Final Fantasy III Beyond Final Fantasy III

Final Fantasy has alway been a series that has carries over recurring elements or themes. For Final Fantasy III, a number of its aspects have been referenced or carried over to later games. It is unlikely that this will be a full list, but here's some examples of how later games reference III:

Final Fantasy

• A retroactive example: The Earthgift Shrine of the Souls of Chaos campaign in the Dawn of Souls and 20th Anniversary editions uses the Dark Crystal bosses from Final Fantasy III. In the latter, a remix of Final Fantasy III's Battle 2 also plays.

Final Fantasy IV

• Final Fantasy IV was born out of a desire to expand upon the jobs of Final Fantasy III. Thus, each party member is modeled after a specific job, a number of which originated from III such as Bard and Sage.
• Final Fantasy IV uses the concept of Dark Crystals as well as a "reverse world" as in III, although in IV's case, it's more literal.
• The Final Fantasy IV Document Settings book mentions that the first king of Damcyan, the kingdom that Edward the bard is prince of, is named Duster, named after the town of bards in Final Fantasy III.

Final Fantasy VIII

• One of the major backstory elements of FFVIII is Hyne the Magician, otherwise known as "Great Hyne". There are several versions of the legend cited throughout VIII (2 in-game, one as a short story from the original Ultimania), but all are roughly the same:
  Hyne was a god who fought numerous beasts. Eventually, Hyne grew tired and created hyper-capable tools to do work for him while he slept. Said tools are humans. When Hyne awoke, many things were different, but most pressing were the amount of humans. Hyne decided to cull their numbers by using magic to set the "smaller humans" (i.e. children) on fire and burn them up. The other humans were understandably pissed and a war broke out between them and Hyne.
  With the war turning in favor of the humans, Hyne offered up half of his body in exchange for peace. Inevitably, the magical potential in Hyne's body led the humans to war amongst each other, and by the time it was over, a sage revealed that Hyne had not given them his body, but rather his skin which was useless. Hyne himself had vanished and humanity looked for him for centuries, although it is theorized that Hein's power was passed on to the sorceresses.
  Hyne targetting children is likely a reference to FFIII's protagonists while Hyne tricking humanity by giving them his skin is based on his skeletal appearance.

Final Fantasy XIV

• The Syrcus Tower raid is one long extended adaptation of FFIII's endgame, with the plot tweaked to fit within the world of Eorzea. All of the monsters, mini-bosses and bosses are based on III, the major characters are Doga, Unei, Amon (who takes heavy cues from Hein) and Xande who is reimagined as an Emperor who, upon being brought back from the dead, becomes nihilistic, and the final boss of the raid is The Cloud of Darkness, reimagined as a Voidsent. While not making physical appearances, Desch and Salina are also alluded to in the lore, with G'raha Tia (a notable character of the raid who eventually becomes a major character) being inspired by and connected to Desch. At the end of the Raid series, G'raha seals himself within the Tower, a nod to Desch being sealed within the Tower of Owen and sacrificing himself in the ToO's boiler room.
• The concept of a group known as the Warriors of Darkness is used in Final Fantasy XIV's plotline. Their main party uses jobs available in III: Warrior, Knight, Ranger, Magus and Devout. The Knight is something of a multi-lingual reference: In english territories more familiar with the remake, it will match the Knight job as it is portrayed there. In Japan, however the job instead uses the terminology for Dark Knight (usually translated in english as Warmage), making it a nod to the job's Famicom incarnation. In what may or may not be a coincidence, Three of the used jobs closely match those the remake characters are associated with (Warrior, Devout = White Mage, Magus = Black Mage) with only the Ranger and the (Dark) Knight as outliers (though it should be noted that the WoDs appearance predates Red Mage being added to the game).
• One of the available minions is modeled after the original Onion Knight from Final Fantasy III. A nod to the remake is also in the Japanese description, where it notes the name "Luneth" on the sole of the minion, although it's left ambiguous as to what the name means.
• The Shadowbringers expansion takes heavy cues from III, focusing on a Flood of Light and entering the home world of the Warriors of Darkness. Additionally, Amano's more human design for the Cloud of Darkness also appearas as a boss. On a more coincidental note, the character Taynor, brother of the WoDs' magus and who becomes a Black Mage himself, bears a resemblence to Arc and is even time-displaced in a similar manner that the FF3 remake protagonists were. However, it is unclear if this is an intentional reference or purely a coincidence.

Final Fantasy Tactics

• Final Fantasy Tactics has "Wonders" which reference prior (up to that point) games. Final Fantasy III has a slew of references through the Wonders, namely Tozus, Falgabard, the Crystal Tower (and the Ancients' Maze, by extension) and Eureka. Most of these have different backgrounds, fitting into the world of Final Fantasy Tactics (specifically, prior to an event known as the Cataclysm), though some such as Falgabard still retain references to their game of origin.
• Final Fantasy Tactics also has "artifacts", items that are similar to Wonders. In addition to the Gnomish Bread being an artifact, the four magicite pieces are credited to Saronia.
• The War of the Lions release included two new jobs: The Onion Knight job and the Dark Knight job. both are similar in design to the Final Fantasy III remake' job design. Given that the remake released in 2006 and War of the Lions in 2007, this is probably due to Yoshida working on both games back to back or at the same time.
  In an interview, Yoshida confirmed that the Onion Knight job was more or less taken from IIIDS, but says that the Dark Knight job was primarily inspired by Cecil Harvey, although he adds that there were a lot of other things added.

Bravely Default

• The Bravely Default series has the same producer as the Final Fantasy III remake, so nods to that game crop up every so often. One example is with summons: A buff-focused version of the Evoker appears in the form of the Conjurer job and a proper Summoner job also appears. Another is Bravely Default 2's "Hellblade" job whose Japanese name is the same as III's rendition of Dark Knight.
• Tiz Arrior in Bravely Default and Yew Genologia in Bravely Second: End Layer have the Onion Shirt (BD)/Onion Knight Garb (BS) as costumes. The outfit is based on the Final Fantasy III remake's rendition of the outfit (most specifically Ingus' due to it being red).
• The Water Crystal chapter of Bravely Default contains numerous references to Final Fantasy III, such as featuring a Land Turtle as a boss and the Water Crystal being sealed to prevent darkness from overtaking it. The vestals can also be considered an expansion of the concept of the Water Maidens, up to their duty to protect the crystals and their ability to revive them.
• As the precurser to Bravely, A few nods are also scattered throughout Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, such as the Dark Fencer job's japanese name being repurposed from an unused name for 3R's rendition of Dark Knight (with an armor, localized as the "Warmage Armor" having similar design to III's Dark Knight).