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

4/2/2010 - Onions Take Flight



Compromising the suggestions, we've got PERCY and Ringo Starr rounding out our party.



Of course, the first thing PERCY does is get us stranded in some sort of cave. It looks like there's only one way out, so I guess we'll take it.



Without warning we were attacked by a group of goblins. They're total pushovers, though, so just mashing on attack leads to a quick victory.



The message box covers it up, but the wall opened up here when I checked the rock.



There's nothing particularly interesting about the Onion Kids' starting gear, but there are a pair of Leather Shields you can pick up in this dungeon to give a couple of them a bit more staying power.



The most important chests in this dungeon are the two with SouthWinds in them. This is the equivalent of an Ice spell and makes the upcoming boss battle much simpler.



There is a pool of water near the end of this section of the dungeon that completely heals the party. This is another one of those things that could make the boss a bit harder if you missed it; the game really rewards exploration.

Continuing on, we find ourselves in some sort of crystal room. Entering provokes the ire of a LandTurtl, our first boss.



Like I said before, liberal use of the available SouthWinds really makes or breaks this fight. Using both of your available ones in the first round almost guarantees a win in the second or third round.




What could this mean? We were just a group of kids that happened to fall into this hole...why are we suddenly the destined heroes? I guess there's no getting out of it now, though.



And just like crossing the bridge from Coneria, here we are presented with our opening title screen and a bit of story exposition.



Not to mention a bit of ass-covering, credits and far, far outdated warnings on the part of the fan translation team.

Glad to see someone doing a LP of the orignial version. I played it back in the day on my old Powerbook at like 70% speed about halfway through. One of the better fan translations out there too.

I bet drinking funny-looking water in a monster-infested cave was Percys idea.

Friggin' Pear.

Fighting darkness, eh? If only that wasn't so literal by the end.



Meeting with the crystal has unlocked the first 5 (of 22 total) jobs, the majority of those available to you in the original Final Fantasy. For now, lets just assume that the equivalent in usefulness to the FF1 Thief is the OnionKid.



After a bit of equipment shuffling, we've got our starting group: Fighter, WhiteWiz, Red Wiz and BlackWiz. I have a feeling its going to be a bit before PERCY is even halfway helpful since it'll be quite a while before I get a second copy of any white or black spell.



Leaving the crystal, we find ourselves back at our hometown of Ur. Its amazing how much confidence the local citizens have for our newly declared Light Warriors.



First stop is the weapon store for some new gear. One of the nicer things about FFIII is that dual wield is not a Ninja trait in this game- everyone has the option of equipping two swords, two shields or a combination of both. Even Katie gets outfitted with double staffs.



The most important thing in Ur, especially if you have a WhiteWiz or Red Wiz, is the Cure item that teaches the spell to one of your characters. This is the only chance to get this spell for some time, so missing it really handicaps your party.



Take note that FFIII uses the same spell charge system as the original Final Fantasy.

The elder who raised us wishes us well on our journey. There's not much more to accomplish here, so time to move on!



The next town is Kazus, slightly south of Ur.



It seems like some sort of curse has been put on the town, and this one man is the only one that wasn't affected. I wonder what could have happened.



How convenient that this town hold the key to breaking the curse! No if only they had made more than one of the rings so we wouldn't have to chase after whoever has one handy...



The one ghost of note is Cid, the famous airship mechanic. He offers up his airship for our use, so long as we break the curse. This is too good to be true, getting an airship so early...



Even finding the airship is no ordeal- its simply just sitting to the west of town.

The last town in our current region is Sasoon Castle. Just like Kazus, there's one guy who wasn't affected to tell us what's happening.




Well, with our without the ring there's no where else to go. Off to the Cave of the Seal!



Our first BlackWiz spell is hidden in the walls of the castle. Its easy to miss if you don't know what you're looking for, because you have to go left to get to the right section.



The last area of note is the left tower of the castle.

Its a monster box with a W.Slayer sword in it that does extra damage against undead enemies. This is the only redeeming part of having a Red Wiz with you at this part of the game, as they are the only ones that can equip it. Speaking of which, you can do that mid-fight without even losing a turn.



One quick airship ride back to Ur for a free heal...



...and then up to the Cave of the Seal up north. What's in store next for our heroes?

Next Time: Princess Partnership

What does the W stand for?

I'm fairly sure its "Wight."

You could say that killing undead is the Wight thing to do. Dohoho

Red Mages are obviously made of the Wight stuff.

I suppose it's fitting they can cast both Black and Wight magic.

These undead puns are really starting to get my ghost.

You just Wisp they would stop, huh?

No, guys! We can't clutter up yet another LP with terrible puns! Show some revenants for all the hard work SL is doing!

Yeah, the LP's only bare bones at the moment.

hacking through a swarm of zombies might be your idea of a good Friday, but in a couple of days they'll just be walking around again. People just aren't good at staying dead this weekend!

It's funny how you start an RPG a few times and basically figure out the optimal way to do things -- i.e. the whole "Equip Wight Slayer" and ice on the DarkEyes.

Back when I didn't know any better, I remember years ago getting my job levels so high in the little Mithril mine that my monk did 8x combos before I was even done with Jinn. Nowadays though, I just blow by this early stuff and my game strategy looks suspiciously like this Let's Play.

Most recent lesson learned: life is much simpler when you just stay tiny through the Viking cave. No need to un-Mini until after you get the ship.

That opening dungeon is kinda iconic. So much so that the bonus dungeons in Dawn of Souls reference back to it. Yet another thing the DS remake completely ruined.

This game has so much more charm than the DS version. Why didn't they just give us a nice DoS style remake instead of mucking around with all that lousy 3D?

Can you go over how the job system works in this version? It's a little bit different than the remake, right?

This thread requires me to say that "Eternal Wind" is, by far, Nobuo's greatest world map theme. There's just something addicting about it, with the main mellow melody mixed with a rousing uptempo harmony. That harmony is something that's greatly lost on the DS version.

This LP managed to simultaniously make me want to dig out (err... rebuy) the DS version, to see if maybe, just maybe I can actually beat it, and make me super-disappointed in how lousy the DS version ended up being in multiple regards.

It is a mystery, this LP.

So, so true. Eternal Wind is the best of all FF world themes. It's so...
poignant.

And if you thought the DS version mangled the song wait until you hear what they did to it in Dissidia.

Like my fellow tentacled friend this LP made me uncover the rotting corpse of FF3 on DS. Just seeing the starting differences between the 2 is funny when you see them side by side. Ah lets see if I can get past the 7-9 hour point this time.

Hey waitaminute, the DS version was really that bad? It did seem a little more difficult than I remember my ages-old emulated playthrough to be, but it didn't seem all that broken. Can anyone give a quick rundown on the stuff that went wrong with FF3 DS?

I'm not an expert, so I'm sure there's more but:
-Slow animations make for extra-long battles
-Smaller enemy groups
-Rebalanced jobs for the worse*
-Assy looking 3D vs. cute sprites*

*may be a matter of personal taste

and cutscenes. goooood lord the cutscenes are long and pointless. Like, imagine FF1 reinterpreted as follows: Bl.Belt removes Garland's helmet after punching him to death only to discover... DUN DUN DUN, he was my long lost brother all along! Noooo! Why, Garland whyyyyyy?

It's not quite that bad but it's insulting on the same level. This is FFIII and not FFIV and who in the hell do you think you are fooling, game?

Yea it took me about an hour and a half to get to the point where TheSL is now. You start out with a single Character in the DS version and are forced to fight the turtle solo.

Additionally the Max Enemy group size for DS is 4 but the normal starting group size is 1-2 even once you have all 4 party members.

I do enjoy the DS version it's just the 3D treatment of it gives it a bit of a odd feeling with so much of the original 2D combat systems in place.

My largest complaint though is the extended time it takes to just get your 4 person party together and get your job changes available.

I have to be honest, I really like the DS version. I do think the Famicom version is better, but I'm certainly glad the DS version exists. My ideal FF3 would be a fantastic 2-D remake ala FF1+2 PSP or the wonderswan version that died, but I doubt that'll ever happen.