Part 21: Part Twenty-One: Underground Beachfront Property

Part Twenty-One: Underground Beachfront Property

Last time on Final Fantasy III, Gutsco the Rogue stole shit from the dwarves (a huge surprise) and then took off into the underground lake. Ignoring the fact that a lake can't actually be underground because, y'know, that's not how lakes work I have wrong ideas about lakes and how they work, we turned into frogs and chased him into the water.


Ooh, the lake even dressed up and put on its fanciest word for "underground".


Now that we're here, let's stop being frogs. Much better.

Now, let's think about things for a second. We jumped in the water, swam...down? Let's go with down. Anyway, then we popped up here and could turn back into people. You know what that means? It means this isn't a lake, it's just another cave! Dammit game!


So, yeah, the Subterranean Lake is just one more cave with rope bridges in it. They probably could have done some really neat things with a subterranean lake, but didn't. They didn't leave the dungeons completely unchanged, either, they just missed the mark on this one, too. It's disappointing.


Ah well, c'est la vie. Look at these Bombs, instead. This is the same fight we had to do to get Onion Knight.


They're pretty trivial now.


Decent EXP, though.


Look at that exciting background! We're in a cave...in SPACE!


This will be handy later, I think.


Bombs come in pairs as well as threes.


Bombs aren't ninjas, so their decreased numbers don't make them more threatening as individuals.



Yeah, so, there's just nothing there. It's not even a "secret passage", you just walk into the void at the end of the path and show up on the other side.


This was an accident; I wasn't watching Sephy's HP and the enemy got a lucky hit or two in. I had to use a Phoenix Down to fix it, which sucks. I suppose I could have turned around, walked out, healed in the Dwarven Hollows, then come back, but that would have been more trouble than it's worth.


Whatever, next floor. The second section of this floor is just...shit, I don't even know, it's there. It's not accomplishing anything; there aren't even any items. I know, I know, "that's what a dungeon is, you're stupid and you suck", I just don't know why it had to be a separate section.


Another bridge. Rope bridges must be the floating continent's number one export or something. Maybe the ancients, like, really had a bone on for bridging.


All of these things will come in handy in a couple of updates. I have **pla~ans**!


Is this, like, a cave above another cave and we're just running between stalagmites?



Manticores are an enemy in the Subterranean Lake. They have 375 HP.



Their Blizzard spell can be a bit of a threat, if you're behind on equipment or levels.



As far as real threats go, they can petrify with their physicals. Petrification is bad and you want to remove it.


If you have a Thief, though, you can grab Gold Needles from Manticores. I think they also drop them.

The reason I'm going so deep into Manticores here is that, from now till the boss, they're every enemy I see. It's like the Manticore festival down here. Lucky me.


With me finding all these lightning attack items and this being a "lake", you might be expecting a water-based boss.

Nope.



The Salamand Sword can be used as an attack item in battle, just like a staff.

It's shit and there's no reason to do this.


Wow, I got a level up!


WOW I GOT TWO LEVEL UPS!



I also got all this treasure!


AND TO PLAY ON THE BRIDGE!

The bridge was actually between the two treasures, I just put it there for art or whatever.



A lot of times, stealing sucks. It's better than it was, and it's still got a ways to go, but even at its full potential, it's not enough to make the Thief on its own.


This was an accident. Instead of paying attention to the game, I decided to pay attention to my coffee. The coffee was okay, if you were wondering. Maybe a bit cold, but that's fine by me.


Now we have to head back upstairs.


Where there's actual water again. We've come back from space!


Look at the water. Look at it. It's better than a black expanse.



Aw yeah, 6,000 gil. An okay amount.


You can just see our destination at the top of the screen there. It's the pile of gold.


Haha, wow, I am gonna just loot the shit out of that.


Who gives a rat's ass about the horn? I want your pile of treasure.


Let's rock, shitass.



Aaaand, here's Gutsco!


And here's the cursor pointing at him, just in case you're stupid and couldn't figure out which one I meant or something.


Thunder is the best bottom-tier Black Magic spell, and I am all about that extra 3 power over Blizzard. Gutsco has 3,500 HP, so the extra 10 damage or whatever means I could finish the fight in...the same number of rounds, probably. It'd probably all be overflow.


Here, I'm wondering why I didn't give Golbez Thundara. Probably some stupid reason. Blizzara is 3 points stronger, anyway, so you know.


Gutsco is carrying four slots full of Hi-Potions, if you're wondering.


He also hits pretty hard, and goes twice. What he can't do, though, is hit everybody at once, so that puts a damper on him pretty quick.


Gutsco fucking hates Golbez. He just goes after him the whole time, I think. From a strategy perspective, this is probably the best decision his AI could make, just to go after one target at a time.



Phoenix Downs restore 10% of Max HP. Better than they are in Final Fantasy IX, where they only restored, like, 3 HP or whatever. Not as good as if they restored 20 or 30%, though.


The Hi-Potion here is maybe a bit overkill, but it's all I've got that'll keep him in this for sure.


Here's what that Blizzara I had queued up does, by the way. It's about two hits from a staff at a time. Magic would be pretty viable if the higher-level caps weren't so low. The next set of jobs has a couple classes that do alright for this kind of thing, but they both have shortcomings.


I just kept tryin' this for a few rounds.


After a few rounds of sub-par damage, I decided to throw this at Kuja. It's been sitting in my inventory, and it adds Haste to someone, so I think to myself, "hey, it'll make her less shit right now".


Nope. I think it just raises her priority some, which is, you know, a shitty thing to make an effort at. It's certainly not adding enough Agility to give her extra hits.



Here's Gutsco's ace-in-the-hole.


It's not very effective, certainly less so than just wailing on somebody extra hard. It's basically a free turn for me. I've backed him into a corner and I'm going to win this fight.


So let's skip to when I do. If you look at the HP in the lower left, you can see that Gutsco kept on beating on Golbez.


But I turned that fucker inside-out anyway, because I am hot shit at this game.


Decent dosh.



Enough EXP to give Golbez a level, but nobody else. They did all get job levels, though. That's a pretty regular thing with boss fights, because they tend to wear on.


Get offa my treasure, deady.


Success!


"He disappeared! How odd! Ehh, fuck it, let's go."


Bad news: we can't actually take any of the treasure.


We have, however, acquired a second shadow. Good for us.

We have also acquired...the chance to walk all the way back through this dungeon! Hooray!

If any RPG making people are reading this, Jesus H, don't make me walk all the way back through the dungeon. I beat the dungeon when I got to the boss! And then I beat him, too! I'm the winner, I won! Just put me where I need to go!


Ahh, come the fuck on! This is horseshit! Not only is it all Manticores on the way to Gutsco, but now I get back attacked!



These guys have Bad Breath, which you're probably familiar with if you know Final Fantasy. I'm sure it'll come up later. Here, it's just another attack that misses.

Now, enjoy my battle strategy for the rest of this cave:







In summary, what a boring dungeon and what a boring boss.

Mognet



Today's letter is from Sara, who just wants to thank us for being heroes and generally awesome. You're welcome, Sara.