Final Fantasy III - Finished the game

At least I can say I've finished it, but the last couple of hours I put in were not very enjoyable.



It's tough to say why. I was enjoying the old school feeling and goodness in this game and then in the last section, the fun just kind of fell off a cliff. The game didn't change significantly, but I think the problem was, as I mentioned in my last entry, that there wasn't the promise of anything new to explore or any new gameplay mechanisms to unlock. I knew I would have to go through the final dungeon and beat the boss. Oh sure, I got a few new weapons and pieces of armor along the way, but it really felt like I had done all there was to do in this game and was now just going through the motions to get to its end.

One of the most interesting parts of playing this game was to examine it historically as it influenced later Final Fantasies. The job system is obviously the key innovation, but the little things like Chocobos, Summons, and Cid are there. But really, having played this, I can see how Final Fantasy IV is sort of a fan fiction of this game as all the characters in it have fixed jobs that pretty exactly map to the jobs of this game. And then Final Fantasy V came along and realized how lame it was to only be able to use on job's skills at a time and basically made the job system really fun.

Anyway, since the last portion of this game kind of ruined the interest I had in it, I'm mostly glad I finished now so I can say I've cleared one more game from my backlog. Now I can feel a little less guilty about starting new games.

Final Fantasy III - Met the Earth Crystal

I'm getting to the point in the game where going through it is starting to feel more like work and less like fun. It tends to happen to all older RPGs. Especially in ones that don't have interesting stories. You've pretty much explored everywhere there is to explore and so you know all the dungeons you will have to go through. It is just a matter of going through them all and the enemies there aren't exciting and aren't requiring anything significantly new in strategy.

This is one of the reasons that I skipped a little ahead of the proscribed path to get the earth crystal. I had just acquired the earth fang and I knew it would let me get beyond the statues, so instead of returning to Doga's mansion like I was supposed to, I decided to investigate to see what was beyond them. I encountered a dungeon and some enemies that seemed quite a bit beyond what I supposed supposed to be battling, but one room in I got to the crystal chamber. I now have access to all the jobs in the game (except Onion Knight).

I'm already contemplating what my final party will be. I'm thinking Dragoon, Knight, Devout, and Summoner. But I woud love to get a Ninja or Black Belt in there if I could.

Final Fantasy III - Traversed Cave of the Circle

Man, this game is so old school in its story. Besides your main characters being the "prophesied warriors of light destined to save the world" basically you just go into each town, someone tells you their problems and you agree to help them defeat whatever evil is ailing them. It's kind of charming in how simple and cliche it is.

My current party conists of a thief (who has been kicking ass since arriving in Amur), a Knight, a White Mage, and a Bard who I am newly exerimenting with. I like how it seems like any party can work in this game. Though I had no problem dropping my scholar when he started seeming weak.

Final Fantasy III - Exploring Goldor's Mansion

I have recently returned from a two week vacation and in that time I did a lot of portable gaming. This was the game that I decided would be my main DS project and indeed it was the only DS game that was ever inside it during that time.

Final Fantasy III for the DS is a 3D remake of a game that was never before released in the US. Its advertising marketed it as a game never before on this shores that we had to wait over fifteen years for.

I was leary of them doing the whole 3D thing. I feared that the game would lose its charm. I feared that they would add too many modern RPG conventions. I worried that it just wouldn't be fun. Of course, I didn't really have any idea if the original game was fun. All I had played of it was a half-translated ROM ten years ago that I only got about ten minutes into before giving up over not being able to understand what was going on. So really I was just being a typical internet 'tard about how this game would be. I finally just looked at and read reviews, saw people liked it, and picked it up when Target was selling all DS games for $24 (Final Fantasy III being the most expensive DS game at $40).

Any fears that this older game would feel too modernized were allayed when I started playing. This game feels totally old school.

Despite 3D graphics (which, honestly, seem a bit unnecessary), a localization that is better than we would have gotten in 1990, and gameplay that feels a bit less grindy/super random encounter than what I might expect for an older game, I definitely feel like I'm playing an RPG that came out in the 8 or 16-bit era.

The plot is very simple. You are four warriors of light destined to restore balance to the world. So you go around to towns and kill bad guys. Really, the premise is the same as the first Final Fantasy game. That seems interesting because Final Fantasy II wasn't very good (and possibly not well-received) and so in its sequel they went back to the less story-driven style and also allowing you to pick your characters jobs.

Anyway, while the story isn't anything to praise and the gameplay is walk from town to dungeon to town, the gameplay mechanics are quite fun. Your characters get to take on different jobs such as Soldier, White Mage, and Thief. Unlike the first game, they can change these jobs at any time. The game definitely encourages staying in the same job for a bit because your attacks become much more effective the more you increase your job level (which is different from your character level). I am generally a big fan of such character customization and it totally works here. While you definitely get an advantage from training characters a lot in one job, there are parts of the game where you need a specific job or skills from a set of jobs so you will need to shuffle your jobs around. That works very well too.

I don't have much else to say except that I am quite enjoying myself. I didn't want a story-centric RPG, but rather a mechanics-based one and this totally fits the bill. It doesn't require too much grinding (I think I only once was not able to beat a boss the first time I encountered him) and it require a fair amount of battle strategy.

Currently I'm somewhat stuck because I can't figure out where to go in Goldor's Mansion. I'm sure there must be some false wall or something that I'm overlooking.