A wise man once said, “The Indian race have been waiting, and praying.” and like the Indian race we Ouyans have been waiting, and praying for one game to shine a light upon the path and lead us through the valley of despair to a beautifully furnished resort-casino with its own tribal laws to punish sex offenders. Is Final Fantasy 3 the game we have been waiting for?

There is something sad about middle-aged men. They shuffle awkwardly towards retirement, their pants drawn up beyond all reasonable limits of decency, their few remaining strands of oily hair dyed in whatever color of paint they managed to whisk from their wife’s vanity cabinet while she was desperately calling for assistance in the bathroom, crashed, face down in the bidet, her torn varicose vein stockings waving pathetically in the breeze of her tears and half torn-out pearl anniversary ear rings, bleeding after a mild slip turned heart attack resulted in a broken hip and eventual mournful admission to the hospice.

While old people are undeniably sad, there is nothing sadder than an old man who denies his age through plastic surgery, expensive self-gifting and truly horrible, desperate binge eating. So it is with the once behemoth, Squaresoft, whose gradual decline over the decades has been delayed by unsuccessful marriages with younger game companies, wild overseas vacations and diva-like, orgiastic behavior resulting in expensive, modern games that hearken back to the younger, simpler time when people actually wanted to play them.

Despite all this; ruined; wallowing in the glory days; soiled; burnt out; creatively bankrupt and 50 Billion Yen in debt, there is still a glimmer of the younger man, and for those that were there at the time, a desperate need to bring him back; to deny that he had ever grown old and sick. It would, after all, take a cold heart not to welcome back the creative force behind Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Parasite Eve and Super Mario RPG. But as Square-Enix announces further losses, ridiculous dissatisfaction in by far their best release in decades, Tomb Raider, and a move towards mobile focused gaming, we have to ask ourselves this. Is the man we admired and loved even there any more?

Re-rereleasing Final Fantasy 3, a twenty-three year old game, with a two-year slap of paint thrown onto it will not give us all those wasted hours back again. You will never take those wavering, awkward steps into your first kiss again, you will never wear size twenty jeans again, you will never feel the kiss of morning sunlight on your eyes after waking naked on a mountain top, having reclaimed your wandering love in a night of experimentation, discovery and wild passion. These moments are as dust in the wind to us and if we can honor the past, and grow into the future, we will at least be wise in our infirmity. Frankly, If you grew up playing 200 hour RPGs in your childhood then you probably never did any of those things the first time around so perhaps, instead of playing a fucking ancient NES game, you should, you idiot.