Final Fantasy III (1994)

Great game overall!

Every character has a unique skillset which makes the gameplay complex and allows to differentiate tactics. Apart from Gau, who requires an outrageous amount of grinding to get to the full potential, all of them are fun to play and develop.

The story is very bland for me but I might feel this way because of how briefly it is told. Nevertheless, there are some cool concepts in the story that don’t get enough exposure. I’d love to solve a mystery on the ghost train, or learn the origin story of Zozo but I got the opera scene instead. I wasn’t there when the game was out, as I got into FF games only a few years ago, but I have no idea what’s all the hype about. The wole thing makes little sense and it doesn’t compliment the clumsy romance subplot either. Luckly, there’s more to this game than its story, as it offers also some riddles, secrets and exta content. It’s hard to see most of it without a walkthrough but most of the time it’s hard to figure out what to do next without it.

The walkthrough is luckly not needed to get through the dungeons as they are fun and not overly convoluted, unless you are going for all the secrets. The sets of enemies in most of them give incentive to align the party to gain maximum advantage over them, which makes beating the game quite a satisfying experience.

Progress update towards my "100%" playthrough:

• Have all party members
• Everyone's level 99
• All Espers (so far)
• Everyone knows every spell (so far)
• Everyone has best-in-slot armor, helmet, weapon, and a Thunder Shield or better (being Genji, Force, Aegis, or Paladin depending on the situation), so far.
• Enough Celestriads, Miracle Shoes, and Earrings for everyone not using Ribbons, Hero Ring, Master Scroll, Genji Glove, Soul of Thamasa, or a Dragoon setup.
• At least one of every item, weapon, shield, helm, armor, and relic available so far
• All Lores
• All Dances
• All Blitzes
• All Tools
• All Bushido
• All chests open so far

To do:

• Finish bestiary
• Finish Gau's Rages
• Farm Ragnaroks/Lightbringers, and Ultima Weapons from last battle
• Everyone needs to learn Meltdown and Diablos spells
• Dragon's Den and obtain Diablos
• Soul Shrine

I have long heard this is one of the best JRPGs of all time, and have been really amped to give it a try.

I am playing the PS1 port on my PS2. I am about 6 hours in and really impressed. The story is solid, with some pretty great cut scenes and passable dialogue, particularly for the time. The graphics have aged amazingly well if you like pixel graphics, and the combat so far has some nice aspects.

Im excited to see where the game goes, I have read soon I will get summon-like abilities and can't wait to see how that shakes things up.

I've been wanting to try the CES challenge for a while and tonight I actually finished it. If you don't know, CES stands for Celes, Edgar, Setzer, the only mandatory characters you recruit in the second half. You can't pick up any other characters, which also means you miss out on:

• Ragnarok
• Paladin Shield
• Lakshmi
• Phoenix
• Alexander
• Missing these espers and items means you can't learn Holy, Curaga, Reraise, Arise, or Ultima

You have to do Phoenix Cave (minus completing it) with a team of 1 and a team of 2, and Kefka's Tower with three one person teams.

I read various rules, but basically it breaks down to, do whatever you want in the first half but try to use Celes, Edgar, and Setzer, and only use them in the second half. Don't use Vanish+Doom and don't over level.

I got up to the mid/high 40s before going into to Kefka's Tower, but then gained a bunch of levels there, mostly unintentionally. Ended at 57.

This challenge was pretty easy, all things considered. I could use magic unlike the four job fiesta iteration, and relied on esper level up bonuses a lot, mostly HP boosts, especially on Celes. After I felt ok with HP, I worked on Magic with Celes and Strength with Edgar. Setzer was Master Scrolling Fixed Dice, so he was just worrying about HP and Stamina, except for like, the one level and Speed he got with Odin before switching to Raiden.

The hardest part was balancing damage output with survival against bosses in the last dungeon. Ultima Buster and Demon kicked Edgar's ass a few times before I moved some armor around and got the hang of it.

My final builds were Celes double casting magic, Dragoon Edgar, and Setzer using Fixed Dice and Master Scroll. Having Edgar unable to equip a Ribbon or Safety Bit because his relic slots were taken up led to some trouble but it worked out in the end. Otherwise, this was very easy. I absolutely lucked out and Rest's death spell didn't hit anyone right before Kefka, so I had the full team for the last fight. Which was super quick and disappointing as usual. No idea why the final boss fight in this game is so easy.

names are blurred out because I may or may not have given them all silly, vulgar names. ☺️