FGC #700.1 Final Fantasy 3

The last time Gogglebob.com examined Final Fantasy 3, we scrutinized the cylindrical nature of Final Fantasy in the West, and how a game that was released early in Japan was simultaneously released last and referenced early over in America. And that’s cool an’ all, but it was an article more about the concept of Final Fantasy 3 than the actual game. So, seven years and nearly 300 FGC entries later, we are going to give the devil his due.

Final Fantasy 3 let’s talk about you.

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Crap, I have no legitimate affection for this game.

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Dammit.

Oh! I know! Final Fantasy 3: Pixel Remaster includes an art gallery! Let’s look at pretty pictures, and assess how these luminaries are presented in the game.

Do we want to do this alphabetically? Sure! Let’s look at…

Alus Restor is the wee prince of Saronia, and you are going to join him as he learns his dad got tricked into a civil war and killed by a giant bird. Or something. It was a bad day for Alus. But what’s important is that Alus has a wonderful little portrait of a child that is wearing daddy’s cape. And he is possibly about to stab you. And that’s great! That’s everything you need to know about Alus!

His in-game sprite is just a little king, though. Sorry to see that “in over his head” demeanor did not immediately translate to a proper sprite.

Aria Benett is the first(ish) person you encounter on the surface of the real world, and she joins you in reviving the planet from whaterevertheheck happened before you touched down (something something darkness). She looks appropriately maiden-ly (complimentary), and she has her own theme song… but she dies like a chump the minute a sea monster shows up. She doesn’t even survive to see the living world! And her sacrifice means your airship gets chained down by some dick in a golden castle! Tragedy on top of tragedy.

Note that in the original FF3, she is a redhead. It is the opinion of Gogglebob.com that dying a natural redhead to blonde should be a capital offense punishable by Kraken.

Yo! It’s the dragon dude! Back for the first time since Final Fantasy 1, Bahamut is now an actual boss monster and summon! Good guy, but we’re going to have to deduct points because somewhere between concept art and sprite, Bahamut decided to start doing some weird hopping maneuver. Let it be said that dragons should not leap. That is strictly the territory of dragoons.

And Cid Haze! Cid is great! He is slightly more red in the original 8-Bit, but he is still massively goofy in all iterations. That is what we like to see! Papa Smurf built an airship, and we’re all going to accept that. Additional bonus: this Cid is a wife guy. And he didn’t even start an entire mercenary organization to deal with his beloved, either.

I have no idea on this one. Cloud of Darkness as presented in the finale of Final Fantasy 3 is a malevolent force of nature that just happens to have a heart on their head. Cloud of Darkness according to concept art is some manner of vampire mommy that managed to lose her scrunchies on her ankle. It’s cool that she retains her ghost pac-men in all forms, but she is otherwise a major casualty of plot versus design.

Desch is a lothario in a universe filled with 12-year-olds. It takes very little effort to look like a stud when you are standing next to a pack of moderately chivalrous children. Throwing in a rad cloak is gilding the lily a bit, but Desch is unquestionably heroic, so we’ll allow it. And, hey, he gets to surprise-survive his heroic sacrifice, too. That’s the power of cool, babes.

A little generic for Final Fantasy. Djinn could appear in literally any media and still be recognizably a monster that makes people invisible. Wait. Is that a Djinn thing? Was this just an excuse to “curse” an entire town or two with an affliction that is really easy to animate? And aren’t djinn usually associated with fire? Or granting wishes? Not magical rings and town-wide curses? Bah! At least he has proper genie pants.

Doga has that Final Fantasy thing going on during his appearances where his face is hidden completely in shadow. And then, when you are forced by circumstances to fight the old man, he reveals himself to be… whatever is happening here. Some kind of wad of gum with a mouth? Or did all of his organs turn inside out? And does he have… what? A stick? Is he tonguing a stick? I have never understood Doga’s deal, and I refuse to learn now.

Garuda is the previously mentioned bird that ruined Alus’s day. Not much to note here, just a six-piece chicken mcnobody. Rest in peace, George Lowe.

Giant Rat is actually a normal sized rodent, you just happen to fight them while you are teeny tiny. And… yep! That’s a rat! Moving on.

Gutsco is a rogue, and his entire purpose is to taunt the heroes, hide in their shadows, and eventually steal power right out from under them. However, despite all these skills being traditionally attributed to squishy thieves, Gutsco the Rogue is swole as hell. And he appears to be simultaneously utilizing and wearing a large snake. They could have just tossed in a generic Robin Hood, but Gutsco wound up being the raddest rogue in Final Fantasy history.

Weirdly, this name got reused in Final Fantasy 15: Comrades. He’s just a random AI companion, and theoretically has no relation to the original. But it is amazing someone remembered his existence.

Hecatoncheir appears to be one of Xande’s minions, and would not even warrant a mention if he did not return a billion years later as Vanille’s eidolon in Final Fantasy 13. Was this the basis for a pink girl’s multi-armed transformer? Or did no one at Square Enix remember they had used this mythological name for a weirdo with abs a few years back? We will never know the answer, and maybe that is why Hecatoncheir looks so sad.

Skeleton King that lives in a mobile tree prison and wears the loudest outfit known to the living or dead. Hein is the best character ever. Moving forward (with fabulous boots).

Kraken got a hideous glow down from their last appearance in Final Fantasy. It is hard to even recognize the tentacle creature at this point. Maybe rotate around with your perspective? I don’t know. Ask the kids from Splatoon for some fashion tips.

Land Turtle is the first boss you fight in Final Fantasy 3, and I am willing to bet it is part of the reason it took so long for FF3 to hit American shores. Oh, you say you lost the code, so you’ll have to replicate it all from scratch? Bullshit. You just knew the first boss you fight is downright embarrassing, and it would taint the brand forever if that humiliation ever got out. Had to wait until another nine Final Fantasies firmed up your reputation to let this turtle out of its cave.

Like Bahamut, Leviathan got to be a boss/summon for the first time in Final Fantasy 3. Unfortunately, Leviathan is not off to a great start, as the inherent hugeness of a biblical leviathan is not conveyed with this creature. Sure, he seems to snake on forever with bends and turns in that slithery body, but that level of detail only exists if you really stare for a while. Leviathan is presented as small snek. You could wrap this “sea god” around Gutsco, and no one would even notice.

Castlevania can’t have all the fun with Medusa… heads. Look, I know there is a mythological origin for Medusa being just a head after having a rough time with Perseus, but it does feel like this may be copying a boss monster that was pretty well known for skulking around a different franchise. She had a body in sprite form, too, so does her head just fly off after she gets flustered? And what is with the Greek references in Final Fantasy 3, anyway? We’ve got Cerberus and Echidna skulking around as bosses, too. Stick to stealing your monsters from, like, Norse mythology, guys.

Yeah. See? Keep that as your Odin sprite for another three games, and nobody will even notice.

As of Final Fantasy 3, a “Princess Sara” had appeared in two Final Fantasy games. As of Final Fantasy 3, a “Cid” had appeared in two Final Fantasy games. A recurring Sara had just as much possibility as a recurring Cid at this specific moment in Final Fantasy history. But Sara Altney must have fumbled so completely, we did not see another Princess Sara until Final Fantasy 9. And even that was like the pseudonym of a character with a pseudonym. Best we could hope for going forward was a Sarah in a spinoff like World of Final Fantasy, and becoming a funko pop is a fate no princess deserves.

Miraculously, you are likely to fight Cerberus after discovering Scylla. This means you battle infinity dog heads before a meager three dog heads. This can lead to only one conclusion: Final Fantasy 3 is broken.

Two-Headed Dragon? Further into the wrong direction…

Unei is the mischievous mate to Doga, and similarly transforms into a monster when the plot demands some sacrifice. However, unlike Doga, you can always see that Doga was just a typical old lady, and her monster form is a thorough transformation into some manner of imp creature. And that is a lot better than Doga, because “dream lady transforms into malevolent fae” has a long and storied tradition of making a modicum of sense. Get Baba Yaga up in here, Unei. You gals could be sisters.

And looks like we are closing this one out with the real threat of Final Fantasy 3. Yes, Cloud of Darkness, you get to be the final boss, but only because Xande menaced the globe to the point that you were allowed an entrance. Xande was on the same level as Doga and Unei, but he went a little crazy go nuts when Master Noah granted him the “gift” of mortality. Now he is running around with no shirt, a skull belt, and an unmistakable lust for the destruction of the world.

And… he’s black, right? He’s, like, the one black guy in this game, and he’s literally the source of every problem in the world. That’s… uh… that’s not great, Final Fantasy. Don’t try to paint him blue, either, we can see what you did here.

Bah, what a bummer of a way to end an article. Maybe we can look at Final Fantasy 3 from a different perspective next week. In the meanwhile…

FGC #700.1 Final Fantasy 3

• System: Originally a Famicom exclusive (it’s like the NES, but in a weird language), the pixel remaster of the “original version” is now available for Playstation 4, Xbox X|S, Nintendo Switch, and mobile platforms. We never thought it would return! But it did! Wow!
• Number of players: Four Onion Kids are onioning around under a single player’s control.
• What’s different? Aside from the obvious graphics, sound, and accessibility upgrades, the Pixel Remaster version of Final Fantasy 3 completely drops the CP requirement for changing jobs. That changes everything! Now you don’t have to futz around with a dedicated Black Mage to become a Black Wizard, and you can soak up Viking HP gains like it ain’t no thang. And, oh yeah, this makes the game a lot more fun to play and experiment with, too. Still, like changing spell charges to MP for the “advance” versions of the first two Final Fantasies, it is hard to say you are playing the same game anymore.
• So should I play the original Famicom ROM? No. Absolutely not. The encounter to any-goddamned-thing-happening ratio is so bad. You will fight 10,000 generic imps between job promotions, and every single second you spend doing that is time you could be spending with a loved one and/or pastry. Love yourself, do not play OG Final Fantasy 3.
• Treasure Traps: “Spiked” trap treasure chests were definitely added to the Pixel Remaster of Final Fantasy (1). I noticed those. However, I am not familiar enough with Final Fantasy 3 to confirm if they were added here. But I can say that there were five trapped chests in the whole of this Final Fantasy 3, and four of them were all in the final dungeon. The first was in the first castle you encounter about 10,000 hours earlier. Weird spread.
• Get A Job: I understand they were still working the bugs out here, but there are some unapologetically useless jobs in Final Fantasy 3. Throw the book at your opponents as a Scholar! Or affect some random spell as a Geomancer! Or do the exact same thing slightly differently as a Caller! If I had to guess, the whole of future job systems across this and other franchises (looking at you, Dragon Quest) was thanks to players in 1990 being annoyed at Bards and saying, “Here’s my better idea.”
• Big Changes: The mini dungeons are so short, they are barely noticeable. It is more of a pain to change jobs and do the equip/unequip dance than to actually survive them. Meanwhile, the Dark Knight splitting dungeons are so terrible, they should have been excised in every conceivable way. You can’t even score Dark Knight equipment before the first one! That is cruel!
• Missed Opportunity: I really thought Unei’s parrot would pay off in some fashion. Maybe he recites some clue after she’s dead? Or becomes the final airship as a graduated parrot-dragon? Give the bird a break.
• It is a Mystery: I hate when games do this…
  

  I beat it! You logged right there that I beat it! We all have the internet! You know I can look this up immediately! Just tell me how much HP she has, dammit!

• Did you know? Like in every other rerelease of a Final Fantasy game, Final Fantasy 3’s original developer room has been dropped. It was hiding in Gysahl, and it is gone now, because Square Enix probably has to pay some guy they fired in 1996 all of seven cents for his name to appear in a text box.
• Would I play again: I did say I should find a better way to close out Final Fantasy 3. Maybe I can wrap it into the greater Final Fantasy pantheon…

What’s next? Fine! We’ll do another article on Final Fantasy 3! It will end happily this time! I swear!