Final Fantasy III Part #49 - Part Forty-Nine: Ancients' Straight Path With a Couple of Treasures Slightly Aside

Part 49: Part Forty-Nine: Ancients' Straight Path With a Couple of Treasures Slightly Aside

Part Forty-Nine: Ancients' Straight Path With a Couple of Treasures Slightly Aside

For this next bit, we need the Invincible again. It might not come across in screenshots, but it's incredibly fun to repeatedly fly back to this cave to switch ships.

Now it's back to this place so we can move on with the story and stuff.

Full disclosure: Ancients' Maze is kind of a misnomer. It's not much of a maze.

It is full of lava, though, because that's a reasonable thing to just keep around. Thankfully, we don't have to walk in it to complete the dungeon.

Elixirs get a lot more important in these last areas, mainly because enemies get hardier and your healers are more likely to burn through their stocks of good spells.

Especially if you get back attacked.

See?

Unei's Clone is a weaker version of Unei - weaker magic, lower HP, only acts once per turn.

I'm still not sitting through a back attack.

There's nothing else on the first floor, but in this dead end on the second floor you find a good shield and an attack item.

I also find a Greater Demon.

Greater Demons have just north of 10,000 HP, so they're not a huge issue between Kuja and Sephy.

I did a lot of grinding here the first time I played the game. It's a pretty good place for it, if you can handle the encounters solo. If you need a full party, you want Bahamut's Lair.

I pick up a Crystal Mail along my way. Crystal equipment is the best heavy armour in the game, and I thought it stopped some statuses or had an elemental affinity, but I'm wrong and it does neither thing.

Another White Musk here. If abilities were modular, like in FFV, the Scholar's Item Lore would be fucking killer.

A White Musk would also work well on this Zombie Dragon, what with it being undead and all (it would also be good against a Greater Demon, they're weak to Holy).

Instead, I just stuck with my normal methods and nearly killed Kuja because of it - the Blood Spear's absorption is reversed against the undead.

Crystal Gloves! Kuja has a good setup, but can't match Jecht and Golbez against magic, because her Mind isn't as high.

Hey, one of these! These are fun!

And there's the Crystal Helm! I really wish this stuff halved elements like the Protect Ring does.

This place has a very boring layout, for a maze. It's been simplified from the NES; it's basically just a single path here.

I was originally thinking about running a Scholar in this last little bit, it'd be a better class than Summoner for fighting bosses. I decided against it, though, because it wouldn't hold up as well in random encounters.

The Break Blade is a sword! I think this LP is the first time I've played a Final Fantasy game and not had someone who could equip swords in my party for the endgame.

Having Kuja equipped with the Blood Lance means she gets to just stand around while I fight the undead.

It's not a real problem, to be honest.

You know what sucks? This enemy was weak to fire on the NES, but not here. It's BS.

Also BS: this axe, which can only be used by a Warrior or a Viking, just in case you really want to run a crappy job through here.

Moving into the next area, I decided to give Kuja the Trident instead of the Blood Lance to curtail her suicidal efforts.

You can tell this is the Ancients' Maze because the path zigzags. Incredibly fucked up to do to the player, if you ask me.

Look, it's a palette-swapped enemy!

It's a bit disappointing that Kuja no longer heals herself when she attacks - the Blood Lance is actually super helpful when you have your Dragoon jump, because you can't heal an airborne Dragoon, but if they go up when they have low HP, it's feasible that they'd heal fully on the landing.

PHOENIX DOWN!

We're almost through this place.

There are only two Protect Rings in chests in the game. There's one enemy that has Protect Rings as a rare drop, so you could farm them if you wanted, but it's not really worth it.