Let's Sperg Let's Sperg: Final Fantasy 3 - Tedious JRPG Autism

[AngeloTheWizard]

Fuck it, let's do another sidequest before the painful double boss fight that's coming.

This is Lake Dohr, where the Leviathan, the Level 7 Summon Magic, awaits to test us.

Interior's a bit drab, but even the lightest encounters in here come with guarantees to be at least a few thousand XP each, making this place great for grinding-especially because you already dealt with some of these enemies (The Ouroboroses) back in Saronia Catacombs.

The area is small and easy to navigate, but is a one-time side dungeon, once you kill the boss and leave, you can't come here anymore. The shadow on the surface of the lake will disappear, and since that's the dungeon entrance, we can't come here again. Make sure you have everything before killing Leviathan.

If you use Vikings, there's a couple of these beauties waiting for you. I don't, but at least they're there.

And man, you are butt ugly.

As you might guess, the ultimate sea monster is a bit weak to lightning. There's a Heavenly Wrath in this dungeon for your White Mage to toss at the start and if you've got a Black Mage then hammer this fucker with Thundaga.

Leviathan himself can crack out a Tsunami attack as his signature move, as well as cast Blizzaga. He can also buff himself with Protect and Haste. His physical attacks hurt and can cause pretification, so come with a stock of Aegis Shields and Gold Needles. Other then that, he's got marginally more HP then Odin did, so if you handled him, this guy is about the same but with more AoE hits.

He drops Leviath on his defeat, and restores the health of our party. Now that we've tackled this challenge, we're in a good spot for the next main quest. And we should probably finally get those damn Earth Crystal jobs...

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Well, good to hear from Doga and Unei as we enter the mansion. They also open a teleportation circle to where they are.

Well, not directly to them. We have a dungeon to traverse first, and it is definitely a dungeon.

Well, did you have to drag us all the way here, with a lovely backdrop of infinitely flowing waterfalls and a place that looks like a perfect boss arena?

Wut?

Refia (understandably) objects, but Unei explains that repairing the key to Eureka requires their energy combined, which basically means the party needs to kill them in order for the party to get the sweet sweet weapons sealed inside Eureka. To inspire us, they turn into hideous monsters and attack us, holding nothing back.

Queue up your favorite sad song, and prepare for

Doga goes first and prefers hard hitting Black Magic. He has less health then some of the bosses we've dealt with before, being just shy of 23k himself, but that doesn't mean he can't dish out some damage in the turns it takes us to beat him up. Firaga and Flare, the spells he used when he was on our team, are the same spells he cracks out now. And, he has no elemental weaknesses to make it easier.

Unei jumps in right after Doga, and we don't get a heal or any rest at all. She is similar to Doga, but has 1,000 less HP and more tricks. She has Tornado which can (I believe) knock a party member out of the fight, but it can miss. Otherwise, she throws Aeroga and Holy around, and can Haste herself as well.

When the pair are knocked down, the party is (still understandably) torn up over their deaths. Doga doesn't seem to care, handing over the Eureka key at the end. Doga is also unconcerned about his body, as his soul will "still remain" according to him.

I believe this is the first...and last...time that Doga ever calls us the Warriors of the Light.

Unei gives us the Sycrus Key, a key to a sealed door inside the final dungeon. Then, they both fade away.

Next Time, though it hardly seems worth it now: The Maze of the Ancients.

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Doga and Unei gave everything to give us this chance. Let's not waste it.

I skipped ahead a bit and ended up clearing the statues in front of the Crystal Tower before getting any shots of them, but here's how it works: You need the Fangs to clear the statues, without all four, you get a brief cutscene of a red screen as your lead character looks around then flops over dead, Game Over.

You can't clear the statues away in an airship, so you'll have to dismount. You'll also need the Invincible to surmount the mountains in the way.

But wait! Where's the Earth Crystal? In the Ancient's Maze, and is in fact the first room we can go into. We can walk into the Titan fight simply by pressing Up on our d-pads/keyboards/whatever. So, since he guards the last batch of jobs...let's kick his ass!

If you're looking at Titan's model and think "hmm, he looks a lot like the Heca boss in the Cave of Shadows", you're right. He even uses the same strategy and has marginally more health, so in a way, he's not even interesting to dwell on. Refer to my strategy for Heca to know how to kill him, or if you're too lazy to go back a page, just smash his fucking face in!

Once he's down, the Earth Crystal tells us that Xande has been using the power of light to attract the darkness to the land, and that he must be stopped. I'll get right on that-once I use the Black Belt job to give all my dudes tons of HP, teeheehee.

The Ancient's Maze does have a bunch of lava, but we never have to go into it. The Maze is misnamed, it's mostly straightforward. The Crystal Tower and Eureka are more twisty and turny.

With Titan dead, we just have to get through the place. Easier said then done though.

On the other side, we can enter the Crystal Tower, which is very blue and just screams endgame. Hell, it's almost a blue palette swap of Pandemonium. If you want to open the portal to Eureka-and you do-run straight forward and enter the first room you come to, then interact with the door.

A short cutscene plays, and we are teleported to Eureka, the Forbidden land. But, with the portal open, it's time to finish our sidequesting.

Next Time: ALL THE SIDEQUESTS!

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

We start with a Sunken Cave, which I've neglected until now. It's a small little dungeon packed with sweet gear and XP loaded enemies that are very weak, making it the game's pennisula of power-leveling. At the end in a hidden area is four treasure chests with trap monsters that are all individually weaker then every boss we've fought on the Surface World, making this place a very pleasant stroll. Also, getting the secret treasures is required to get one of the letters from the 4 Old Men.

Finally, we can hand over the Orichalcum. After a brief fade to black, she returns and gives us...

The motherfucking Ultima Weapon. Hell yes.

The Ultima weapon has the highest attack of any weapon in the game save for one: The Onion Sword, which has one extra point of Attack and drops from dragon enemies. Only a few classes can wield it, and it gives +15 to all stats, which blows away the Onion Sword's mere +5 to all stats and "can only be wielded by Onion Knights" status. Also, the Warrior's Job Master Item also has 155 Attack, but who cares about Warriors?

Now, in order to get the final letters from the 4 Old Men and Alus, and open up the dungeon where all those dragons can be fought (well, they can be fought in the Crystal Tower too, but the ??? secret dungeon has nothing BUT them), we need to beat Bahamut and get a job master item from the Legendary Smith. Both of which we are in a position to do.

We have to track the Smith down, as she can spawn in a bunch of places. She moves whenever we visit a new area, so the best way to get her is to go back and forth between the Healing Corpse and Gyashl on the floating continent.

Speaking of the Healing Corpse, there's a little mountain the Invincible can fly over near there, and a little cave just behind it. This is where we'll find Bahamut.

Bahamut's Lair is, well, a cave. Most of the chests have consumables, including one of the last few Phoenix Downs. Aside from the first area which makes a cross, the lair is very straightforward.

Heal up before crossing the bridges in the third area, as Bahamut will issue a challenge that causes the party to rush up ahead, and if you aren't prepared, then get ready to eat Megaflare, bitch.

It's a Baha-Bash in the Monster Smash! Bahamut is weak to Wind, because he flies and everything that flies in FF3 has a Wind weakness, no exceptions. Bahamut takes things back to the classics, nothing but hard hitting physical attacks and one party wide AoE, his signature Megaflare. Hit him with your hardest attacks, as he's packing 34,000 HP and won't go down easy.

The wiki recommends level 42 for everyone, we're at level 49. Seems a bit unfair, but then again, why ever play fair?

With powerful Wind attacks, a Dragoon jumping, and some attack items, Bahamut should go down quickly.

Bahamut gives us the spell "Bahamur" after the fight. Why not just call it the "Bahamut" spell? It's not like you're fooling anyone!

With a party of level 50s, we have one last thing to do before actually opening up the final bonus dungeon: We need to take on Eureka and kill every boss in there. Which I did long ago when I first had the DS version and was nowhere near 50, so this, this should be piss easy.

Next Time: Conquering the Forbidden Land!

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Since I'm here, may as well sperg about the new jobs while I mount up to tackle Eureka.

The new jobs are, in no order: Black Belt, Ninja, Summoner, Magus, Devout, and Sage.

Black Belt: Highest Vitality, and eventually reaches a point where claw weapons are useless, much like the original Monk. Armor is still helpful though, especially because some of their unique armors raise stats. Useful if you want to get tons of HP and a solid damage dealing class, but not the best of the melee DPSes. They can use "Boost" which enhances their next attack to do double damage, or do it twice to deal triple the damage. Not quite helpful, because of A: the 9999 damage cap and B: You're wasting your turn to do twice the damage next time, why not just attack twice?

Ninja: Possible the best of the melee DPSes. They can use Dark Blades as well as most of what the Thief could use, but they're not able to use Black Magic like the FF1 Ninja. They have access to the "Throw" command instead, allowing them to chuck old weapons (or new weapons!) at enemies for massive damage. Shurikens, which can only be bought in Eureka, can allow the Ninja to deal the damage cap with ease, from the back row too. Excellent class all around.

Summoner: Capable of doing the High Summons, AND NOTHING ELSE. While some are cool, like Bahamut's Megaflare, it's just not as good next to the Magus and Sage.

Magus/Devout: Can use all Black/White Magic, and is awesome because of it. These two are very similar-they're both upgrades to existing jobs (Black Mage/White Mage respectively) and their MP is shuffled around so they have more for level 5 spells than they do for level 1 spells.

Sage: Can use EVERY SPELL IN THE GAME. Has less MP to work with then the dedicated ones, though. And I'm not kidding, that "EVERY SPELL" includes the Summon magic, though they don't get the High effect like Summoners do.

In the end, jobs come down to preference. I recommend at least a Dark Knight, possibly an Onion Knight so one can use that tasty Ultima Weapon, and from there it's up to you how you build your party to go kick the asses of the final bosses. Except for Summoner which is just overshadowed by more useful classes, everything from the Earth Crystal is fucking sweet and worthy of at least a close look.

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Ultimate Autism Achieved.

Eureka is not only loaded to the gills with sweet gear, but also seems to be in SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! Eureka is a boss rush dungeon, as every chest with sweet loot has a boss inside as well. Let's get started, shall we?

The first chest requires a keen eye for secret paths, contains a legendary Ribbon, and is guarded by a Ninja. He's fast and hits twice, his hits occasionally causing Poison or Blind, and he can cast Blind too if the wiki is correct. He's the weakest Eureka has to offer, and doesn't have much strategy beyond "HIT HIM A WHOLE LOT". Be aware, though, that he'll probably go first.

The rest of the weapons are on Shrines, so at least you know you're getting jumped.

Amon is a palette swap of Hein, and has the same gimmick. He prefers physical attacks to using his Barrier Shift or his magic, and he does have enough defense to make it hard for you to cut through him. There's no real need to cast Libra to keep track of his weakness, though, just stay healed and beat him up.

These actual bosses, starting with Amon, do give a full heal, so don't hold back in the fights.

The Kunoichi attacks 3 times a round, and can use Aeroga and Haste. With my party, it only took two rounds, so aside from the triple strike, it's nothing you haven't handled before.

The General is a big brick wall, but he's a brick wall with Bio, Drain, and Death. Yep, Square wised up and only gave end game enemies instant death attacks, except for those Basilisks back at level 10 that could petrify...anyway, once again there's no elemental weaknesses, but we're back to only two attacks a round, which is good.

Speaking of petrify, Scylla here can inflict it. She also has Holy, Flare, Thundaga, and can heal herself with Curaja. As always, tons of damage. As always, no damnable weaknesses.

Finally, the Guardian. No tricks with his attacks, just his fists and the spells Reflect, Quake, and Tornado. Items do pierce Reflect, so use them if you're worried about him throwing it up just in time to bounce Flare off of it. Otherwise, same as before, kill him before he can kill you.

With the bosses defeated and the weapons claimed, we come to the shops. Well, we could have come here any time, actually. The guys here sell the option three summon spells of Odin, Leviathan, and Bahamut, if they have already been defeated, as well as the level 8 White and Black Magic we've been lacking. A secret path to the right leads to a shop that sells Crystal armors and Shurikens, which are worth buying a small stock of if you have a Ninja.

With the challenges of Eureka surmounted, we can now access the secret dungeon!

With the final letter from Alus, head west from the southern tip of Dalg (the continent with Doga's Manor) and sink beneath the waves. You'll see a shadow on the surface, and a patch of coral below. Head into the patch of coral, and you'll access the ??? dungeon.

The secret dungeon is basically a reskin of the final area of Doga's Grotto. Don't go to far forward, or you'll get into a fight with the Iron Giant.

No not that one!

Let me steal a shot from someone else, to illustrate his power. He goes four times a turn(!) and can cast Meteor-yes, THAT Meteor. He is, in a few ways, more dangerous then the final boss, so if you can beat him, you can beat the game without trying.

The rest of the dungeon, the tiny cave that it is, is crawling with powerful dragons of Green, Yellow, and Red coloring. They are powerful, drop tons of XP and gil, and also drop Elixirs and Onion equipment for the legendary Onion Knight class.

With the ??? dungeon unlocked, there's nothing left to do aside from killing the Iron Giant (if you really care too) and fight through the final dungeons...

Next Time: Either the Iron Giant Fight or the Crystal Tower! I don't know!

Bonus Content: Eureka, The Forbidden Land theme!

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

In the end, I had a decision to make. Grind for hours, and tacked the Iron Giant, or, grind for a lot less and just win. Winning seemed good, I want out of this one and into 4.

But, I don't want to leave it off half cocked, so here's how to beat the Iron Giant: Come in with a full party, as much HP as you can muster, all the awesome gear you can scavenge, and hit the Giant as hard and as fast as you can. It's got a ton of HP and enough defense to laugh at the puny attacks you throw at it, and as mentioned, attacks 4 times a turn, sometimes tossing in a Meteor or, as it gets lower, a Swipe attack that tears through HP like tissue. You're not going to rush him down, so keep healed, keep hitting, and cross your fingers. Yes, you're basically rolling the dice even if you DO have a maxed party with 99 Elixirs ready to go. Your reward for killing it is just a little card that proves you did it, so, without some sweet bonus loot, I don't give a damn.

So, the Tower then. We saw a bit of this place in the bit about opening Eureka, but this is kind of the start of Square using Light Blue shiny things to equal Crystal.

Still trying to make Rangers relevant, even in the final dungeon. That's adorable.

The Tower is seven floors of pain, and then a boss fight, and then a completely new, "actually final" dungeon in the form of the World of Darkness. Once you step up to the mirror on the 8th floor, the game throws a massively dickish curveball at you and locks you in to the finale, no going back. So I recommend going through the whole dungeon for loot up to floor 7, teleport out, save, and then come back in to finish the game.

Most of the loot is in the form of consumables, but there's a few pieces of Crystal gear in case you need extra ones.

Several enemies are also palette swaps of old bosses-or just old bosses, like an optional Shinobi boss from Fargabaad I forgot to mention. I counted palette swaps of the Djinn, Medusa, Goldor (called "Platinal"), and there's probably a few more.

This is the mirror in question. The curse itself stops our party cold-they can't move! Things look grim, when Doga and Unei as spirits leap into action!

Doga heads off to gather allies to break the curse of the five, using souls of pure light. Luckily, no one dies in this one. Who are the five, you ask?

Sara, Cid, Desch, Alus, and one of the 4 old men. Yes, Desch is still alive:

It just took him THAT FUCKING LONG to fix things. And somehow, he didn't die to the lava, but then again, we swam in it and we were fine.

The five of them hold off the power of the five wyrms, so we can jump ahead and go kick Xande's ass!

Meet Xande. The man behind the whole events of the plot, a man who sought immortality and traded himself to the darkness to avoid his death. And he would be the final boss...

...but those of you who've played Dissidia and Brave Exvius know about the Cloud of Darkness. Sadly, Xande has been completely supplanted in everyone's heads by the crazy darkness lady with snakes and giant tits. Yes, really.

Xande is well aware we carry a powerful light with us, and could stop his efforts if we manage to get closer to the darkness. So, he attacks us, in an effort to kill us.

Xande mixes a lot of powerful magic into his arsenal. He has all the -ga elemental spells, as well as Protect and Haste. Dispel (or, "Erase") can be useful if he hastes himself, but otherwise, hit him with everything you have and make that 50,000 HP drop to 0.

Once he's dead, the Cloud shows up. The Cloud of Darkness seeks to destroy everything, reducing both worlds to the void.

Our first fight with the Cloud is unwinnable. Its attacks hit the damage cap on us. But, never fear, this is plot mandated.

Also, I told you: Tits.

With the party out, Doga and Unei make the ultimate sacrifice: Giving up their souls so that we can live once more.

Doga and Unei push us to dive into the world of darkness, and to bring balance to light and darkness. The Resurrection they gave us consigns them to fading away forever, meaning they gave us one last chance to talk to our friends before going off to save the world one last time.

Semper Fidelis, Doga, Unei.

Next Time: The World of Darkness!

BONUS: The Crystal Tower Theme:

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

The World of Darkness is, well, the world of Darkness. The big circle in the middle leads us to the Cloud of Darkness, and is a gigantic massive fucking screw you trap. Going to the Cloud now means facing the same Cloud that dealt 9,999 points of damage to all of us at once. We need backup, in the form of the Warriors of Darkness.

Yup. There's four bosses guarding the warriors of darkness, and we need to free them. Along the way, we can open treasure chests guarded by degraded clones of Xande to get Ribbons, which is actually helpful as the final boss has Bad Breath, a fuck you attack that inflicts all Status Ailments. Aegis Shields and Ribbons are recommended.

I recommend heading northwest last, that way lies the Cerberus that gets three actions a round cause he has three heads. Much like Eureka, it's boss rush time.

Xande's Clones are, well, him, but nowhere near as powerful. Ignore Luneth's level of HP, that was from a Queen Scylla fight-and that just goes to show that the random encounters are more trouble then the Clones. Xande's Clones don't offer a full heal after killing them, so try not to expend too much in killing them.

On the other hand, expend tons of resources on the four I'm about to show you, because they're worth it and do offer a full heal on defeat.

The Echidna is what I chose to tackle first. She has a lot of tricks, Death, Tornado, Quake, and Drain. Death is negated by Ribbons, and my mages both have one, Tornado has a tiny chance of hitting and only reduces party health to single digits, so half her arsenal is basically crap. That said, Drain is a headache, as she has 99,999 HP and her Drain can easily do 1,000+ to low magic defense party members, making the fight a little longer then it needs to be. A little Haste here, a little healing there, a few Flares, and she should go down.

The Warrior we rescue says that the Cloud of Darkness emerged to stop the Flood of light a thousand years ago, and so did the Warriors of the Dark. The library of Saronia adds some backstory, and sets it up as two sides of the coin-in both cases, it was people messing with powers they didn't quite understand that caused the floods. Now the balance must be restored once more. It's a long way to go to say that Dark isn't always evil and Light isn't always good.

The Ahriman is next. Its attacks can Petrify, and it's got the elemental -ga spells, as well as Curaga. Yes, Curaga. Since it flies, however, it has a weakness to Wind that can be exploited, so Dragoons will be happy. Devouts should busy themselves with buffs instead of Aeroga, though.

The second warrior (I think these conversations play in a sequence, regardless of who we save first) says that light and darkness cannot exist without the other, like the world and the sun. Out of nowhere, he tells us that Xande severed the link between the world and the sun, creating a world without time. I would say you fail science forever, but it's magic so I'll let it slide. It was this severing that called the Cloud of Darkness, and its mere appearance caused Xande to fall under the Cloud's control. And so, the Warriors of the Dark will help us fight their former "master" because if we don't stop it, both worlds will be devoured by the Void. We're struggling together.

The Two Headed Dragon is the saddest boss in the World of Darkness. He only has physical attacks that can inflict Silence, which by this point, if you explored Eureka, you have enough ribbons to protect your Mages even if this is the first boss you tackle (and in fact, I recommend him first). Silence on physical attackers means jack shit, so all you care for is the damage-which is actually significant, even for your back line. No weaknesses, but one isn't needed for this unlucky one.

The third Warrior says that the balance is kept by the crystals, and when Xande stopped time on the Surface, it immediately sealed two of those crystals, which shifted the balance a bit too much. Hence why we were needed. A nice little detail, but, onwards!

The Cerberus, as mentioned, gets three moves. He can poison with physical attacks, but his real danger comes from the series of -ga spells. Party wide healing is probably a good idea here.

The final warrior talks about the Void, and how all shall return to it...but the power of Hope keeps the void at bay. That's all well and good, but I prefer the power of giant swords.

Now, it's time for the finale. It's possible to grind out some levels if you have a stock of Elixirs ready to go, but you are prepared to kill the Cloud if you want to.

We walk a field of stars to the final battle. Awesome.

The Cloud taunts us, saying that just light can't defeat it, which the Warriors of the Dark take as their cue to rush her down. Their sacrifice lowers her defense, and attack damage, giving us a fighting chance and pissing it off.

In this battle, we can target her tentacles. Which is useful-she gets two shots herself, and the snakes each get one too. One of them is using Lightning, which sucks. The tentacle on the left can be hit with physical attacks, while the one on the right needs magic to take it down. The one on the left is the Lightning one. It's possible to kill her by ignoring that and focusing the main body, but not recommend. The tentacles are also using Bad Breath, so make sure you have Ribbons to counter. They can also use Protect.

The Cloud itself can use physical attacks, and Particle Beam, which is the bad one.

Because of how things are split between three enemies, the "four actions" she gets can happen in a weird order. Use this to your advantage, if possible.

Focus on the left tentacle with your attackers, and ignore the right tentacle. Flares are better spent on the main body. As she gets low in HP, she'll use Particle beam every round, so it's best to kill the left tentacle and then focus all damage on the main body. I tried killing the right tentacle, but since it doesn't really do much, this ended up causing me to lose the fight the first time around, kicking me all the way back to my last save.

We're going to win this, don't you worry. I'm just going to cut the post here and save the wrap up for another post.

Next Time: Epilogue!

Bonus: The World of Darkness theme!

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Slight correction to my World of Darkness bit: The warriors all give the dialogue attached to their crystal. So instead of it being "first saved, second saved, etc", the guy guarded by, say, the Two-Headed Dragon is the one who tells us about how Xande attracted the Cloud. And so on and so forth.

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Final Battle Theme:

Attempting the strategy I mentioned in my post instead of my original idea, and doing it at level 60, turns out to be far better, and the Cloud goes down.

When the Cloud is destroyed, we get a brief cutscene spoken by...something, some sort of Narrator (perhaps the Great Soul Doga mentioned?), telling us that Hope is what divided the Light and the Darkness and created the balance, that Hope stops the ultimate tide of destruction ushered in by the Void.

We teleport back to Xande's Room in the Crystal Tower, reuniting with our allies. They congratulate us on a job well done. We then head on home in the Invincible. Every ally gets dropped off at home, with a brief cutscene to show their return. Refia gives Desch one final ribbing about Salina, to round it all out.

Sara is the only one that doesn't want to go home, as she wishes to stay with Ingus. Ingus agrees to her plan of visiting Kazus and Ur first.

Our heroes return home, and are welcomed.

After receiving the final accolades of our hometown, we get the final shot of the Crystal's light up in the mountains, having been restored and banishing the darkness over the land. One quick curtain call of us and allies later, and roll credits!

Let the ending theme play, and wash it all away...

(Yes, there are 3 Ending themes. Amazing, right?)

And with that, the journey of the four orphans chosen by the crystals comes to a close. Til next time, Kiwis, this is Angelo The Wizard, saying Fly Me To The Moon.