References to Final Fantasy III

1. Cid nan Garlond's airship shares the name of one of the airships from Final Fantasy III, the Enterprise, which itself is also based on the ship Enterprise from Star Trek.

2. The Evoker/Summoner equipment from FF XIV, which is the Artifact Gear for SMN, are named after the jobs Evoker and Summoner from Final Fantasy III.

3. The set of Raids relating to the Crystal Tower are all full of references to Final Fantasy III. The three raids are: Labyrinth of the Ancients, Syrcus Tower and the World of Darkness. All of these have bosses related to Final Fantasy III, specially Xande and the Cloud of Darkness. Xande's obsession over mortality lead him to make the same pact with the Cloud of Darkness as in FF III, there's also characters relevant to the raid that are named after characters from FF III, like Doga, Unei, Desch and Salina.

Xande/Emperor Xande

Cloud of Darkness

Doga and Unei

The music inside these raids are also rearrangements of music from Final Fantasy III. Labyrinth of the Ancients' calm theme is a rearrangement of Into the Crystal Cave, Syrcus' Tower's calm theme is a rearrangement of Crystal Tower and the World of Darkness' calm theme is a rearrangement of Dark Crystals. The final boss theme for Labyrinth of the Ancients and Syrcus Tower is a rerrangement of the boss theme from FF III, while the final boss theme of World of Darkness is based on the final boss theme from FF III.

Into the Crystal Cave (FF III)

Hubris (FF XIV)

Crystal Tower (FF III)

Out of the Labyrinth (FF XIV)

Dark Crystals (FF III)

Blind to the Dark (FF XIV)

Boss (FF III)

Tumbling Down (FF XIV)

The Last Battle 3 (FF III)

Hunger / The Reach of Darkness (FF XIV)

4. The Onion gear you can get in Labyrinth of the Ancients is a reference to one of the Jobs from Final Fantasy III, namely, the Onion Knight. "Onion" in Japanese is a term you use to refer to someone that's "useless" or a rookie. That's why it's the starting class from III. However, when you reach over level 90 with it, it's stats will skyrocket, making it the strongest class in the whole game. This is why it's relegated to a bonus job in Final Fantasy III's DS/PSP Remake, leaving the starting job as "Freelancer". The Wind-Up Onion Knight (which you can also see in the picture below) is also a reference to this Job.

Onion Gear from Labyrinth of the Ancients

Player cosplaying as the Onion Knight (you apparently can get the helmet through Quick Ventures)

NES sprites of the Onion Knight

Onion Knight class in the FF III Remake

5. The Warriors of Darkness are a reference to the Warriors of Darkness from Final Fantasy III. They have also the same motive, fighting so that the Light doesn't engulf their home completely.

As another reference, Ardbert's friends class names are: Devout, Magus, Ranger and Knight, all classes from Final Fantasy III.

6. In 1.0. there were servers named after Gysahl and Saronia, a town and a kingdom respectively, in Final Fantasy III.

Gysahl

Saronia

7. The Wind-Up Magus and Wind-Up Viking enemies in Antitower are based on the sprites for the Magus and Viking jobs in the original NES version of Final Fantasy III.

8. All of the weapons you can get with Rowena Tokens from the quest Primal Focus are weapons named after some weapons from Final Fantasy III, and the classes that can equip them in FF XIV are the same that can equip them in FF III except for Omnirod and the Elder Staff whose classes are swapped (Elder Staff is used by White Mages and Omnirod by Black Mages in III, it's the opposite in XIV).

However I won't really post images for this one for two reasons. One is the designs in each game are different and the only thing that's the same is the name for the weapon and two is that putting images of each weapon individually is really, really time consuming. I hope you forgive me for this capital sin.

9. The Orison equipment set is based on the White Mage robe from Final Fantasy III

10. Nepto Dragon can be fished by FSH and is named after the same creature from FF III

                                    

                                       

11. The Level 3 Limit Break for Black Mage is Meteor, a spell that was introduced in Final Fantasy III.

Final Fantasy III Meteor

Meteor Limit Break FF XIV

12. The final boss of the Void Ark raid is Echidna, a boss from Final Fantasy III that loves to spam Earthquake spells like it's nobody's business.

Final Fantasy III Echidna

Final Fantasy XIV Echidna

13. Part of Shadowbringer's theme incorporates the map theme from Final Fantasy III, Eternal Wind. Considering the Crystal Tower, an element that's already a reference to FF III is already there and the fact that the Warriors of Darkness that come from the First are also FF III references, this makes sense. Eternal Wind itself got a rearrangement in Shadowbringers as well.

Eternal Wind -Shadowbringers-

Eternal Wind

14. The Facet of Crafting story in Shadowbringers involves a lute owned by the late crafting master Harig. Harig recieved the lute from the Crystal Exarch, and it's revealed later on that the person who crafted the lute was Noah. This is a reference to the key item, Noah's Lute from Final Fantasy III.

15. Owen, the Allagan who wrote the dissertation on how Primals affect the aetherial composition of people in 5.4 is named after Owen, Desch's father and the creator of the Tower of Owen from Final Fantasy III.