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

Why would you not do that anyway? I'm practically swimming in Elixirs (13!) at this point.

Because it means every time you die against the final boss (which is pretty much a guarantee at least once unless you decide to exploit the item duplication glitch, and even then things can go south) you have to go through more things until you get your rematch.

6/15/2011 - This Is The Part Where She Kills You



Going in the bottom left passage now. This one leads to a series of vertical paths with all but two of them dead ends. Along the left side we find our 4th Ribbon, so now our entire crew is decked out in one.



Our third foe is the guardian of the Water Dark Crystal Echidna.



Same old same old. Haste, cure, Bahamut, whack, dead. The only thing Echidna did was all target elemental moves which were easily held back with two healers.



3 down, only 1 to go. I blow my first couple elixirs to get Katie and PERCY back up to full charges.



The final path is a little more confusing, with the path shortest path to the stairs instead leading to a dead end.

Cerberus is the final guardian, of the Wind Dark Crystal.



Also: a chump. Outside of Ahriman's instant death moves all 4 of these crystal bosses boil down to pretty similar patterns. Really the only strategy is "don't show up at too low of a level."



With the final Dark Warrior on our side its time to step into the void.



The void features Zande Clone-esque copies of the four Dark Crystal guardians. That, and invisible floor tiles; the correct path is to the right.



We quickly reach the Dark Cloud's inner sanctum (as seen in Dissidia: Final Fantasy).

The dark warriors show up to help win the fight!



And almost immediately suicide themselves against her barrier!



Here she comes!



It should be noted that the Dark Cloud is unique in that she appears in a reverse style of the way the bosses fade out at the end of the battle. She has one and only one move, FlareWave, that she uses for ridiculous damage.



Its really just a war of attrition that I can't keep up with with these weak cures.

The battle goes on for a number of turns. Elixirs are blown, cures are cast, swords are swung, but it is all for naught. The Light Warriors are done for.

Next Time: Cloudy With a Chance of Rematch

Now seems the appropriate time to crosspost.

Damn. So, you're just going to grind some more? This game is grindy as fuck.

I've got an alternate strategy that might work out next time, but otherwise yeah.

It's an NES RPG.

Yes, I know. Even still. This seems excessive.

I feel like I've asked this before but was the grind made any easier in the DS remake? I don't remember ever having to grind for this part specifically outside of involuntarily doing so for the uber-powerful equipment.

I don't know what's worse: Dark Cloud spamming the same tired attack every single turn on NES, or getting four to five moves a turn on DS.

I do know that either way, the final dungeon is needlessly cruel by locking you inside it. >=(

I don't have the hard numbers, but it seems like the grind in the remake should take longer, due to the smaller monster party sizes and the greatly reduced speed of combat.

I figured EXP gains would have been balanced for that, but then again it wouldn't surprise me to find out that wasn't the case.

If we're talking Job levels, grinding in the DS version doesn't take that long. To go up a Job level, you just have to do four actions. If we're talking character levels though, yes, it takes much longer.

And, as I've repeatedly moaned about, since the Ninja and Sage jobs were nerfed, there's no longer an easy way to beat the game at relatively low levels. You just have to grind, grind, grind.

And even then you still might die because Jesus DS Cloud of Darkness is crazy.

Then would I chalk it up to luck that I beat the Cloud of Darkness in one try with all four party members still standing? Well, luck and Arc being a black belt doing thousands of damage with every hit.

All I can say for certain is that my first try went something like this:

Cloud of Darkness casts Haste. Cloud of Darkness uses Particle Beam. Cloud of Darkness casts Protect.

My party desperately tries to heal themselves.

Cloud of Darkness uses Particle Beam again, then just punches the last remaining character.

GAME OVER.

How the hell are you guys surviving the Particle Beam damage? When I still had my copy of the game (before one of my brother's friends fucking stole it and seemingly disappeared from the face of the planet), I'd kill Zande or whatever the dude's name is, do the obligatory hopeless boss fight with CoD, get resurrected by the guest characters, and then as soon as I'd start the final battle it would use Particle Beam and instantly do 9999 to everyone on the first turn. And my party was in the mid-70s, level wise. I get the feeling I'm missing something incredibly obvious here.

You have to kill the four Dark World bosses before you challenge the Cloud of Darkness or else it'll instant kill you first turn.

Mind you, that just knocks the damage down from straights 9's to the 3000s.

Simple: Particle Beam is magic-based. Ergo a class with good magic defense will survive the assault. In the Famicom version its equivalent Flare Wave is also magic-attributed, so you're theoretically better off blitzing the boss with 4 Sages.

From the sound of it, however, you tried to take on the Cloud of Darkness without finding the 4 Dark Warriors. Do that and you will always get toasted regardless of the version.

Hmm, I didn't know that. My party consisted of Dark Knight Luneth, Ninja Ingus, Devout Arc, and Geomancer Refia. For all intents and purposes, Luneth demanded more healing from abusing Souleater each round than from Darky beaming at him.

Goddamn it, I didn't even know there were Dark Warriors to find. Not like I can go fix that now, anyways. =/

Talk about Deja Vu, boss! There I am again!

I knew it was just a matter of time before someone re-posted that picture of Perchidna.

I know its not one but it sure looks like Percy is rocking an ascot there...

Hi there, boss! Thought I'd drop in to visit!

Based on these screen-shots alone, I think I can see a strategy for victory here:
Don't spread your Cure4's around, single-target them so they act as full heals (er... that is how that spell works, right?). Since two (or three?) hits of flare wave won't kill anyone, this should keep everyone alive until your casters' spell charges run out, and then of course you've got your stack of Elixers to top those back off. Also, why don't you have Life2 equipped? That spell's really useful for this type of fight. Also also, if necessary let one of the ninjas stay dead so you're taking less damage per round that your casters have to deal with.

Shh, it was all orchestrated drama to point out that you can't brute force your way through FFIII!