TYOA: 8 Great Video Games RUINED By Their Final Level

Even though Final Fantasy III is largely considered a mid-tier entry into the legendary RPG franchise, it is by any conventional metric a mostly-terrific game that poisoned its own well with its utter shambles of a finale.

The game's climactic gauntlet sees players slog through two horrendous dungeons back-to-back - the Crystal Tower and World of Darkness - while taking on half a dozen bosses with no save points.

To make matters worse, reaching the final boss can easily take upwards of an hour, Square Enix committing the classic developer foible of assuming that disrespecting the player's time is a fine substitute for smartly designed, genuinely challenging gameplay.

It's a decision which caused many a player young and old alike to bounce off the game, though at least the newer re-releases do include quality-of-life features such as quick-saves and autosave functionality.

While many might complain that modern games are generally too easy, Final Fantasy III is an especially egregious example of old-school difficulty that's basically just cheap bulls**t.