Total Death Count: (Estimated) Like 25
Finish Time: (Estimated) 35 hours
Final Fantasy III Journal
Profuse apologies must be made for the alarming lack of updates. Several things beyond our control were thrust upon us, and having gotten approximately four hours of sleep between tuesday and thursday night, things tend to go awry. But alas, finally we are here, at the dawn of judgement. Let us begin… Final Fantasy III!
-Quinton-
- The journey begins as Orie utilizes his GBA Flash Cart to emulate a translated NES Rom on the GBA, which was in turn inserted into the Nintendo Gamecube Gameboy Advance Player. This insanity is how we managed to scrape by with Final Fantasy III, may it rest in peace.
- Our adventure started off just like any other, four Onion Kids setting off on an expedition to a local cave, in search of excitement. Suddenly, the kids fall down a hole, and are attacked by goblins! Oh NOEZ! The goblins died though, and the Onion Kids went and fought a giant turtle next. Afterwards, they encountered the very first instance of a Job System in a Final Fantasy game. Hurray!
- The decision was made that Orie would be a Red Wizard, Heath would be a Fighter, Quint would be a Monk, and Jordon would be a Black Wizard. Several discoveries were soon to follow that changed all this, including the discovery of a future change into the Dragoon class. Yippee!
- Orie has a change of heart, and rips away the title of Fighter from Heath, handing him in exchange the equally comparable White Wizard. This turned out to be a good choice, as Red Wizards progress poorly later on in the game. Oh, and an airship acquired from the second town was also exploded on a rock. Poor thing.
- A nearby mountain saw a very large and very angry Bahamut tending to its eggs, which it attacked us to protect. Oh the pain. Orie had been playing since the beginning, I should mention, and he had just gotten the Mini spell. Mini, along with Frog, are utilized in interesting ways in Final Fantasy III. Mainly, there’s a village of tiny people that you can only visit mini, and there’s a few watery holes that you can only go down as a frog. An instance of the former came up quickly, and soon Orie arrived at a cave of Vikings. Yay.
- A ship was to be had here, along with a fight with a ridiculously difficult sea monster. So ridiculously difficult, in fact, that you can’t beat him. You’re not even supposed to fight him. You’re not even supposed to get on the ship yet. And yet Orie did get on that ship, and he did fight, and he did…n’t beat the sea monster. It creamed him, totally. That was mildly humorous, but it also set us back since before the encounter with Bahamut, due to a slight deficiency in saving. Oh well, wasn’t that much to make up.
- The shrine that Orie was supposed to go into in the first place was entered, and was also requiring the use of the mini spell. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried an entire dungeon with all your party members mini, but it’s ridiculous. Many people nearly died, and the only way to hit something is with magic, which only half the party could have done effectively. But that dungeon was conquered, and the sea monster was plus an eye and much happier. Hurray.
- Several things happened, including encounters with a chocobo forest, a random floating tree in a desert, and a deserted castle. Such fun! That floating tree also happened to be a mini dungeon, by the way… Or so it seemed. After sweating blood to get through the dungeon affected by mini, it is discovered that Orie didn’t have to be mini for the entirety of the dungeon. Oh, so sad. The boss was dispatched, and more things happened.
- One of those things was an airship. One that could actually go places, and not crash into rocks and explode. Whoohoo! It was discovered that where the adventure had been thus far held was, in fact, a floating continent above a massive ocean. This ocean got smaller though as the water crystal was revived, and the Dragoon class was in hand, along with an upgrade for the monk, the Karateka! Confetti and fanfare ensued. This didn’t last though, as our airship got done blowed up! Control had been relinquished to Quinton beforehand, by the way, as Orie saw fit to sleep.
- A new airship was soon acquired, however, one with the ability to go exceedingly fast, AND go underwater. Two in one combo’d! Although right after this ANOTHER airship was acquired, which could go over small mountain ranges, but not over everything entirely. I suppose it’s a bit of an improvement, but come on? I want to go over every mountain, dammit!
- Places were visited, and eventually we arrived at one of the worst dungeons in Final Fantasy history if you’re unprepared. If you are prepared for this dungeon, it’s ridiculously easy. But if not, then suicide is still an option. The ridiculousness of this dungeon stems from the incorporation of multiplying enemies. Every time they are hit by a physical attack that doesn’t kill them, they multiply. This is very hard to do without their natural enemy, an M.Knight. Something our party (Consisting at this point of a White Wizard, Dragoon, Karateka, and Black Wizard) sorely lacked even sufficient equipment for. That was remedied though, and the dungeon was beaten like a red-headed stepchild. It turned out M.Knights do ridiculous damage even to enemies that aren’t weak against them, so Orie and Quint remained thus until the end of the game.
- The final dungeon of this game… Makes me shudder. It was made easier by the acquisition of the two ultimate jobs, Ninja (who can equip any weapon) and Sage (who can cast any spell). It’s almost worse than Final Fantasy II… Actually, I’m fairly sure it is worse. This is due to the inclusion of five sub-bosses preceeding the final boss. One of these sub-bosses, Ahriman, is capable of dishing out 2000-3000 damage a turn with meteo. Our characters were in the neighborhood of 3-4k HP, so this is bad, especially considering Cure 4 only heals 400 to everybody a turn. A bit of luck saw the end of him, however, and the other sub-bosses were nowhere near Ahriman’s difficulty.
- The final boss… Takes all kinds of luck to defeat him. One sage casting Cure 4 can heal about 500 HP to everybody in one turn. The final boss only has one attack, which takes away 1500-2000 HP every turn, without exception. This made things difficult. So difficult, in fact, that Quinton had to head back out of the dungeon to gain Cure4 for Jordon and twenty Shurikens before returning.
- Shurikens cost 65,000 Gil a piece by the way, and we had about 10k at that point. So it took a while. It was worth it though, as Shurikens are the best weapons in the game. The drawback is they’ve only got one use a piece. It’s also at about this point that Quinton fell asleep. Orie was sleeping too, so this left the game unplayed for a few hours. Drat. The final dungeon was retackled, and the game was crushed to a pulp in the end, so victory was to be had by all. And omelettes.
- It is worthy of note that a certain enemy in the game, entitled ‘D.General’, was the subject of a mildly humourous pun by Orie. Who apparently thought of this pun as the greatest thing in the world. He called them ‘Degenerate D.Generals’. Ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. HA! Anyways, on to Four. Actually, back to Quinton’s house for some ridiculously large hot dogs (Seriously, they weigh in at 1/4 lbs. each!), then, TO CONQUEST! Thus ends the third entry in the legendary Final Fantasy series. Images shall be made available post-haste, along with coverage first foray into the world of SNES (as released on Playstation via Final Fantasy Chronicles), Final Fantasy IV.
Final Fantasy III Pictures
The mini dungeons can be murder…
Does anyone else find this a bit sketchy?
