Get a job! - Let's Play Final Fantasy III

Holy shit 54 charges of fire. One thing that I was always annoyed with later in most FF games is how you would always just sit on pools of MP until boss battles. But having the tiered charges means you can use fire or ice every battle and still have Nuke and Life2 to use. I really want to see a new RPG use this magic system well.

Do Suikoden games count? They use a 4-tier system and often feature useful spells available at every level to boot. Hell, it gets especially interesting in that series since you can do Rune combination attacks with spell runes in a lot of them.

It might if I had every played them! I really just want to see a "modern" (or at least 16-bit style) FF game with the original magic system. I think it would make for an interesting twist.

That would be interesting, but I'm afraid FF8's about as close as you're going to get to that. Although the Suikoden series isn't a bad substitute. Particularly the earlier ones resemble 16-bit RPGs, though upscaled to early PlayStation standards. I'd say you can check out the original on the PSN, but at the moment nobody can really do that, so I guess I won't.

4/28/2010 - Sidequestin'



Rather than run headlong into the final dungeon so hastily, we've decided to go back and round out the spell list for PERCY by popular (?) demand. First up is this nondescript cave in the south-eastern part of the floating continent.



Despite its nest being on an entirely different mountain range, this is the Cave of Bahamut. Everything here is a total joke to our party, mostly because I think it was intended that we travel here prior to venturing into Eureka.



There are a ton of boxes in the totally straightforward path, but nothing really to write home about after all those legendary weapons.



See? Even the ninja swords are two or three levels out of date.



Approaching the exit to the cave causes Bahamut to attack us automatically.

He really doesn't stand even half a chance at this point, though.



He manages to get a single wimpy MegaFlare off, but the team shrugs it off and finishes him in the second round. This nets us the hilariously truncated lv8 summon magic "Baham."



PERCY drops Life2 in favor of Baham, but he may end up swapping Meteo for it before the end since MegaFlare and Meteo are kind of redundant.



Next up is the sea monster that was able to be seen quite some time ago, but there was no way to get there without the jumping airship. Engaging the monster tosses us into another dungeon, Lake Dol.



Same deal as Bahamut's Cave- lots of boxes, nothing much to write home about.

I think this SeaLion might be one of my favorite Final Fantasy enemies.



At the end of the cave lies Leviathan and another "challenge" for our warriors before giving up his power.



Leviathan doesn't even get a hit off before Bahamut MegaFlares him to death.



Another win, another summon, and PERCY is maxed out for lv7 spells as well.



Speaking of spells, I make my way back to Dorga's Village and fill in most of the gaps on my spell lists. Most of these probably won't be worth it, but I know I'll get some use out of PERCY having Haste at least.

By request, here is the team's stats before making their way to the Sylx Tower. The Sage's total brokenness is readily obvious when you notice that his skill level is only 8 versus Katie's 32 yet is easily outperforming her in every category except HP and Spirit. Our two ninjas are nearly identical; all of the stat differences between them (except HP) is only due to gear.



Bonus! The many inexplicable forms of Bahamut.



This concludes today's update.

Next Time: Sylx Tower and the Darkness Within (For Real)

Bahamut sure doesn't mince words, does he?

That is magical

That's, like, a modern Dragon Quest enemy that somehow traveled back in time and snuck into Final Fantasy III.

Also Planktae sounds like a rejected transformation for Shantae.

That gray one on the left is actually kind of creeping me out.

I'm surprised it doesn't have pallet swaps, honestly. That sprite feels like it should be filling the last dungeon.

From right to left, Bahamut, Neo Bahamut, and Bahamut Zero.

And yet, that's the one that most closely resembles Bahamut's idle sprite in FFIV.

Cue the nervous laughter... ^^;

Anyway, I'm glad that TheSL got some amusement out of this little side-trip.

6/2/2011 - Zande and the Dark Warriors



Back to the tower, this time to the second door in the back side of it.



There aren't really that many more enemies here than in Eureka, but the Qumqums are kind of annoying because they can cast Death and do so frequently. At least we've got two mages capable of casting Life now so we don't have to burn through our FenixDowns.



Sylx tower is kind of a neat dungeon because it loops up and then back down in an inward spiral upon itself. Outside of a second Eldest staff most of the dungeon treasures are Elixirs and FenixDowns.



Floor 5 is a series of squiggly dead ends, but if you make your way to the top-left you move forward.



These darker sections of the dungeon also introduce some new random encounters, though they're still quite easy for our group.



There's a whole set of crystal gear down here as well, but since we already found the secret shop and stocked up its wasted.

I never realized how phallic the Crystal Tower was from the outside.

Reaching the inner area of the tower, it turns out that Zande had planned for visitors and traps our party in a Demon Dragons' curse.



Dorga says that he can break us free if he can find five hearts of light to keep them preoccupied.



First up is Princess Sara, whom we helped save her kindgom with waaaaaaaaaaay back at the start.



Next up is Cid, that charitable airship dude who let us smash his masterpiece into a boulder rather than fly over it.



Undoing a heroic sacrifice (i.e. "Pulling an FF4 before FF4 existed"), it turns out Desh didn't really die in the Tower of Owen. He was really just fixing up the place and if he hadn't done so the flying continent would have fallen back to the earth.

Prince Allus is next, whom we'd saved from his murderously possessed father.



The final pick is one of the four "Heroes of Light" old men.



Each of the hearts of light stares down a dragon and frees our warriors from the dragons' spell.



Our group now finds themselves transported to Zande's inner sanctum!



Zande is quite imposing, but he can be taken with a bit of patience. Hasting up the ninjas is the first priority as it takes their hit count into the 20+ range.

Meteo is quite deadly, but PERCY retaliates with a shot of Flare.



Ringo manages the final blow, but Zande gloats that it doesn't matter if he dies because the Dark Cloud is already seeping into this world.



A final foe totally out of nowhere! I believe this was the first FF to pull this stunt, as Chaos and the Emperor were at least hinted at before their confrontation.



All that the Dark Cloud is capable of doing (beyond magically palette changing for whatever reason) is FlareWave'ing over and over and over. This makes quick work of our party.



The hearts of light (along with Dorga and Unne) appear and revive our party. Turns out we were supposed to lose that fight!*


*If for some reason you reach this point with full Onion Knight gear that battle with the Dark Cloud takes forever as she slowly chips away at its near perfect defense for hundreds of rounds. This is obviously outside the scope of this LP, though.

Turns out that Zande wasn't really evil (even though he had every right to be), but it was just the power of the Dark Cloud influencing him. No Golbez-esque redemption for him, though! The only way to return the balance to light and darkness is by taking a trip to the dark world, so our heroes set forth.



The dark world looks quite similar to the Sylx Tower, only, uh, darker.



The Dark World's random encounters share a common theme of Norse-related names.



Whoo, another ribbon! There was a Zande clone guarding it, but he was much weaker than the original. PERCY gets priority for it since we'll need to keep our healers up and healthy in the coming battles.



Our first challenge lies at the Earth Dark Crystal and the series' first appearance of an Ahriman.

Ahriman's whole pattern is to spam powerful area attacks on the party. Speed is the real priority, as even with two Cure4s every round it will eventually tear through our party.



Eventually I get lucky and take him out, though not without suffering heavy casualties.



The first of the Dark Warriors pledges his allegiance to our cause and vows to help defeat the Dark Cloud.



Taking the top right path now, we find another Ribbon and another Zande clone. This ribbon goes to SL since he's got a marginally stronger set of weapons.



Next up is the Fire Dark Crystal and the 2-Head Dragon. There is absolutely nothing to this boss except hitting extremely fast and extremely hard.

I blow my first pair of shuriken on the opening salvo, far outclassing what Ringo does with a normal set of hits.



Though the spells share the same charge, Bahamut is far and away the better choice versus Flare and Meteo.



Another close win for the group.



Another Dark Warrior appears and pledges his allegiance.

Two down, two + the Dark Cloud to go!

Next time: That's an echidna?!

*looks back at Brick's Dawn of Souls LP*

Until next time~
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I really didn't enjoy this part of the game because of the horrendously difficult bosses that has to be fought in sequence with no save points as a safety net. Somehow I lucked into beating it the first time I tried it in the DS remake, but that part has prevented me from ever replaying it.

The DS version at least had the courtesy to heal you after each of the Dark Crystal fights.

Well, this is an NES RPG. You're expected to be crazy prepared and to dedicate hours upon hours grinding up your characters so you can tackle the last dungeon. FF4 truly did the world a huge favor by introducing the concept of a mid-dungeon save point to the series, not to mention the Tent and Cottage items for mid-dungeon healing.

Man this game seems crazy difficult and the DS remake is crazy slow...

Thanks for doing this SL now I'll finally see the ending to it.

Then again, the DS version significantly buffed every single one of the Dark Crystal fights. It also nerfed Sages and Ninjas. And as one last fuck you, it severely buffed the final boss to the point you need four Ribbons. Which means fighting at least three Xande clones.

Also, the Crystal Tower was remade to be much more confusing and hard. And that last cutscene at the end, christ.