Final Fantasy III - AWOL in the USA?

[ChoiceStriker]

I was reading some histories of the Final Fantasy series the other day and just got to thinking about Final Fantasy III and how it has never been officially released in the USA. I'm puzzled by its absence here, especially considering FF Anthology, Chronicles and Origins for PSOne. I don't understand why FF Origins has FFI and FFII, FF Anthology has FFV and FFVI, but FF Chronicles has FFIV and... Chrono Trigger?

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled to have Chrono Trigger, but wouldn't it have made much more sense to have included FFIII and FFIV on Chronicles instead? Chrono Trigger isn't a Final Fantasy game... Does anyone know the reasoning behind why it was done this way? Are there still some rights issues behind it?

[Carlucci]

Well, Erik, I've never been big on this series, but I just can't let a thread in my forum go unanswered:

 

I did find this Article from 2001 that explains all the cross-mojinations between the Japanese and US versions.

 

The only explanation they offered is that there was a disagreement between Square and Nintendo, and Square abandoned the translations to English as a result.

 

But I'd offer the following explanation: With all the shuffling of the title numbers from Japan to US version, they simply lost track of what's what.

 

I'm not sure what article you read, but here's a 1UP.com History of Final Fantasy that looks to be very comprehensive.

 

Carlos.

[ChoiceStriker]

Hey, thanks for the response, Carlos, I honestly appreciate it. I'd actually seen a couple of sites purporting to be comprehensive histories of Final Fantasy (on GameSpot, for one), but most of them glossed over the issue of FFIII's [lack of] North American localization. Those links are neat - I'll have to read them in-depth when I have a little time.

 

I think your theory is likely correct about a translation and localization just being scrapped somewhere along the line. It just seems so strange to me that after having cleaned up some of the games, like FFV, they would gloss over part III and leave it absent from the Chronicles compilation. Oh well. I'm sure it will come out SOMEDAY. I've even heard that it may be a follow-up to the forthcoming FFI+II on GBA. Here's hoping.