Nintendo DS - FF3

[Xiahou]

Has anyone played this?

I read some reviews and saw some nice looking videos/screenies on the above link. The only gripe that I hear over and over again is that the story is simplistic.

I'm thinking about buying it to pass the hours I'll be spending on planes/in airports for a business trip next month. I don't need a great melodramatic plot, but I'd like one that can at least hold my interest and keep me playing. Also, the tedium of random encounters is something that I'm worried may get boring eventually.. although, I seem to remember the older FF games usually had an item you could get to decrease encounters if you wanted to.

Anyhow, anyone had any first-hand experience with the game?

Personally, I think DragonQuest IX will be one to look out for- look at those beautiful screenies. Unfortunately, I don't think there's even been a US release date announced yet.

[Bijo]

If I'm not mistaken, the random encounters were taken care of but I'm not so certain about that. They're most likely still present.

Anyway, I don't really have first-hand experience of it though a friend who'd visited America brought back a copy of it couple months ago. It looks very good and appears very fun. Probably a good one to get if you like FF.

[frogbeastegg]

This review seems to give a good overview as to what's what. Nice new graphics, old style gameplay and plot. Random encounters seem to be intact and at the same frequency as in the original game, i.e. quite high by modern standards, also comparatively difficult. There's a comments section linked at the bottom of the review so you can get quite a few other opinions.

I picked up a copy because it was so stupidly cheap (play.com, £17.99!) I thought it had to be a mistake and it would be back up to £24.99 very shortly, but I won't be playing it until I finish the GBA version of FFVI.

Actually, there's a possiblity for you. If you haven't already played FFVI get that instead. You can play GBA games on the DS.

Dragon Quest is on my wanted list too. The lack of an impending release doesn't worry me too much at present; I'm still playing through VIII.

Have you seen Magical Starsign? Another entry on my RPG to-play pile. It sounds like its fun to play, a bit different. Final Fantasy Chocobo Tales just came out too. Mini game filled card battling FF based weirdness. Opinion of it is generally favourable.

[Xiahou]

Thanks for the information folks. Sounds like less than stellar reviews, but I may try it still just out of curiosity. I haven't ever been a hardcore FF fan and missed many of the iterations, but one of my all-time favorites was always FF4 (or FF2 originally in the US). I thought it had a great story for the time- guess I should really pick that one up on the GBA at some point as well.

Am I the only one that doesnt really care for playing GBA games on the DS? -especially with the carts sticking out the bottom of the lite. I still do it from time to time, but if I was ever going to get into a long RPG I'd have to dust off my SP.

[frogbeastegg]

No, you're not the only one. I play mine on a silver GBA micro. Gorgeous little thing - the screen is outstanding, it's light and comfy for me to hold, the buttons and d pad feel spot on, and it's tiny. I was a bit dubious about buying one at the start because it semed so wasteful to buy yet another machine to play GBA games, but modern backlit technology has spoiled me so I can't stand my old original generation SP's front lit screen and I find playing GBA games on my DS uncomfortable. I knew where I could get a micro brand new for £31.50 so I got one on a semi impulse. It was love at first play

If you liked (assuming you played) Dragon Quest VIII then there's a good chance you may like FFIII, since in many respects DQVIII is an old school game.

[Xiahou]

So... I bought it anyway.

Since then, I've played it about 5hrs and so far it's been really quite good. Technically, the game is well-done. There's some amazing FMV (for the DS), and the in-game graphics, although cutesy, are also quite good. I also really enjoy the music- I usually end up putting on headphones so I don't have to listen to it through the tinny DS speakers.

Occasionally, the random encounters can bog the game down, but normally they don't stand out as an annoyance. The story obviously isn't as epic as the other games, but it's still enough to keep me interested in playing. I've unlocked my first crop of available jobs and they're serving to help keep things interesting as well. So far, I've tried monk, white mage, warrior, and red mage- but the red mage didn't get enough spell points to be an offensive caster so I switched her to a black mage at the expense of being able to use good weapons/armor.

That worked fine until I started having to play a segment in 'mini' form where you can do little or no melee damage. The monk really started to stink at that point since he couldn't do melee damage and still can't wear decent armor- so I changed him to a red mage. Now, he can do minor healing/offensive spells as well as usegood weapons & armor. So far, so good.

[frogbeastegg]

About how far can you move between random encounters? About the length of a screen? Two? Five? Also, about how long does the average battle take? A third question, if I may: do you launch into battles and get out of them quickly? I.e. does it have a stupid flashy effect before each battle followed by character posturing, and then slowly tot up your XP and gold gains at the end after another bout of slow posturing?

:realises these questions would be easily answered by trying her own copy of the game, but then she'd end up trying to play that as well as FFVI and Dragon Quest VIII which would be insanity:

[Xiahou]

About how far can you move between random encounters? About the length of a screen? Two? Five? Also, about how long does the average battle take? A third question, if I may: do you launch into battles and get out of them quickly? I.e. does it have a stupid flashy effect before each battle followed by character posturing, and then slowly tot up your XP and gold gains at the end after another bout of slow posturing?

Well, the frequence of random encounters, for lack of a better term, is quire random.

Occasionally, I get a groan inducing 3 steps and another encounter, but on other occasions I've gotten all the way through a level of a (small)dungeon with 1 encounter. (obviously that's when backtracking- if you have to run all over the place opening chests ect, you're gonna get more encounters.) On the surface map, if you can find a chocobo forest, you're set- otherwise, the encounter rate, again varies wildly. But, I've logged almost 8 hours of playtime and they haven't gotten tedious to me yet.

There isn't too much wasted time during combat... When an encounter is triggered, it makes the standard FF combat sound and the screen sorta blurs/zooms in. It cuts to the standard shot of your enemies and then shifts to the normal combat view and proceeds with the classic turn-based combat. Post combat, you get the FF victory tune and have to tap 'a' once each for Gil gained, experience gained, any items gained, character levels gained, or jobs gained. On average, I'd say it's about 3 clicks to get out of combat on avg- doesn't bother me much, but I know that irritates some people.

The game is pretty challenging so far. You can only make a normal save-game on the surface map. In dungeons, you can only do 'quick' saves- with which you are forced to quit the game and it's erased once you resume. Long-story short, if you wipe in a dungeon you're going back to your last save on the surface. Again, I like the challenge of it (so far), but most reviews seem to dock points for this.

[Xiahou]

No, you're not the only one. I play mine on a silver GBA micro. Gorgeous little thing - the screen is outstanding, it's light and comfy for me to hold, the buttons and d pad feel spot on, and it's tiny. I was a bit dubious about buying one at the start because it semed so wasteful to buy yet another machine to play GBA games, but modern backlit technology has spoiled me so I can't stand my old original generation SP's front lit screen and I find playing GBA games on my DS uncomfortable. I knew where I could get a micro brand new for £31.50 so I got one on a semi impulse. It was love at first play

Way to go, you talked me into buying one.

They really are amazing little systems aren't they? The graphics look so much sharper than they did on my older SP. Apparently, the Micro has been discontinued in favor of the updated SP- it took a little bit, but I managed for find a new one for $50US. Well worth it imo.

Back to the original topic(FF3), I'm pretty well stuck in the Cave of Tides- I've wiped 3x when going up against Kraken and with the save system, it means you have to start the whole dungeon over whenever you get wiped out. Hardcore indeed.

[frogbeastegg]

Yes, for some crazy reason the micro was discontinued. They're very rare in the UK now; not a single shop in my city has one, used or new, and they're not much easier to find on the net. The reason mine was so cheap (the reason I got one at all ...) was that Choices' website was selling off its last stock at a clearance price so it no longer carried the 'dead' product.


Back on topic, it sounds like you need to do some level grinding. One of my least favourite activities in any RPG.

[Xiahou]

Great news! FFIV is being remade for the DS by the same people who remade FFIII. The downside is that it won't make it to the US until next year.

Back on topic, it sounds like you need to do some level grinding. One of my least favourite activities in any RPG.

I went back and put on a few job levels (which is actually really easy to do, as it turns out), but it was sweet, sweet cheese that finally took Kraken down. The Geomancer is a job that can perform random "Terrain" attacks based on what sort of tiles you are on.... For this particular dungeon, there was a slight chance that the random attack could be the devastating "dark flare". Well, on my next attempt, she pulled off a dark flare on turn 1 of the battle doing over 5900dmg. Kraken had 8000 life total (compared the the 500's my party has), so by the end of turn 2... he was no more.

Now I can get some really cool classes- like Dark Knight and Dragoon.

[doc_bean]

Does FF3 compare more to FF1 or FFIV, gameplay and storywise ?

The first FF game was just endless griding and virtually no stroy, the fourth didn't have excessive grinding and a pretty decent story (IIRC, it's been a long time).

[Xiahou]

Does FF3 compare more to FF1 or FFIV, gameplay and storywise ?

I would guess that it's somewhere in between. I haven't played IV in ages (but will again - see previous post), but I do remember it having a pretty good storyline.

FFIII has a storyline, but you might call it a fairly standard one for an RPG. It features 4 orphans who find out they are the warriors of light and must restore light to the world and fend off the coming darkness. The game advances the plot with occasional, brief cut scenes and every major dungeon usually involves meeting a new character (that you dont directly control, but they do occasionally pitch in during a fight), who tags along for most of the dungeon and also advance the plot.

[frogbeastegg]

Great news! FFIV is being remade for the DS by the same people who remade FFIII. The downside is that it won't make it to the US until next year.

A few weeks ago I saw a joke Squeenix press release stating that from this point on development of new titles would cease, and all resources would be plunged into endless remakes of old games. IMO it's close enough to being true that the joke has a fair bit of bite.

We just had a FFIV remake on the GBA. It's less than a year old - the announcement of the DS remake was made less than a month after the GBA version came out in the UK!

Squeenix has gone remake crazy. This will be the third regurgitation of FFIV (PS1, GBA, DS). If I see one more rehash, er remake, of FFI and FFII I shall be sick. They've had at least 4 re-releases now, possibly more.

I'm not against remakes on the whole. I was happy to see the GBA versions of IV, V and VI because the last time they were redone was at the end of the PS1 era, and those versions were quite bad. FFIII has had a lot changed and it's not been available here, so again that's fine with me. If only they would stop doing the same few games over and over and bring out some of the classics which have been mouldering in the Squeenix cupboard for years. Chrono Trigger and its ilk, many of them games which didn't reach PAL territories in the first place. The Enix side of the catalogue could use some attention too - so few of those games made it outside Japan.

[Azi Tohak]

Hey Froggy, you know about the PSP release of FF I?

Original on the NES, then PS1, then GBA, now PSP.

http://psp.ign.com/objects/877/877849.html

But why not just go ahead and do a full PS3 remake of FF VII? I think the fanboys alone would be enough to buy it.

Oh wait... the PS3 won't exist in two years. Nevermind.

I actually rather like what they're doing with FF XII and going to do with XIII. (Extras for VII did not impress me.) I think Revenant Wings will be interesting, and when FF XIII goes over to the 360 I should have by that point, I'm sure I will get it too.

Azi

[Xiahou]

Square Enix seems to be releasing a ton of DS content in general- not just remakes. Some I know of:

Dragon Quest IX
Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker
Dragon Quest Swords
Final Fantasy Tactics A2
FFXII: Revenant Wings
and a FFCC sequel

Those are just from my latest issue of Play. Seems like the DS has really grown on them.

[frogbeastegg]

Hey Froggy, you know about the PSP release of FF I?

That was the one which pushed me over the edge. I want a shiny new FF game for my PSP, not another rehash of a dated, badly aged game I can already buy several versions of, thank you very much.

Square Enix seems to be releasing a ton of DS content in general

Yes, and long may the original titles continue! I enjoyed Rocket Slime, look forward to enjoying Chocobo Tales and FFIII (like I said, it's not been remade several times already so it doesn't make me froth at the mouth) and really want FF Tactics A2 and Joker. Don't forget Dragon Quest IX - that's one of my most wanted DS games right now, possibly the most wanted.

Dragon Quest Swords is a Wii game. AFAIK there's no DS version It's a first person sword-um-up with the wiimote filling in for the sword.

I'm not keen on the flood of FFVII based games. I liked FFVII and have played it through more than once, but I don't want more of it or its universe. I like it self-contained. This makes me unusual, I know. I feel old; I remember when FFX-2 was scary because it was a sequel in a series which never, ever had sequels or tie-ins.

[Xiahou]

Dragon Quest Swords is a Wii game. AFAIK there's no DS version It's a first person sword-um-up with the wiimote filling in for the sword.

Oops, for some reason I thought it said DS under that one- it doesn't.