Final Fantasy Four

....wait... no... that's not right...

That's.... better. Thank you, MSPaint!

I love Final Fantasy 4. At least, I love it a hell of a lot more than FF3j. I'm playing the 'classic' translation, which sadly translates to FF4 easy type. Essentially, you just hold down the fight button for thirty hours and a winner is you! Despite that, it's a damn great game. I think there are much better games coming, but this one is enjoyable, and a nice little appetizer for the, at times, more difficult FFV.

As they say at some sporting place, somewhere, let the game begin!

FF Tres: In Conclusione

So, Matty. What did you think about FF3?

It's asstacular, Kammy. It had a lot of great potential, but they really fucked up the execution.

How so?

The class system was great, but it eventually became a system of forced-dungeons as mages! Forced dungeons as Mystic Knights! Forced Dungeons as miniature frogs! I see little point in giving you choices of classes if you have to use certain ones for 95% of the game.

I thought the forced mini dungeon was a great idea, but then they repeated it like five times.

The forced mini dungeon was too early in the game. Remember, this falls victim to the FF2 rule of magic is useless. And when you have a magic mandatory dungeon, and you have characters that can cast maybe eight spells each... about a third of your playtime in the game is forced leveling.

Yeah; by the time that you have a class that can cast 30 cure spells, you don't need it anymore.
My feeling was that despite the job system, FF3 is a game that is really low on innovation, at least in the way that we've come to expect for the series.

Compared to FF1 and FF2, it was full of new concepts, though. You have to take into account the chronology of the series. Later games took these concepts and fixed them.

I don't know, FF2 was pretty out there.

FF2 was weird, this was just crappy.

I think the things that FF3 did accomplish very well were streamlining things like combat and menus. The auto-retarget in battle? It makes levelling a LOT less annoying.

Combat did suffer from the early NES slowdowns. And magic not automatically redirecting was frustrating, especially when you only have four shots of it. I'm curious as to what they changed to make the new DS version. I assume a lot of these flaws are gone.

I hear the characters have names and shit.

I also assume that SOMEWHERE in the massive final dungeon you can find a save point.

That? is ridiculous. Even if you're not going to have save points in dungeons, can't you do the Dragon Quest IV thing and have some overworld right before your final boss battle?

Just one of the many failings. There are good ways to add a challenge factor, and there are BAD ways to do it.

Like I said, there's nothing NEW as such about FF3. The job system is basically like FF1, except that instead of just picking them at the outset of the game, you can pick different ones in the middle. It adds a little variety, but not too much. Most of the classes are pretty useless.

I think we could harp on the flaws of this game for days and days -- but I think that our final scores will probably speak volumes on the matter.

I don't know. I'm kind of torn. On the one hand, I think this is a superior game to FF1. On the other, it's so much like FF1, and you'd expect this game to be a little more advanced. Hell, they reuse sprites from the first two games. I mean, I like the FF1 aesthetic, and think that it has very pretty graphics for an NES game, but I've seen it before, you know? So it's hard for me to say whether this game gets a better or worse rating than FF1.

I think it's an easy decision, myself. I've got to go with a 2/10. It wasn't as awful as it could have been, but it pretty much failed to execute every innovation it put in there.

I'm going to be a little more generous. I gave Mystic Quest a 4/10 and I think that this is a better game than Mystic Quest.

I disagree - but what score do you want to give it?

I also think that it is a better game than the original Final Fantasy. The moment you realize that the flying continent that you live on is such a small part of such a vast world gives this game an extra bit of pizzazz. I'm giving FF3 a 5.5/10. That gives FF3 a 3.75 overall rating, our lowest yet. Are you happy now, Matty?

Couldn't be happier.

This brings us to the end of the NES era.

And there's a delicious Super Era on the way.

The Golden Age of Final Fantasy, one might say. FF4 has got to be one of my personal favorites.

As is FF6. And 7. *cough*andX-2*cough*

Stop it! that game doesn't exist! There are no sequels in Final Fantasy! Yuna doesn't own hot pants! Cloud doesn't run an orphanage! Rufus is dead and the fangirls have to live with it!

And swimming in the life stream isn't theraputic?

Not unless your girlfriend dives in and swims through your subconscious.

Oh, right. The chick factor heals all.

Anyway, stay tuned for the next chapter in our playthrough. I will be playing the J2E fan translation.

I'll be playing the classic English translation, and will probably be horrified at how bad it actually is.



Watch as Matty and Kammy set forth to spoon some bards... next time, at Blogging Final Fantasy!

Hooray!

I beat the game! Not without a lot of difficulty, as described by Matty. Who the hell designs a final dungeon where you have to fight like six bosses for three hours without being able to save your game? It doesn't matter. I beat the game because I am a goddamn LIGHT WARRIOR. Suck it, bitches.


As a reward for beating the game, I get this little cutscene about the disturbing lack of intimacy in Cid's marriage.




It's a bittersweet ending, really. Like how at the end of FF7, where Tifa's macking on Cloud, but they both know that he will only ever love that muscular guy in the bathhouse.


Now for the credits! All the old school development team is here.



But we all REALLY know who to thank here.


That's right. Without 4 old men, none of this would ever be possible.

The Prophecy has been fulfilled!

The prophecy, she has been fulfilled.

Finally.

It just wouldn't be FF3 if half my party wasn't dead...

Why I hate FF3

Hooray for forced leveling!

Why I became a Hero

Yay! Airship!
...Yay.... Vending machines?
...Yay? Really, really, really old booty?

Tsk tsk

Time for my nitpickery of the day!

There comes a time in every fan translation where the noble otaku writing the script decide that the regular English dialogue isn't profane enough.



Now, far be it from me to get all "Oh, won't somebody please think of the children!" regarding this game. But this strikes me as kind of a poor word choice. "Shit!" is the kind of interjection that I would use if I dropped my cell phone into the toilet by accident. If I'm about to fight the ultimate evil of the world and all of a sudden I find myself immobilized by an incredible force of darkness, I'd probably think of something else to say.

And I mean, the characters of this game are the textbook definition of nondescript. It's kind of weird to see them using strong language of any sort, especially this late in the game. It's one thing if Barret does it, but then again, do we ever really know what the $#%&$^@ Barret was saying anyway?

So ends my nitpickery of the day.

The quest for the crystals!

So, let's talk a bit about FF3.

The thing that strikes me as odd about this game is the difficulty curve. It's ridiculously steep at the beginning of the game -- a very common scene is having all of your party but one dead, no FenixDowns because you just can't find any, and no easy way out of the dungeon except hiking back the way you came.

However -- once you get past a point very early in the game (a BigRat that you have to fight while all your party is affected by Mini), things get much easier, much faster. In fact -- not only do I have the Fire Crystal and sexy new jobs....

I've got an airship! Which, for some reason, is made with a Time Gear. I was hoping for some sort of sexy time machine, but then I remembered I'm not playing Chrono Trigger.

Whoever made this game....

....is a total Carbuncle Fucker.






FF3j feels like, to me, one of the less enjoyable games. There's a myriad of reasons that I'll delve into in future posts.

This one, however, made me think that our quest might have been inspired by a large bearded man that loves him some Jumbalaya. Seriously? The WATER has lost the (capital L) Light? Woahnoes!




Oh, and Kammy? Your mom totally said this to me last night: