Part 12: Sidequest Extravaganza

Before we even want to think of doing the Cave of Darkness, we want to visit this town to the west of Saronia, only accessible with the Invincible.






Like the Bard/Geomancer and Caller towns, Falgabard is the M.Knight town. You see, some classes only shine during certain parts of the plot, such as the Scholar and Hine. This section is where the M.Knights shine.



And this is why. Splitting enemies are a fucking pain in the ass. I mean, eventually Stalin can take them down, but they take forever to combat, and the Cave of Darkness is huge and full of them, so it's better having an offensively kickass fighter that won't trigger the splits.






It can be kind of tough, but it doesn't really justify the boss music it gets.



Our reward is a dark blade stronger than any other we can get right now.






Here's a fun fact: Dark Knights can only equip the Demon armor and shield right now. They can't use the Diamond equipment. Hell, they can't even use the Power Armlet every other class can use. So calling them fragile is a bit of an understatement, though Stalin's enormous HP tank should be sufficient enough.



Since the game wants us to try it out, let's do so.



One more neat detail is that the M.Knight can use the first three levels of White Magic, though with not nearly enough charges to justify using it. The Hunter class also has this ability, but they're more interested in shooting arrows into stuff.



This cave's small and doesn't even get its own music. It does have a ton of secret passages.



Did I mention M.Knights are fucking powerful? They can kill anything in two hits from the back row with one weapon.



Now picture them with two weapons in the front row. It doesn't even matter that splitting enemies won't split, since Stalin can OHKO everything in this cave.



Of course, it also means I have to down a ton of HiPotions, something that won't be a luxury in the Cave of Darkness.





A Kotetsu is between the Ashura and Kikuichi in strength. And that's all there is to see in the Cave, and the town itself.

Instead of progressing the plot, now's a good time to do some sidequests. We can buy the first five summons, but there's three we can recruit. It's not required or anything, but how can we refuse sidequests?

You may remember I already tried to tackle Odin and failed. Maybe if I go at him with the pure offense of a M.Knight, I can take him out before he takes me out.








Nope.



Nope.

That's not going to work. Here's a new idea.



Did you know enemies can't initiate attacks when they don't have a target? This is great for a solo game, as this means as a Dragoon, jumping every turn means enemies won't attack you when you jump down, plus most of the time you'll jump before they hit you anyway. This means Dragoons barely get hit, and even if they do, I have the Blood Lance I got from the Undersea Cave to recover damage.

This combination ends up being pretty damn awesome.





This seems underwhelming, but that's mainly because row seems to affect Jump. Weird, I know, but you'll be better off in the front row.




Did you know the Blood Lance recovers much more HP than the fourth that the Blood Sword does? The healing would be higher except it only recovers up to the difference between your max and current HP.



With the power of a Dragoon, Odin goes down easily.



One down, two more to go.




The other two are both on the Floating Continent. You need the Invincible to get them.






Just row out onto the shadow to reach this cave.



Super Crabs can Glare at you, which does nothing against Stalin at this point. They hurt, though.



Uroboros are hilariously weak against Stalin. Even on the rare chance they hit, it's for one damage. It's even more crazy that they give as much EXP as everything else here.



Sea Lions are so tough that I end up doing most of this dungeon in the back row.



Along the way through this cave, I manage to hit L50. Job level of 58 for Viking, god damn.



Great Coral is found in the final room of the dungeon, and also hurts.






Now that I have this wonderful strategy, I'm going to abuse the shit out of it.







Challenge? What challenge?



Two down, one to go.






Hey, it's yet another fucking cave!




After getting halfway through the first room, I wonder how badly the Dragoon could cheese random encounters?



It turns out, rather damn easily.



Fun Fact: If a Grenade tries Exploding and doesn't have anyone to explode on, it does nothing instead. It doesn't kill itself, it just waits around instead to die horribly.




It's hard to talk about what enemies do when I kill them before they get to do anything.








It's time for a "proper" fight with Bahamut. By that, I mean I'm going to humiliate the shit out of him.





Even when Megaflare hits, the damage is barely over a fourth of my HP. Oh no, how inconvenient!



Or not.





When you slay Bahamut, you don't get a message or anything. You simply go to your inventory and pick up the Bahamut spell.



Anyway, that's all the sidequests FF3 has to offer. Next time, we tackle one of the most infamous dungeons in the series and push on toward the end game.