Final Fantasy III

Played on Nintendo DS

I’m happy to say that after some difficulty I finally finished Final Fantasy III for the DS (Links: GameSpy, GameSpot, GameFly). And I’m having some trouble deciding exactly how I feel about it.

There have been a lot of ports of the old Final Fantasy games to the GBA. This one is distinct in that they did an extensive graphical upgrade from the original 8-bit 2D graphics to completely new fully-3D models. And they were very successful in that. The characters, monsters, and environments all look great. It gave this 17 year old game the look of something completely modern… which is kind of dangerous. Because everything else about this game is still 17 years old.

Most of the reviews for this game described it as being difficult by modern standards. I wouldn’t say that. Difficulty implies that it demands a high amount of skill and engagement from the player. That’s not really the case. FFIII doesn’t demand skill, it demands a tolerance for mind numbing level grinding (which I guess could be a skill…). You don’t have to learn intricate strategies - you just have to level up enough so that you have enough hit points to survive the attacks of the bosses. Grinding is pretty standard in the RPG genre, so it’s hard to criticize FFIII too much for it, but I felt like this game demanded more than most.

Final Fantasy III is the first game in the series to introduce the job system. Unlike future evolutions, this game only allows you to leverage the abilities of one job at a time, making it more of a big “I changed my mind” switch than an adaptive strategy. This is further exacerbated by the fact that you don’t unlock jobs by performing well in the ones you have; you only have to proceed through the story to get the more powerful jobs. So there’s no carry-over value of your early advancement. For example, you can completely ignore the less powerful Evoker and still unlock the ultimate Summoner job. Given that the number of enemies was reduced to accommodate the new 3D graphics, multi-targeting caster jobs are far less useful than melee jobs. And since you’re already going to be grinding a ton to level up, for your own sanity you’re probably going to forced into a party of simple fighters because melee attacks take less time than big fancy summons.

But I’m being a bit too harsh. For its time, this job system was revolutionary. And if I was playing the game in its original 8-bit incarnation, I probably wouldn’t be so critical. But the game looks so darn pretty that I have a hard time reminding my brain to lay off.

FFIII provided me with an interesting trip through the RPG gaming archives, but what I really hope comes out of this is a nice 3D RPG DS platform for some new adventures. Final Fantasy Tactics DS, por favor?

Hollywoodland

I watched Hollywoodland the other night. And I was left feeling more than a little unsatisfied. It was no fault of the actors, they all had fine performances. And the colors and aesthetics of the movie made it quite pleasing on the eye. But it just didn’t go anywhere. It was pretty much the most anticlimactic movie I’ve ever seen. I guess there kinda was a partial climax, but it was smack dab in the middle of the movie, not closer to the end. Which left me with the feeling that I was still waiting for the real climax… and then the credits rolled.

I understand that it’s a historical movie, and the George Reeves mystery is unsolved. I’m comfortable with that. I can deal with a lot of grey in my movies. But while storytellers should feel free to mess with my head as much as they please, they really shouldn’t mess with the pacing.

In music, pretty much everything fits in to one of a couple standard time signatures. That provides the frame, and then the musician can paint whatever they want inside that. Breaking outside of the standard timing can sometimes be interesting, but usually just results in something you can’t tap your foot to. Movies are the same way: they should follow the standard narrative structure. I’m not saying that every movie should have a happy ending. I’m saying that they should have, you know… an ending.

If I can feel mysteriously satisfied at the end of the hugely unresolved Fellowship of the Ring, you can manage to make an unsolved murder satisfying. You can flip pretty much every other standard on its head (case and point: Memento). In fact, please do. But that whole notion of “building up to something” - keep that.

Final Fantasty III - Beware of Port

GameFAQs’s list of top FAQs is generally a really good indicator of what games people are playing right now. And it’s quite telling that Final Fantasy III (the DS port of the Japan-only NES original) is still hanging out on that list after 5 months. Because old school RPGs are fucking brutal. I’m glad to see that many of my fellow gamers are still working on this one. My commute gives me near infinite time to grind through any game. Unfortunately, RPGs demand just that: infinite time.

Last week I was so psyched to be close to the end of the game. I was in the last dungeon of the game, decently leveled (with one of my jobs at level 99), and had all the best gear. I’m in the final stretch. I pass the point of no return (no more opportunities to save), and prepare for the final boss battle. 2 hours and 4 bosses later, I’m actually at the final boss. I’m getting a little nervous at this point - because if I die at this point I’ve lost 2 hours of work (or roughly 2.4 bus commutes). Thank god for the quicksave feature (non existent in the original game), otherwise I would have had to do that all in one sitting. But I’m feeling good, because the mini bosses leading up to the final one were pretty manageable. Then I get thoroughly owned by the Cloud of Darkness.

Fast forward to this week. My commutes are spent grinding my character’s levels up so that I can make my second attempt. And now that I know just how long that attempt is going to take, I’m sure as hell making sure I’m ready. Because I’m a stubborn son of a bitch, and I will beat this game.

We forget in the modern gaming world just how unreasonable games were back in the day. I’m sitting there, post-smackdown, thinking all sorts of nasty thoughts about FFIII’s game design. But then I step back a bit, and remember that I had to do almost exactly the same thing when I played through Final Fantasy I (you have a rematch with all the four elemental bosses, and then the final showdown with Chaos, who will most likely r0x0r j00r b0x0rz). I guess I just had a lot more patience when I was 8.