Final Fantasy Challenge: Final Fantasy III. “Our treasure’s yours! Follow me, and behold the dwarven moonwalk! Come, come!”

Two of these in one week? Am I a machine? Or am I just trying to get things done before I go back to work tomorrow? It’s the second. It will be a time before I do V, which is the next on the list, but it hopefully won’t be two years before I get to it. Of course, I’ll also finish 7.3 this week, so I’d like to have a Final Fantasy Challenge on Dawntrail. Spoilers, I really liked Dawntrail and I thought the story was really well done. I also think that a lot of people’s thoughts on the story are factually wrong. Like, I get it if you don’t like Wuk Lamat and genuinely don’t like the story, but I saw people say that Erenville or Krile didn’t get any character development (or that Wuk Lamat didn’t, and that’s as silly as when people say Jill didn’t in XVI) and that’s ridiculous. I also understand it’s not what people wanted, so I can get not liking that too, that’s a fair cop. Anyway, I’ll talk about all of that when I do my Dawntrail Final Fantasy Challenge.

Final Fantasy III is easily my favorite of the Famicom/NES era Final Fantasies. I came into this not sure what to expect, because my only experience with it was with the 3D Remake in college, and those DS 3D Remakes were brutal and I wasn’t interested in the NES grind life by the time I reached my early 20s. At 39, I’m definitely not about that grind life anymore, which is why I’m glad the Pixel Remasters let me turn off encounters. Anyway, I came into this with lower expectations than I did with I, which I had previously beaten. I did expect it to be better than II, but I didn’t know if it would be better than I, expanded Job system or no. However, I walked away surprised. The pieces for Final Fantasy still don’t quite come together right until IV, but the fit the most here until then. Final Fantasy III is a lot of experimentation, but it’s also a lot of iteration on what worked in I and II, wrapped up in a final challenge to end the NES/Famicom days. I think, if this were back in 1990 (and we lived in an alternate universe where we got the NES Final Fantasy III) I might hate this game, but like with II, the Pixel Remaster made a lot of changes to draw out the best of this game.

So, once again, Fenris, Dusk, Aethereon and Morrigan ride out as the Warriors of Light to save the day. Only this version of them have an expanded backstory, young orphans who stumbled into a cave. Chosen by the Crystal, either by destiny or their pure hearts, they go out to restore the elemental Crystals and stop whoever is causing the crystals to go dark before the world is lost in a Wave of Darkness, not unlike the Wave of Light the Warriors of Darkness saved the world from in the past. The story starts on a floating continent, then takes them to the surface world, under the water and finally, into another dimension itself. It’s unlike any other NES RPG I’ve ever played, with four full world maps, tons of dungeons, multiple kingdoms and even a city as a dungeon. I’ve never seen anything like that in an 8-bit game before.

The biggest downside to this game, to start with the negatives, is that it is a game with some serious difficulty spikes. Salamander was the biggest one, but Xande at the top of the Crystal Tower was a huge difference in power versus all of the encounters in the Crystal Tower and all of the bosses in Eureka. I thought Eureka was going to be a hard, optional superdungeon, but nope, it’s easier than the final dungeon. It’s basically required to beat the game, because damn were the bosses in the Crystal Tower and the World of Darkness hard. And none of them had anything on the Cloud of Darkness. She just blasts with Particle Beam every round. Every round. I beat her on my first try, but basically by baiting her into a loop where I’d heal everyone back to full. It didn’t work every time, but that’s why I have Elixirs. Also shurikens. Should have bought more.

The Job System also is a bit of a disappointment. I don’t know why I expected something like we got from V and Tactics (something I might to a Challenge post on, we’ll see), but the Job System is just one ability. Only the Bard gets new powers as it levels up, and the Bard sucks. I never used it. I never used the Ranger, Evoker or Summoner either. I bought all of the Summons and gave them to my Sages when Aethereon and Morrigan unlocked them. The game definitely wanted you to jump Jobs at certain points, and that was kind of frustrating. Salamander was the first gate, which I was only able to win by turning Dusk and Aethereon into Red Mages, so they’d have ice magic and ice shields to take less damage from Blaze, which Salamander would just spam at me. The only issue was, I didn’t know that spell slots don’t restore if you jump from a noncaster class to a caster class, so Dusk had no spell slots. Aethereon killed him, while dying, by himself. There was no indication for this, and it sucked. The other times the game was like “hey, you need to be all of these Jobs” was a lot better signposted. A guy straight up tells you that only Dragoons can beat Garuda and you get a bunch of free Dragoon equipment. Also, the second two dungeons with splitting enemies, they tell you that splitting enemies split when hit with normal attacks, so use magic and Dark Knight abilities. However, they don’t tell you that in the first dungeon with it, and that leads me to my final complaint.

Sometimes you just can’t get gear for a Job and what gear you can equip isn’t clear. You literally cannot get any Dark Knight gear until after you get the Invincible, because Dark Knights can only equip Dark Swords and heavy armor after a certain level. No idea why. Also, nobody sells a Hat until way later in the game. Geomancer never gets much equipment, but there are tons of Bard harps. No one wants to use them though. Also, Evoker, just what the fuck is that thing? Terrible class, just awful. Honestly, the Water Crystal classes are just a disappointment outside of the combat ones. Actually, that’s just true in general. There are five good caster Jobs: Black Mage, White Mage, Magus, Devout and Sage. Magus is just Black Mage plus, Devout is White Mage plus and Sage is just “the best mage.” Of course, you get it with Ninja, which is also “the best Warrior” so I don’t really count Sage in this.

However, all of those things aside, the game is excellent. The story isn’t quite as deep nor does it try to be as complex as what they did with II, but I do think the story is better here. Mostly because while the game is still pushed forward by the NPCs, and our PCs barely have any lines of their own (and most of them are just from the first hero) the PCs are treated a bit more complexly than they are in II. It may sound weird, but the heroes have to do more complicated things in order to save the world, and to complete specific dungeons, and the NPCs acknowledge this. They don’t exactly have growing character arcs in relationship to your PCs, but the game acknowledges them and treats them with a level of existence that isn’t really in II. In II, Firion, Maria and Guy were acknowledged by the NPCs, but they all felt flat, as did their relationships with the other people. However, this has Princess Sara falling in love with your first hero, Cid constantly doing what he can to help you, Alus treating you as a hero. I don’t know, maybe it’s because at the end, the game brings them all back and they show what good you’ve done in the world instead of just fucking dying.

Honestly, II tries to be so dark that it’s kind of hard to latch on, especially when characters just fucking die because. That doesn’t happen here. Even Desch is like “nope, I’m fine,” which normally I’d think would be stupid, but I actually thought it was kind of charming this time. I don’t know, it’s hard to put properly into words, but I think that II’s story tries so hard to be dark and serious fantasy Star Wars, while this is, like I before it, a crazy D&D campaign with all sorts of wacky hijinks and a lot of fun between characters.

Also, like, issues with the Job system aside, when it did work, the Job system sang. There’s a dungeon where you have to Mini, so you need to go back to being mages. I made Fenris a Geomancer, because it fit with him just being a big huge guy who fucks people up, and Dusk became a Red Mage again, and it was really cool. There’s a previous Mini dungeon where I probably should have made Fenris and Dusk Red Mages, but I didn’t, but it would have worked there. Plus, when the Jobs are good, they feel good. In the second enemy splitting dungeon, I had Dusk as the Dark Knight, Fenris as a Viking (and Aether and Mori stayed as they were) and I just kept having people attack Fenris, and since he was a Viking, they did minimal damage. It was like being an actual tank, while everyone else fucked people up. It felt bad ass as hell. Once I had more Dark Knight gear, I did another enemy splitting dungeon with both Dusk and Fenris as Dark Knights, and they tore it apart. Also, once you get Sage and Ninja, you just feel like you’ve earned it. It’s like you’ve reached the pinnacle of adventuring achievement. Everyone was dual wielding, Fenris had Excalibur and Ragnarok, Aethereon had all of the most powerful spells, and could summon most of the summons (I gave Morrigan Ifrit and Leviathan because it fit her) and Dusk was throwing stars and cutting fools up with the Masamune every round. Hell yeah, it was cool.

Anyway, this one surprised me. I’m glad it came out better than I expected. I moves down the list and III goes up. I’m glad to see that. I will say, if this were the DS or NES/Famicom version, I don’t think it would be that high. Then again, I wouldn’t have finished II if it were any other version, because it’s just frustrating otherwise.

Final Fantasy Challenge: Final Fantasy II. “Guy Speak Beaver”

I honestly thought this one might be the one to trip me up when I started this all the way back in 2018. And, since it’s been almost exactly two years since I did one of these, it kind of did, but I’m back and I’m here to talk about the most controversial game in the series, and really give my thoughts about it, because I have a lot of thoughts. That said, I will be doing an Endwalker Final Fantasy Challenge at some point. I liked Endwalker, had a slow beginning, but it was good. I love Wuk Lamat, and I’m someone who hates Naruto (the show and comic, but especially the character). I’ll probably write it after 7.3 wraps up, because it does feel like the patch quests, much like Stormblood before it, makes for a more complete story. Heavensward felt that way too, honestly. I’ll also be adding Final Fantasy XVI, which I’ll do later, probably after I complete everything else. I’ll just play it on Final Fantasy mode. Also, I have a few essays trapped on my computer somewhere, but I’ve just not posted them. I don’t know if I will or not.

Final Fantasy II is a very frustrating game. At first, I thought the haters were wrong, and this was actually a real jump over Final Fantasy I. I liked Final Fantasy I, but the story is pretty minimal. There aren’t any real characters and the game is very straight forward. You keep going to new places, buy upgrades and go to new dungeons. Very little backtracking, very little characterization and everything is very straight forward and linear. No real way to get lost. This was not the case for Final Fantasy II. Right from the start, you’re introduced to Princess Hilda, who has more personality than any character in Final Fantasy I and she won’t let you join the rebellion, so you have to prove yourself and find her boyfriend, who fucking dies in a basement, killed by the Empire.

It’s amazing, one of the first thing the game does is set you up for adventure, but in a way that’s different. Hilda, despite fighting a desperate war for survival, is unwilling to sacrifice civilians and won’t let you join. She changes her mind when Firion and team prove themselves, but still, it’s an interesting way to start the game, a complete subversion from just showing up with the powerful Elemental Crystals and the king telling the heroes to save his daughter. The story continues, with a rotating cast, each with more personality than would be expected from a game in 1988. Minwu reminded me of Ryu Hyabusa from the NES Ninja Gaiden games and I liked several of the other 4th characters, Leila and Ricard being my favorite.

At first, too, the gameplay seems pretty cool. Since I was playing the Pixel Remaster version, I was under the impression they’d fixed a lot of the wonky elements of the previous releases. That meant compensatory HP, so I wouldn’t have to attack my party members just so they’d have enough HP, no negative experience, so I wouldn’t lose EXP if I did something different for a round or fought a lower level monster and experience for spells and weapons being more clearly defined. I thought I could build my own classes, with Firion as a Paladin, focusing on White Magic and protection, Maria as a Black Mage focusing on spellcraft and Guy as a sort of Eldtrich Knight, splitting between party buffs and just murdering the fuck out of people with an axe. At the beginning, that’s what I had. By the middle, though, I realized that I had made a huge mistake.

The level up mechanics of this game are so fucking frustrating. It’s hard to really articulate them in words, because a guttural growl with your eyes closed and fists clenched that grows into a primal scream is a much more apt way to describe leveling up your characters. I’ll try, though. I thought I liked it until I got to the Desert Coliseum, or maybe the Dreadnought, where I realized my stat growths seemed arbitrary and my spell and weapon growths seemed to slow entirely. It was around there I began to look up how to level up spells, finding that it wasn’t just based on how many times you cast the spell, but also the relation of the caster’s power versus the power of the monster it is being cast upon. I’m not sure the exact formula, and it is not nearly as bad in the Pixel Remaster (and again, there’s no negative EXP for casting it on enemies who are too weak), but it felt extremely frustrating to try and level up certain spells only to find out that actually, I’m not getting any experience, or what I am getting is so miniscule that I’m not going to register it. It was apparently the same for weapons.

This is where it gets really, really frustrating, because the game has a very high encounter rate. Like, extremely high. In the Jade Passage, third floor, I counted the number of times I got into a fight in that one map, and it was 13 times, not counting the King Behemoth in a chest. Maybe fourteen. There was one fight I wasn’t sure if I counted or not. Honestly, the Pixel Remaster version is easy enough that this wouldn’t be a problem, but in every dungeon, I reached a point where I just wasn’t getting any experience anymore. Or again, it was so low that it wasn’t worth the time it took to go through the battles. As such, I never got any spell above 9, and that was Cure, because I was using it on my party. Hell, I understand why people tell you to just attack your party to level up, because they’re always strong enough to get experience. When I was in the Mysidian Tower, we’d stopped getting weapon experience. Then Ricard got charmed in a fight, stabbed Maria to death and when we finished the fight, he leveled up his spears. Stupid. Even with the Pixel Remaster, it’s still stupid. I’m sure there are ways to mitigate all of this and the Pixel Remaster has areas where you can easily level everything up to 16 in a few hours, but it’s not worth the grind. Honestly, I got so frustrated with several dungeons, I just turned off encounters. There were just too many, and for most places, it wasn’t worth the hassle. Seriously, when I was lost trying to find the Masamune, I found a video of a guy getting it on the Pixel Remaster. It’s less than two minutes long and he does seven fights.

Also, I never understood how stat growth worked. Sometimes it just seemed arbitrary. I went through a whole section, from one level up screen to the next to test this, having Maria do nothing but cast Black Magic. Every round. I was leveling Drain at the time, so it helped. She didn’t raise her Intelligence, just got the compensatory HP both times. I had Guy go ham on some guys never using anything but his two axes (because by the end, everyone was a dual wielding buff caster, except Leon who just killed people with an axe and sword) and his evasion went up. Hell, one time in Pandaemonium, I had Maria casting only Black Magic, but on one of the chest bosses, I had her cast Protect and her Spirit went up. That was the only White Magic she’d cast recently. I don’t know if there’s a screen that shows my EXP or not, but everything seemed arbitrary and it wasn’t’ fun.

Honestly, because of what the Pixel Remaster gives, a lot of this wouldn’t be so bad, just frustrating. However, these are the worst dungeons ever. There’s a section in Cyclone where you go off the beaten path to get some chests, which means going on a different route, and on that route, there’s an electrified floor guarding a ladder up to the next level. All that’s past that are a bunch of dead end monster closets. That’s it. Big open room, saw it when I went to go fight the Emperor and went back to see what I missed. Nothing but monster closets. There are so many goddamn monster closets in this game. Just a dead end room where you’re teleported to the middle of the room and have to walk back. In other versions of the game, they had an increased encounter rate, which isn’t in the Pixel Remaster, but still, it’s stupid. You also have to check, because some of those rooms are treasure rooms. They generally aren’t, but a large enough minority are, so you have to check them. The dungeons were too big, they had too many encounters, eventually by the end of the dungeon, the encounters stopped giving EXP and then you get to a boss who doesn’t even have cool mechanics. Long, pointless side paths that lead to a dead end, or long treks to get a single chest that has a potion or Hellfire, or huge, open rooms with literally nothing in them, but the way to the next floor. The dungeons were designed by a sadist and I hate them. I went into the Jade Passage and Pandaemonium with 99 Potions, 99 Ethers and 99 Hi-Potions. By the end, I had 0 Potions, 30 something Ethers and 17 Hi-Potions because I wanted to save MP. Ironically, though, Pandaemonium was my favorite dungeon. Literally traveling to Hell to fight the Emperor and a bunch of powerful demons like Astaroth and Beelzebub was cool.

The story is pretty good, for 1988 NES games, I will give it that. Guy, Firion and Maria have no real personality, and so much of the game is told through the fourth party member. Minwu, Josef, Gordon, Ricard, Leila and Leon all have stories and personality, but the PCs do not. Also, like, most of them fucking die. Fully half of your fourth members die, and two of them saving you. Josef went out like a boss, too, I’ll give him that. Ricard just kind of…dies I guess and then Leon joins you because he was there at the beginning and we need to square that circle. Kind of lame that he never gives an explanation for why he joined the Empire. I figured he was the Dark Knight right away, even before Maria recognizes his voice, but I thought he’d be mind controlled or something. Nah, just joined, I guess. He never really shows remorse except for the end, either. He should, because what the Empire does is fucked up, man. It’s dark as hell. It’s not like, Final Fantasy XVI or Stormblood bad or anything, but whole towns get wiped out by the Emperor, they blow the shit out of people with the Dreadnought, they kill civilians and the Emperor is literally summoning creatures from Hell. Also, when you kill him, he goes to Hell and gets more powerful. You have to go to Hell and kill him again. Holy shit, that part is epic.

I get what they were going for. I really do wish it worked, but it didn’t. Honestly, I get why the people went on to make the Romancing SaGa games after this. I didn’t really like my time with the remake of 2 (mostly because they suddenly jumped forward 95 years and all of my characters died, so I lost interest), but I did appreciate they handled the level up system better. Hell, I’ve played a lot of Oblivion and Skyrim, I’m not bad at these. I didn’t have issues with the original Oblivion release (and made myself unstoppable when I played the Remaster), so I can deal with these kinds of “level up what you do” systems, but this is the worst way to do it. I’m glad they learned from their mistakes and made SaGa better, and went back to the Job System for III. Which, speaking of, III is downloaded and I’m ready for Fenris, Morrigan, Dusk and Aethereon to ride again.