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Final Fantasy 3 (6j)

Genre RPG
Style Active Time Battle
Maker Squaresoft
System SNES

 

Info

Heralded as the best 2D FF game by many (often contested with FF4j.)

Starting Out

Terra, an imperial slave-warrior is heading to Narshe with 2 soldiers. They fight their way to a frozen Esper, and when Terra gets near, the Esper unleashes a power that obliterates the 2 soldiers and leaves Terra unconscious. She's found by a member of the "returners" a rebel group. Escaping from Narshe, she joins the rebellion, and thus the story begins.

This story went beyond FF2's look at the realm of the "summoned beasts", calling them Espers, and made them into a powerful part of this world's history.

The Cast:

Character Name Description Specific Information
Terra Terra is the main character for most of the game. She continues to hold the primary position until the destruction of the world. Then Celes takes over as the lead character. Both were used by the empire, and broke free from its control. Terra is a Half-Esper, having a Human mother,and an Esper father, Maduin. Terra gains the ability to change into her Esper form for a limited time. She is also a power to be reckoned with, when wielding the Atma weapon. She is one of the only characters to gain magic through levelups, not needing Magicite.
Locke This thief, *ouch*, excuse me, Treasure Hunter, has a soft heart. He plans to use the Phoenix Esper to revive his girlfriend, who slipped and fell down a cliff, and never woke up from a coma. Locke is useful to procure items from monsters, saving you a lot of money to buy things like cures. He is also the "key" to some important items.
Edgar King of Figaro, Edgar is a lady's man, and he likes to use technology. He is the twin brother of Sabin. Edgar is one of the powerhouses of FF6. He can use the DRILL, and the Chainsaw. The drill is always a powerful hitter, while the Chainsaw can instantly kill an enemy.
Sabin Sabin left Figaro to train to become a powerful warrior with Duncan. He didn't want to become a ruler. Sabin is THE most powerful character in the game, (in my opinion) since he can use the Bum Rush every single turn. (9999 damage)
Cyan Cyan was the retainer to the Emperor of Doma, until his Emperor was killed by Kefka's poisoning. He also lost his wife and son to this event. Cyan hates machinery. He joins Sabin and Gau in escaping an enemy encampment, after hunting down Kefka who runs away. Cyan is a slow warrior, but he has powerful abilities, if you're willing to wait for them. Cyan never made my permanent team.
Celes Celes was a general in the Empire, infused with Magic taken from Espers. She is one of the few characters who gain magic through gaining levels. Locke rescues her from being tortured by some guards... apparently, her defection from the Empire didn't go as planned. Celes is a Runic Knight, capable of absorbing magic cast in battle, into her sword. She also absorbs some of the MP that was used to cast the spell. While she is using "runic" she cannot attack, though. But doing this sometimes saves the entire group from a LOT of damage.
Relm It is all but said that she is the daughter of Shadow. Strago has raised her, but she certainly has a nasty attitude. I believe in the Japanese version she was even worse. Relm is mostly known for the "sketch glitch" which allows you to get a ton of items for free. But, her actual use in battle isn't that good. She does have some redeeming value, though. She can "Control" enemies, and have them use their special attacks on Strago, so he can learn them. She can also do a LOT of damage wielding Ragnarok (she seems to get a bonus)
Strago This old guy is a Lore Sage, capable of learning the magics of monsters, if he gets hit by them first, and survives. He gets caught up in the Kult of Kefka in the world of ruin. Only Relm can bring him to his senses. Strago can come in handy at times, for people who like monster magic. I for one, do not. So I didn't find him very useful at all.
Gau This kid was raised by the animals of the Veldt. His father lives in a hut, north of the Veldt. He's a wild boy. He can leap onto monsters, then, when you kill a group of them, he'll appear afte thr fight, having learned how to do that monster's attack. He gets access to General Leo's SHOCK attack.
Mog A moogle, who dances. He was going to fall off of a cliff when you find him. You rescue him, and he'll join. He's very useful, with the Moogle Charm. He also is the key to getting the Yeti, Umaro onto the team. Mog dances, and loses control of his commands in battle. Then he does random dances from that "dance's" selection. He learnes new dances by attacking normally in new terrains.
Umaro This guy is always in a state of being berzerk. He can use only the Bone Club as his weapon, and he can use an orb as a magical attack. Sometimes he throws his team members as an attack. This guy is strong, but you can't control him.
Gogo Master of the simulacrum, he can mimic anyone else's attacks. You can also select 3 of his skills, like in FF5. (he was in FF5, but not as a playable character.) Gogo is useful in fights, but since he can never equip magicite, he can't gain extra stats by leveling up. Thus, he is easily overpowered by other team members.
Shadow This ninja wanders in and out of your group for most of the world of Balance. He's only a permenant member of the team after the world of ruin arrives, if you waited for him on the floating continent. Then you rescue him from the Behemoths. He's a neat character, and his dog sometimes comes to his aid in battle, with special attacks.
The Story

This game focused on the existance of a race of magical creatures known as Espers. A long time ago, the Espers lived in this world, but this lead to the war of the Magi. Since that war, the Espers fled into the land of "Esperville" beyond a sealed gate, so humans could never hunt them down again. However, a young woman stumbles upon the gate, and enters... she has a child with an Esper. Then the empire comes, and they attack the village of espers, taking many captive. The half-esper child is "adopted/enslaved" by Emperor Geshstal.

Apparently, after the Espers sealed themselves off in this other world, magic left the land. Since then, is has become part of fairy tales and such, not believed to exits. However, the Empire knew it existed, and wanted to harness it. When Terra was set free by Tritoch, in the cave in Narshe, she escaped with Locke, and eventually Edgar, when this scene takes place...

Which shows that magic was not a common thing in this world. These huge Magiteck suits were more than a match for any of the other country's defenses, and the Empire began taking over the world. There was one town, hidden, secluded, where people could still use magic, descendants of the Mage Warriors of the War of the Magi.

Eventually, however, everybody on the team is able to learn magic, by using Magicite. This horribly unbalances the game, and many wonder why they did this.


They did not kept the concept of the Crystals of the Elements... instead, they had Espers, and the godesses. However, the concept of keeping "balance" in the world was emphasised... this was also the reason for the crystals of the elements. When they weren't working, the world was thrown out of balance.

Interestingly, the entire face of the planet changes after a momentous event, just as in FF5 before it. This may have been another way for the designers to have more freedom to create new places that didn't exist before, since you get access to an airship before the planet changes shape, you could have gone everywhere already. This changing of the world, promises that you will find new places to visit.

Changing the map may also have been needed to change the enemies available to fight in certain areas, since in the "world of ruin" you have gained a LOT of levels. Having areas filled with weakling enemies would be thrusting you into irritating battles.

Gameplay

Battle
This game featured the Active Time Battle system again. Each character in this game went back to the system of FF2/4j, each having their own special skill, differentiating them from everybody else. This made certain members more valuable than others. I found this to be very good.

However, they also included Magicite, which gave Everyone (except Umaro and Gogo) the ability to learn magic. (Gogo could still use magic if someone else on the team had learned it already.) Since I don't like using magic anyway, I was happy to use Sabin, Celes, Edgar, and Locke.

Advancement
Through gaining experience, you gained levels again. Aside from gaining experience, learning magic was learned by "magic points" earned at the end of each fight, which were multiplied, and added as percentages to each Magicite you had equipped. Certain Espers gave you certain spells faster than others.

Some skills were gained by level, such as Sabin's blitzes and Cyan's swordtechs. Terra and Celes learned some magic by level, but those same spells could be learned through magicite.

Magicite also gave you bonus Stats upon levelup. These were the only way to increase your stats. Levelups did not increase your stats, that I could see anyway.

Exploration
You could ride chocobos again, and 2 airships, and travel between some towns was via boat. In the world of ruin, you could use the castle of Figaro to travel from one content's desert to another's (probably the most unique form of travel yet ;)

You are still plagued by random battles in FF3/6, but if you have MOG, you can wear the moogle charm, which allows you to run around with NO FIGHTS, through areas normally filled with monsters. There is also another item that grants "less" fights, but I forget what it was.

What do you DO?

Basically, you fight for a long time, gaining levels, and fighting monsters. You go from one story point to another, where you are further brought through the story, giving you new goals and reasons to be fighting the monsters.

They system used to gain magic, and how gaining levels without Espers is a bad thing, leads people to go to the Veldt, where they still get magic points, but do not receive experience. Then, at their leisure, they can go kill monsters, without worrying about which Esper they have equipped.

During battle, you had many options, depending on their special attacks (Edgar's selection of tools, Sabin's blitzes, and Cyan's swordtechs) but you usually fell into using just one of each of them, the most effective ones.

What makes this game such a classic?

This game had really good music and graphics for the SNES. There were more characters than ever before, and you could change them whenever you wanted to (except for certain characters who locked themselves into the party for certain events.) And General Leo's death caused such a stir, that such a neat character would be killed off... without a way to bring him back from death? unheard of...