Final Fantasy III Part #40 - Part Forty: Vehicle Searchin'

Part 40: Part Forty: Vehicle Searchin'

Part Forty: Vehicle Searchin'

Today we're in the Ancient Ruins, looking for the Invincible, which is another airship, except this one is supposed to be able to go over mountains.

Here's a fun thing about the Ancient Ruins: you remember that Eater I fought as a mini-boss under the sea? They're regular enemies here!

Sephy can cut through them in one hit, which stops them splitting. The other thing that stops them splitting is that the game won't allow more than three enemies on screen in random encounters.

The NES version of the game allowed up to eight enemies on screen, which made these things pretty dangerous, but here they're just a little more annoying than regular fights.

Oh, and I'm happy Golbez isn't constantly using Whirlpool here.

Even if his damage is a little short - even Kuja is outpacing him now.

(Golbez's damage is actually handy, since it will soften a target up enough that Kuja can handle it - as long as they hit the same one.)

Jecht status: also present.

I'll admit, a hit like this is pretty ugly, but it's not something that can't be dealt with. Eight of these would be game over.

Oh, and I don't know if I mentioned it, but splitting enemies are pure shit for EXP. It's just another annoying aspect of fighting them.

Here's some friends, explaining what goes on here and why we couldn't have come here earlier.

There are rocks in the way!

Good thing Unei is with us.

: Striking dreamworld stones against any material from this world--even Adamantite--should annihilate both objects!

What? How would you even get the stones into this world if that's true?

: Stand back! Here we go...

Oh god, we're all going to die because Unei is just some crazy person. I'm sure Doga knew this all along, because Doga is an asshole.

Nah, instead Unei just uses magic to make the rocks blow up. I feel like that whole "dreamworld stones" thing was just to fuck with the kids.

: Humm... That was taxing. I sometimes forget my age. Heh heh heh...

I feel like this is something of a theme in early Final Fantasy games, that magic can be exhausting (I suppose MP are an abstraction of this) and that this gets worse as you get older, until you get stuff like Tellah blowing himself up in Final Fantasy IV.

: Come on, don't just stand there. The Invincible awaits! Onwards!

None of that is important, though. Airships are what's important.

Also, that was pretty much the end of any real events in this dungeon. From here on out, it's just walking.

And treasure. Treasure is nice.

Less nice when it's worse than what we already have, though. My undersea escapades have spoilt the children somewhat.

Unei also has some new dialogue here.

Syrcus Tower. To me, that's a homophone for "Circus Tower", which kind of undermines the idea of Xande as a serious dangerous man.

Here we can also see what the fangs look like, while Jecht ponders their importance.

Back to business, here's another fun trick from the Eaters: separate from splitting, they can just call in another enemy if they feel like it.

They can also punch Sephy, who is low on health because I forgot to heal.

I wonder what the odds are that we'll see Shadowflare again in this LP.

Cura has become my main method of healing, but you can see a small problem with that here. MP tables in this game are kind of fucked up, because characters gain way more MP for level 1 spells than you'll ever need, but not enough for level 5+ spells to be steadily useful.

I think this place has kind of a neat design.

This is kind of a lame justification for the presence of shops in a dungeon (spoiler: there are shops here).

We already know this.

I also think this is an interesting sort of statement, just a little bit of consistent world-building stuff. Of course, it would have been even cooler if we didn't already know what it meant. To be completely honest, I feel like the actual structure of the game could have worked if you'd just come here after dealing with the flood, instead of a bunch of other dumb stuff.

Here's the armour shop in the ruins.

I get Jecht a White Robe because his shit hasn't been updated in a while and it's starting to be a problem. There's not as much mage equipment to be found in the wild, I think, and I'm irresponsible, so there you go.

Here's the weapon shop. Nothing's really exciting here, I don't even think I bought a second Blood Lance.

There's also an item shop. I buy a bunch of Hi-Potions, because they're handy. They're also the second-best healing item in the game, which I feel like is a holdover from the days when HP capped at 999 and 500 was a lot. When it caps at 9,999, 500 per item is kind of shit.

Nope!

And onward. That was the most interesting floor we're going to see in this place.

This floor is something of a maze, and there are a bunch of treasures to be found as well.

Like this, which I can't use right now.

A piece of headgear to go with the Black Belt Gi. It's also useless right now.

Ooh, new enemy! They're called Azrael, and they also divide.

Unei decides to pop in and help me on this.

Holy is the top level of offensive White Magic. Doga was a Black Mage, Unei is a White Mage. I wonder what that makes Xande, Summoner or Red Mage?

Unei's Holy is solid but not super impressive. I don't think Holy uses Spirit over Intellect, as it's an attack spell, so White Mages are a bit short-shafted on it.