The year was 1989.
Squaresoft's mailboxes were full of angry mail from Japanese mothers
who'd bought their children Final Fantasy II and were now facing
massive hospital bills because their kids were bashing themselves in
the skulls with baseball bats and big sticks, thinking it would make
them stronger. It was evident that while Final Fantasy II was a valiant
effort, a bold stride into new territory for a blossoming genre, it
would probably be a good idea to take a “back to basics” approach with
the next installment.
Using a long piece of string tied to a 10,000 ¥ note, Hironobu
Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy/Squaresoft top dog) managed to lure Akitoshi
Kawazu (Final Fantasy II's designer) away from the Final Fantasy
division of the Squaresoft office building and set him up elsewhere,
giving him the SaGa series to mess around with (much like that Simpsons
gag where Marge bakes a separate birthday cake for Homer to ruin). With
Kawazu out of the way, Final Fantasy III's game plan wrote itself.
Experience points and leveling up were back. The Light Warriors were to
make an encore appearance, and the concept of having party members with
distinct identities and personalities was to be put back in the
freezer. The four magical crystals of the elements were in. The MP
“charges” system from the first game was set back in place. Character
classes were also set to return.
But then some intern who happened to overhear a couple of designer
meetings had an idea. “What if, you know, you could change your
characters' classes?” he asked Sakaguchi one day.
“What,” replied Sakaguchi, “you mean like in the first game when we had
the Thief changing into a Ninja? Yeah, that was pretty awesome.”
“Something like that,” the intern said. “But what if you could do that, like, you know…whenever you wanted?”
A prolonged silence followed. When Sakaguchi finally spoke, he
rewarded the intern with a gigantic raise, a permanent position, and
his own office. Before the intern had a chance to say “thanks,”
Sakguchi produced a chloroform-soaked rag from his blazer pocket (which
he'd taken to carrying around in case his wife ever found out where he
worked) and shoved it into the intern's face. Sakaguchi quickly
notified office security and had them drag the intern's limp body down
to the basement. A few phone calls were made, and about an hour later
an unmarked white van pulled up to the Squaresoft building. A team of
Yakuza doctors removed the employee's brain and placed it within a
sophisticated life-support apparatus that would keep it alive (and in
Square's employ) indefinitely. Sakaguchi knew that Squaresoft couldn't
ever
afford to lose this kind of visionary brilliance. Even then, he was
keenly aware that this unassuming intern had just come up with the
SINGLE GREATEST CONCEPT IN JRPG HISTORY:THE JOB SYSTEM.
Though Final Fantasy III's version of the job system isn't as
sophisticated and doesn't offer the near endless customization options
of its Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy Tactics incarnations, it's
still the first instance of a console RPG the lets you change your
characters' classes at will. Thief not pulling his weight? Turn him
into a Dragoon or a Monk. Up against a boss with high magic defense?
Turn your mage classes into physical classes, then change them back
afterwards. Bored with the tried and true “Sword Guy/Fist Guy/White
Magic Guy/Black Magic Guy” party? Toss in an Archer, a Geomancer, a
Viking, and/or a Dragoon to mix it up a bit.
And that's how it
all began. As for the poor genius intern? His brain soon proved to be
one of Squaresoft's most valuable creative assets. Virtually all of
Square's greatest accomplishments during the 90's were tied in one way
or another to its input. “So we're making this new game where party
members can combine their special attacks in battle,” Sakaguchi asked
the intern's brain sometime in 1994. “But we think it needs some extra
pizazz. Whatcha got for us?”
“Time travel. It needs time travel,” the brain spoke through a
mechanical voice box connected via USB cable to his life-support
machine. “And get Akira Toriyama on the phone. He'd be all about this
shit." Chrono Trigger went on to become one of Square's greatest
successes.
Among the brain's other ideas were the opera scene in Final Fantasy VI,
Tifa's breast size, most of Parasite Eve, Einhander's electro
soundtrack, the Sprite character in Secret of Mana, and adding Final
Fantasy VII characters to Ehrgiez, to name only a few. Unfortunately,
at some point during Final Fantasy VIII's development, a jealous Kawazu
began periodically adding ammonia to the brain's nutrient solution.
Soon the brain was voicing new ideas about a Final Fantasy CGI movie to
the company's higher-ups. Later, after
Spirits Within
proved to be the biggest mistake Square would ever make, they stopped
consulting the brain altogether, and it is believed to have been lost
in the shuffle during the company's merger with Enix.
But I digress.
CHARACTERS
THE LIGHT WARRIORS
Four orphan siblings raised in Ur by Topappa, the village elder. One
day while they are out adventuring, an earthquake sends them tumbling
into an underground chasm. Not only do the lads immediately demonstrate
the bravery and fighting skills befitting the destined Warriors of the
Light, but the prudence and good sense as well:
GLENN DANZIG
From 1977 to 1983, Danzig was mastermind and vocalist of The Misfits,
the massively influential horror punk band that remains, to this very
day, the best thing to ever come out of New Jersey. His current gig,
however, is serving as the frontman of the Light Warriors' latest
incarnation. His hotheadedness and expertise in the martial arts make
him well-suited for his role as the group's physical powerhouse.
DOKTOR AVALANCHE
When Sisters of Mercy vocalist and putative "Godfather of Goth" Andrew
Eldritch was asked to join the Light Warriors, he made a gigantic fuss
about royalties and ultimately refused. Doktor Avalanche, the Sisters
of Mercy's drum machine, was seized with a strong sense of justice and
snuck away from Eldritch to join the Light Warriors in his stead. He is
a jack of all trades who alternates between a variety of offensive and
auxiliary roles. Because of his mechanical nature, the Doktor often has
difficulty understanding human emotions.
JOHN B
The Prince of Drum & Bass himself is third in the Light Warriors'
ranks. As a producer of electronic music, John B often prefers to stand
back and let Danzig and the Doktor take care of the hands-on stuff
while he backs them up with buffs and healing spells. John B frequently
locks horns with Danzig because of their musical and philosophical
differences, but he is particularly close with the aloof Doktor.
NIVEK OGRE
Unaccustomed to bringing up the rear though he might be, the face of
Canadian industrial act Skinny Puppy is the Light Warriors' resident
master of offensive magic. With a career and personality defined by the
dark, creepy, and inhuman, Nivek is perfectly equipped for wielding
arcane magic and summoning vicious deities. Despite his ghoulish
appearance, Nivek has a stoic personality, and is often forced to act
as a referee between Danzig and John B.
I
dare
you to try and tell me that my Light Warriors aren't at least twice as
cool as Luneth, Arc, Refia, and Ignus from the DS remake.
Allies
SARA
The adventurous princess of Sasoon who joins with the Light Warriors to
help them defeat and reseal Jinn. Afterwards, she becomes the Light
Warrior's #1 fan and groupie.
CID
Final Fantasy III has a guy named Cid who builds airships. Who knew?
DESH
A fast-talking wanderer whom the Light Warriors stumble across in a
dragon's nest. He's an amnesiac, so you can probably bet he's gonna
turn out to be pretty important.
ELIA
A young priestess of the Water Crystal and Final Fantasy's first Woman in a Refrigerator.
CRAZY OLD MEN
Four stupid (though well-meaning) codgers who think
they're the Light Warriors. I don't know why they exist.
ALLUS
The exiled prince of Salonia, the largest city in the world. Because
this is Final Fantasy and because he is a prince, expect to hear a lot
of whining from Allus.
DORGA
Dorga is probably the most powerful wizard on the planet, and he lives
in a giant mansion full of Moogles. Dorga has the sweetest life ever.
UNNE
Appearing on the surface as a frail, somewhat crazy old woman, Unne is
actually in charge of the world of dreams. She is unrelated to the
first game's U-Dawg.
Villains
JINN
An evil fire spirit who was released after the earthquake. He's put a
curse on the inhabitants of Sasoon and Kazus, and the party's first
heroic task as the Light Warriors is to kick his ass.
GUZCO
A shady rogue who dwells at the bottom of a subterranean lake. His
ultimate goal is to seize the power of the Fire Crystal, but needs to
take care of a few preliminaries first. He's a tenacious bastard, and
has quite a few tricks up his sleeve.
HYNE
A former advisor to King Argus, Hyne went mad after the earthquake.
Using his magic, he uprooted the Eldest Tree of the Living Forest and
turned it into his personal airborne fortress. He's mostly remembered
for being the first Final Fantasy boss to use a weakpoint-changing
trick.
GOLDOR
A wealth-obsessed psycho living in a solid gold mansion. Due to a
misunderstanding, Goldor believes that the Light Warriors are after his
giant, magical crystal. He fixes their airship with a magical chain to
slow them down, so the Light Warriors pay him a visit to convince him
to take it off. You can guess how well it goes.
CERBERUS
The first of the Dark Crystal guardians, four of the nastiest bosses in
Square history. Cerberus is the weakest of the bunch, and deliberately
tricks you into a false sense of security before you go off to face the
other three. “That was a snap!” you think. “If the rest are anything
like this guy, this should be a breeze!” Hah.
ECHIDNA
I have no idea what kind of creature this is supposed to be or why it's
named after a spiky rodent. What I do know, however, is that Echidna's
a jerk. Her strategy consists of following a set pattern: she'll start
off the battle with some devastating spell that hits your entire party,
then nip at you for a round or two as you try to recover and get an
offensive going. Then she'll cast Drain on one of your party members,
probably halving his HP. Then she'll blast you with another gigantic
spell and start the cycle over again. Ugh.
2-HEADED DRAGON
Remember Kraken from the first Final Fantasy? How he was perfectly
capable of killing off your entire party with physical attacks, but
often chose to use weak spells instead? Well, the 2-Headed Dragon is a
lot like Kraken, only with thousands upon thousands more HP and no
spells.
AHRIMAN
The strongest of the Dark Crystal bosses. The battle with Ahriman is
like Echidna battle with the speed cranked up. He'll open by blasting
you with a tremendous non-elemental spell, then use elemental spells
for the next round or two before switching back to another gigantic
non-elemental attack. Consider yourself lucky if he decides to cripple
you with Quake instead of Meteo.
ZANDE
When Archmage Noah passed away, he bestowed his three disciples with
different gifts. Dorga received Noah's extrahuman magical knowledge and
power. Unne got sovereignty over the realm of dreams. And to Zande,
Noah gave mortality and life as a human. I guess I can kinda see why
Zande's so angry at the world.
CLOUD OF DARKNESS
The Cloud of Darkness is the first example of the Final Fantasy series
pulling what is now known as a “Necron:” making some terrible evil
deity materialize out of nowhere to engage in a final climactic battle
against the heroes. The Cloud of Darkness is also Final Fantasy's
equivalent of an SNK boss, since she only has one attack that she uses
over and over and over again. Winning is simply a matter of surviving
Flare Wave after Flare Wave long enough to beat her, which is much
easier said than done.
Other Characters
MIDGETS
Here's something the series hasn't seen before: a town of wee people.
(The American DS version calls them “gnomes.”) They're too small to be
terribly important, but they are a friendly bunch.
GURGANS
You may have read the text from the opening screens and thought, “what
the hell's a Gurgan?” The Gurgans are a blind race with the ability to
prophesize the future. Think of them as Final Fantasy III's take on the
Circle of Sages.
MOOGLES
YEEEEHEEEE! MOOGLES! In Final Fantasy III, Moogles make their
first appearances as servants working for Dorga in his mansion. I could
be wrong about this, but I don't think they start saying “kupo” until
later.
SUMMONS
Final Fantasy III is also the first game in the series with a Summoner
class – and you know what that means. Ifrit, Shiva, Ramuh, Titan, and
Odin all make their first appearances here, and series veterans
Leviathan and Bahamut join the fun as well.
DARK WARRIORS
The descendents of the Ancients speak of a disaster that occurred 1,000
years ago when the power of Light went amok and threatened to
annihilate Creation. All would have been lost had the Dark Warriors not
emerged to stop the Flood of Light and save the day. Even though the
Dark Warriors and the Light Warriors should technically be opposing
forces, they must band together to save both worlds – Light and Dark –
from the Void.
Jobs
Okay. There are twenty-two character classes in Final Fantasy III, and
I'm already short on breath from talking about all the characters.
Let's just cover the important ones here.
Best Job:
NINJA/SAGE
The Ninja can use every piece of equipment and can throw Shurikens.
Sages can use every kind of spell and get more charges than any other
Mage class. It's probably impossible to beat Final Fantasy III at a
reasonable level without a party comprised entirely of Ninjas and Sages.
Worst Job:
BARD
I cannot think of any reason to use a Bard. Ever.
Coolest Job:
ONION KNIGHT
Sure, they're virtually obsolete from the moment you see the title
screen, but they're quite the little troopers. (“Free Lancers” my
perineum.) They have the potential to become near-invincible killing
machines, provided you can get your hands on a set of the ultra-rare
Onion equipment.
Lamest Job:
SCHOLAR
Scholars have two abilities. One lets them see an enemy's HP. The other
lets them see an enemy's weak point. One is never useful, and the other
is useful exactly once in the game. Scholars become obsolete the moment
one of your characters becomes capable of casting the Libra spell
(which isn't all that useful either).
Best Dressed Job:
SHAMAN
Light Warriors don't come much cuter. If I had kids, I would dress them like this.
Worst Dressed Job:
THIEF/SUMMONER
One looks like a twenty-eight year old pedophile trying to squeeze into
the Peter Pan costume he wore trick-or-treating when he was twelve. The
other looks like he's being devoured alive by a giant lime-green tube
sock. Ick.
Most Surprisingly Decent Job:
CALLER
Think of him as a Summoner trainee. He can cast Summon magic, but isn't
capable of using it to mow down whole screens of enemies yet. Each of
his spells has a White and Black effect which is selected randomly when
it is cast. White effects usually give your party a small boost or
inflict status ailments on enemies, while Black effects usually inflict
elemental damage on a single enemy. It's a lot more useful than it
sounds, and really comes in handy in the Cave of Darkness.
Most Surprisingly Cruddy Job:
BLACK MAGE/WARLOCK
I hate to admit it, but Black Magic kinda sucks in Final Fantasy III.
Physical attacks and Summons completely eclipse it, which makes Jobs
relying on Black Magic a lot less worthwhile than heavy physical Jobs
or ones that use Summon magic.
Final Fantasy III is HARD
If not the hardest game in the series, Final Fantasy III is certainly
the most difficult of the 8-bit entries. A major factor of this is the
fact that when any one of your party members attempts to run from a
battle, everybody's physical defense immediately drops to zero. Any
escape attempt turns your party into sitting ducks. What often happens
is two party members getting killed before they take their turns, and
then the other two both being unable to run. Now half your party is
dead…and did I mention that stores don't sell Phoenix Down in Final
Fantasy III?
Even apart from this, Final Fantasy III throws quite a few massive
hurdles in your direction. A lot of them simply wouldn't fly if it came
out in a game today. They're just too brutal. Too unforgiving. Stuff
that went out with the 8-bit era and games like Battletoads.
Since I'm getting fond of including numbered lists in these entries, I
might as well continue with the trend. Here are the five most difficult
challenges posed by Final Fantasy III:
5.) MAZE OF THE ANCIENTS/SLYX TOWER/EUREKA
This isn't really that difficult – just irritating. All of the best
equipment and Jobs are found in Forbidden Land Eureka, whose entrance
is in the Slyx Tower. In order to reach the Slyx Tower, you have to
park your airship outside the Maze of the Ancients, venture inside, and
navigate your way through. Then you can enter the Tower and warp to
Eureka. Eureka is a fairly big place, and the Exit spell doesn't work
there. Once you hit the end, you have to trudge all the way back to the
entrance. This puts your party back at the base of the Sylx Tower. If
you decide that you're too low on resources to make the climb at this
point, you have to walk outside, find your way back through the Maze of
the Ancients, then come back later and do it all over again. For a game
that punishes fleeing from random battles as severely as Final Fantasy
III, this is really rather sadistic.
4.) MINI DUNGEONS
At several points in the game, you're required to cast Mini on all of
your party members in order to enter a dungeon, and must remain shrunk
until you get out of the dungeon. When your characters are mini'd,
their physical attack and defense both drop to zero. The only thing you
can do is switch as many characters as you can to magic-using classes,
move everybody to the back row, and hope you don't run out of magic
charges before coming out the other end.
3.) GARUDA
One of the most legendary boss battles of the Final Fantasy series.
Garuda is tricky. First, it's possible that the fight will catch you
completely off guard. Ordinarily, you'd expect to deal with a boss like
this after fighting your way through a dungeon first. In this case,
you're just walking into a castle to have a friendly little chat with
your new pal's father – and then BOOM THUNDERING DEATH FROM ABOVE
Hopefully you'd been keeping sure to talk with townspeople, because
otherwise, you probably missed a clue to Garuda's weakness. The one
attack he has is Thunder, and your White Magic users just aren't
capable of keeping up with that kind of damage at this point. The only
way to beat Garuda is to turn all your party members (or as many as
possible) into Dragoons and keep making them Jump.
2.) CAVE OF DARKNESS
I'm sure this dungeon has given old school Final Fantasy fans many a
nightmare. Most of the monsters here have a particularly diabolical
property: striking one with any melee attack (aside blows with a Dark
Knight's sword) that doesn't kill it will cause it to split off into
two units with HP equal to the original's. These guys also hit harder
than anything you've faced so far, and they usually come at you in
swarms.
Moreover, the Cave of Darkness is
deep. I'm almost positive that it's the longest dungeon in the game, but I guess it's possible that it just
seems
that way. It's full of false-wall mazes, too, and they get longer and
more complicated each time you go down a floor. The boss waiting for
you at the bottom is relatively wimpy, but by the time you face your
party will probably be exhausted and running low on resources. I heard
Square Enix toned down the Cave of Darkness somewhat in the DS remake.
I can't really say I blame them.
1.) THE DARK WORLD
Here is how the final set of dungeons in Final Fantasy III work: first,
you climb the Slyx Tower and fight a fairly difficult boss at the top.
Then, after some cutscenes, you find yourself in the Dark World. You
have to navigate your way through, fight four (well, three) of the most
sinister bosses in any RPG, and then fight the boss of the game.
While considering this, you must keep in mind that Save Points still
didn't exist yet. If you die at any stage of the process, it's back to
the last place where you can save: standing at the entrance of the Slyx
Tower on the World Map. Climbing the tower takes a good twenty to
thirty minutes. So let's say you get to the top for the first time and
get killed by the boss. You load your game, start over, climb back up,
and defeat the boss. Then you get to the Dark World, beat Cerberus, but
get killed by Echidna. So you start over – climb the tower, beat the
boss, beat Cerberus, and beat Echidna, but then are caught unawares and
killed by the 2-Headed Dragon. So you start over. You climb the tower,
beat the boss, beat Cerberus, and then lose to Echidna because of a
fluke. So you start over. Climb the tower, beat the boss, beat Echidna,
beat the 2-Headed Dragon, and then get killed by Ahriman. So you start
over. You climb the tower, beat the boss, beat Cerberus, beat Echidna,
beat the 2-Headed Dragon, and then get killed by Ahriman again. But
this time you have a plan – you climb the tower, beat the boss, beat
Cerberus, beat Echidna, beat the 2-Headed Dragon, beat Ahriman, and are
then completely obliterated by the final boss. So you try again. Climb
the tower, beat the boss, beat Cerberus, beat Echidna, beat the
2-Headed Dragon, beat Ahriman, and are then killed by the final boss
even quicker than the first time. Meanwhile, as all this is happening,
minutes and hours of your all-too finite existence as a sentient life
form on planet Earth are steadily and irrevocably being whittled away.
Outside, flowers are blooming. A sunset is casting the clouds and sky
from crimson to dull orange to speckled violet. Shooting stars are
blinking across the twilight. That old playground you visited every day
as a child is about to be bulldozed. Old friends you haven't spoken to
in years suddenly remember you and wonder where you are in the world
now. Somewhere, a person you've never met and who could possibly be
waiting for you has lately began talking to someone else a lot
like you. And here you are, twelve hours and fifteen tries into defeating the Cloud of Darkness, totally certain that
this time you'll get it for sure.
...The last dungeon in Final Fantasy III is fucking
tough.
CONCLUSION!
It's certainly the biggest and most complex of Final Fantasy's 8-bit
incarnations, but I'm not sure if it's the best. It completely trumps
the other two on a number of levels, but there a few things that bog it
down – namely, the aforementioned part about its mercilessly killing
you when you try escaping from even one of the thousands of random
battles you stumble into. Then there's the unbalance of the early Job
system, the lack of a world map, and some
extremely
annoying parts where you have to fight random battles while flying
around in your airship. Still, Final Fantasy III has too much else
going for it (like
INVENTING THE JOB SYSTEM) for me to judge it
too harshly. And I couldn't think of anywhere else to mention this, but
the music that plays when you fly over the flooded surface world for
the first time is somehow more haunting than any NES tune really should
be.
VERDICT:
3.5 out of 5 Onion Knights
