Final Fantasy I was a lot of fun. I really struggled which of the old NES Final Fantasy games to play next. FF2 added Cid and Chocobos — two elements that appeared in every Final Fantasy game afterwards. FF3, though, adds the jobs system, and I really wanted to try that.
Excited to try out the new and wonderful jobs, I started up FF3 and, after the short intro, chose the jobs for my crew: Red Mage, Monk, White Mage and Black Mage. Yup, the same jobs as in FF1. But then things got a little more interesting…
Remember when, in the old D&D Saturday morning cartoon, the kids, just after being transported to the D&D world, find themselves almost immediately attacked by Tiamat, the mother of all evil dragons, whom they then easily defeat?
Yeah, so, meeting Bahamut as an enemy (he was our friend in FF1) so close to the beginning of the game was a lot like that, except for the part where we beat him. We ran. We ran so far away. We just ran, all night and all day, we couldn’t get away. But then we did, as a flock of seagulls soared overhead. But this is getting a little head of ourselves. You’re probably wondering how we got here.
So remember in the Power Rangers movie, where some kids were exploring and then stumbled upon some ancient ruins and met Zordon and got their powers? FF1 clearly watched that same movie, as here, during a tumultuous earthquake, four kids all cosplaying as famed hero “The Onion Knight”, fall into a pit.
There they are attacked by goblins for no reason, but manage to struggle through with the help of potions, antidotes, and Antarctic scattered in helpfully placed chests. They also learn of the healing properties of wellspring water, which can bring back defeated allies, heal health and magic — or both at once.
Nice to know!
At the end of the mysterious, goblin-infested caverns, a blue crystal tells us that the world is dying and that the magic that sustains it is fading. It then grants the last of its power to us, transforming us into the Super Sentai Warriors of Light!
Boy, won’t our parents be surprised! Sorry, ma, won’t be home for dinner, gotta go save the world. Be back soon as that’s done. Bye!
The next town down is filled with ghosts, with one easily-frightened guy camping on the outskirts to tell us what’s happened. Turns out an evil djinn had heard the village’s smiths could make a Ring of Djinn Imprisonment, and felt a little attacked. In his fury, he turned everyone in the village to ghosts. It turned out that Princess Sara (we remember her from FF1, where she was Garland’s bride-to-be) already had that magic ring made, so the djinn went and turned everyone in the castle to ghosts as well. Psych! Princess Sara was protected by her ring, and immediately went to the dungeons near the castle to seek out and destroy the djinn,
We couldn’t get to the caverns as they were blocked by an impassable lake. Thankfully, one of the ghosts in the village, name of Cid, told us of an airship he’d hidden in a nearby desert.
Awesome! Usually it takes most of the game to get the airship! Now we can go anywhere!
Well, it turns out it can’t go over rocks or mountains, so pretty much the only place it could go was to the other side of that impassable lake. So that’s what we did.
We soon find Princess Sara in the caverns, unable to fight the monsters that plague the place. Hey, we know how to deal with monsters! She joins our party and we head deeper.
The Djinn laughed at the Princess’ ring. See, he had joined with darkness, and was now immune to its powers! When someone joins with darkness, the only possible response is to beat the darkness out of them, which we did. He was… a little tougher than we anticipated.
Once defeated, Sara was easily able to trap him in the ring. She then dropped it in the castle wellspring to seal him off forever.
We returned to the village, where a grateful Cid, now human (or gnome or whatever he is) again, gets the local smith to make a mythril prow for the airship, powerful enough now to break through the massive rock stopping us from progressing.
Unfortunately, doing so destroys the airship. Cid continues on to his home and promises to work on a new, even betterer airship. Meanwhile, we wander around and find a cool looking mountain.
Nice ornamental dragon statue at the top! Let’s have a closer look…
I’ve played a ways into this on the 3D version. This looks quite different, obviously, but quite good! I also found I had to grind levels a little more to survive some of the areas – I don’t know if that was just the version I was playing or if that’s true to this version too.
I’ve noticed I’ve had to grind more, too. Glad it just wasn’t me! In FF1, I always had plenty of cash. Here, I’m having to grind just for money for upgrades :-/