The game is hard, and difficulty is something that tends to be rather rare in games these days. In the past sixteen years, developers have realized that being creamed by enemies within minutes of the first encounter is not fun. In this respect, Final Fantasy III is definitely old school. Most of the enemies you encounter will not be that difficult. There are a few annoying enemies that will replicate themselves if you cannot kill them in one hit, but this is more of an annoyance than a problem. The normal enemies are deceptively easy; the bosses are where the real problem lies. You can waltz through a dungeon, barely taking a hit, and then be slaughtered in two turns by the boss. The bosses in Final Fantasy III have moves that will kill most party members in two hits, or just one if it is a critical hit. This issue, combined with the fact that bosses have between two and four actions per turn, means that your characters will drop fast. Victory in combat is determined by the luck of the draw; if the enemy decides to take out your White Mage, and you do not have any precious and rare Phoenix Down items, there is not much you can do other than take the punishment the boss gives you and try again.