J) [!].nes GOODNES 3.23b
• MD5 4E9BDCDD1071FF48638A3AA0FDA325FC
• SHA-1 C4443FC24625E3C2BB859525EB44B6B3A80E7C35
• CRC32 170163F1