This feels like a very Mimi tactic. Including the part where you wiped and had to reload.
Mimi: I AM A GENIUS!
Mimi (post magic): Oh no!
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
This feels like a very Mimi tactic. Including the part where you wiped and had to reload.
Mimi: I AM A GENIUS!
Mimi (post magic): Oh no!
Final Fantasy III, Part 8, Part A
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
AFTER ONE THOUSAND YEARS I AM FREE. TIME TO CONQUER FINAL FANTASY!
Now where were we.
Oh yeah you can still support me on Ko-Fi or Patreon if you'd like to finance my struggles with international travel, airplane companies, and an uncaring government benefits system and also writer's block-
Right. New party setup. Time to go do some exploring to try and find some job-appropriate gear. A quick casting of Sight reveals locations on our new map…
As a reminder, every gray dot is an unexplored location you can enter from the overworld. By the standards of FF1 and FF2, taking into account that we already had the Floating Continent map to begin with, FF3's world map is huge and full of stuff. I am pretty sure I could count the overworld locations of FF1 from memory alone if I gave it a shot (without looking: Cornelia, Pirate Town, Elf Town, Matoya's Cave, Sarda's Cave, Lufenia, Ruined Earth Town, Fairy Lake Town, Caravan, Dragon's Lair, Tower of Trials, Chaos Shrine, Mash Cave, Astos's Castle, Earth Cave, Fire Cave, Ice Cave, Sunken Shrine, Mirage Tower, Flying Fortress, Chaos Shrine again… I think I'm forgetting one town? Otherwise I'm pretty sure that's it, so about ~20 location; the above map has 34 + Floating Continent.) However, this is mitigated by the fact that the above map includes a number of Chocobo Forests which, while convenient travel/storage spots, are all individually identical, so it's hard to tell how many unique locations actually exist yet.
And I'm not going to answer that any time soon, because it turns out I actually can't go anywhere yet.
Convenient new addition: the Chocobo can now cross any water you can cross with the canoe! This is surprisingly helpful.
Gotta admit I wasn't expecting the Bard to hit that hard. Quaver's basic attack is basically a magic attack that hits harder than a Fire or Blizzard from Rushanaq, which for a support character ain't half-bad.
Right.
So, Goldor Manor, where lives the rich asshole who impounded my boat, is locked off by a bottomless bog. The path through the mountains up north is locked off by Numenorean statues that strike me down the moment I try crossing them. Both of these don't actually kill the party, but do result in being turned around and waking up before the obstacle.
Turns out when the NPCs were saying "hey Goldor impounded your ship, maybe go and confront him first thing," they meant it. It's gating any further progress. Which incidentally also means I can't find any other town to purchase gear at, so I equip Mimi (Dragoon) with two Thunder Spears, the only spears available for purchase at this time, and Rushanaq has to drop her fancy new Evoker class and go back to Black Mage. Isn't it sad, Rushanaq?
No matter, though. If the game wants me to tackle the plot next, then the plot I will tackle. First order of business: in order to cross the Bottomless Bog, I need 'Levigrass Shoes,' which I can only assume are like, enchanted shoes that allow you to cross the surface of the the swamp without sinking into it.
She… lives… in the sewers?
Sure, okay. Find crazy lady, steal magic shoes, got it. This is the Wizard of Oz now. Elfaba, here I come.
In case you're wondering why Mimi is a Knight in those screenshots, it's because I fully visited the town before heading out on my first venture with my new jobs, but I rearranged the order of events slightly for the clarity of narrative.
They seem to be taking this well.
But as I am talking to the local townsfolk to get a better handle on the next step of my journey…
What in God's name.
So there's a quatuor of old geezers who've decided they're the legendary warriors of light, and who appear anywhere in a daisy-chain set to peppy music before leaving, during which everyone on the scene just stares dumbstruck. Incredible.
Well, pretending that didn't happen and swiftly moving on, we learn that some other old dude is the keeper of the sewer gates and head to his house.
Okay, the emphasis on 'YOU four' makes it clear that the proto-Manderville quartet showed up before we did… and presumably got denied entrance to the sewers on account of clearly being a bunch of jobbers. Assuming they even knew where to go in the first place! Which I would doubt, except…
THEY'RE IN THE WALLS
This is obviously meant to be them eavesdropping from the outside of the house, probably listening from an open window or something, but in terms of presentation these guys showing up in THE DARK VOID BEYOND THE SCREEN WORLD is extremely funny. Like, I think that's the first time in the series that something has directly interacted with/existed within the Screen Void, and trust me, when it showed up it sent me for a loop.
Anyway, old man Gill offers to lead the way to the sewers which he will open for us, and the party follows automatically after him (which is good, because the actual location of the sewer entrance is non-obvious).
This is the point where I changed my job set then went and did some exploring outside the town, then left for faraway lands before getting back to the sewers.
These sewers feel more distinctive than FFII's Bafsk Sewers; not by a huge margin, but the floor and walls are clearly from different materials, there are grates and visible water flow, this is neat.
I like the implication that in the FFIIIverse, 'ligers' aren't just big cats with some messed up growth hormones that get very big; in this world, when a tiger and a lion fuck, the result is a giant cat with two heads, one lion, one tiger. Rock on.
A random selection of enemies. The giant toads and creepy spiders are par for the course, the fucked up lion-tigers less so.
Sewer levels. They're a video game staple, aren't they? Not just a JRPG or RPG staple, just a staple of video games in general. We didn't have one in FFI, but they showed up as early as II, leaving me to wonder how common they already were at the time. What was the first sewer level in all of video game? I guess it would have to be a Mario game, what with the pipes and the plumber protagonist?
Monsters make an oddly intuitive level of sense in a video game sewer. We've already established that monsters are either a natural feature of the world, or have cropped up everywhere following some spooky disaster, as in the FF games. Sewers, being dark, unpleasant places where humans are uncomfortable treading but where one might find food, would naturally draw beasts of the creepier and crawlier kind. But this in turn presents an interesting issue to our world - so far, monsters have largely existed in the wilds beyond civilization, or in dungeons long abandoned by people. Cities, with their walls, guards and magic, are safe - for now. But monsters in the sewers betray the first intrusion of the hostile outside into vital human infrastructure. The people of Amur locked the sewers to keep the town safe from monsters - but in so doing, they essentially gave them up. Waste disposal, water filtration, these things will soon be gone as maintenance becomes impossible and the monsters run rampant. If anyone were to venture down there, they would likely be eaten alive. Whether it's taking over the sewers or raiding farms or burning crops, monsters put pressure on humanity to withdraw into their walls and to lesser forms of development and technology. But this does present the interesting notion of a corps of monster-slaying sewer workers, fully trained to venture down into the watery tunnels and dispose of the giant spiders and poisonous toads that have made it their home. I wonder if this is something Amur would develop in time.
Probably not with the 'warriors of light,' though.
So, our four would-be heroes ventured deep into the sewers, and got cornered by a bunch of monsters. Now they're in need of saving. Okay. So far so standard. I'm going to head in and kill the foes and rescue them. Now, though, we've seen a bunch of what the sewers have to offer. Its monsters hit pretty hard - those Twin Ligers could take between 100 and 200 HP a pop off my characters, so healing is frequent to avoid attrition (thankfully, with White Mage job lv 50+, Tsugumi has about 25 Cure casts). The sewers are a dangerous place, even for us.
So what would be the funniest possible encounter to put there?
Eight completely ordinary, un-upgraded goblins who collapse the instant I cast a multispell targeting them all at once.
That's what got our self-proclaimed warriors of legend pinned down and hopeless until we arrived.
This is just plain funny. And, honestly, I can't even be mad at them: it's pretty clear they meant well and just had a, hm, distorted sense of the scope of the threats faced by the WoLs. And, once they see the real WoLs in action, they're quick to accept reality with humility and good humour.
They're like a way less irritating version of Zote the Mighty. I like them.
There's a bit more traipsing through the dungeon to get through, and then…
This doesn't look suspicious at all.
Oh this is neat.
I was 100% expecting some kind of boss fight with Crazed Witch Delilah or whatnot, but what happens is more interesting, and funnier. Delilah's, cantankerous distrustful old sewer-hermit that she is, tosses us a pair of trapped shoes. The Quartet arrives just in time to tell the group to watch out, they back down, and the shoes explode, then one of the Quartet members says that they saw the real shoes before and could tell it was a trap, before interceding in our favor:
So what we have here is an averted boss fight. There's a character who has something we want, but who doesn't believe we are what we claim, and is ready to trap/attack us out of mistrust for our nature/intentions… But then a bunch of character we met earlier, whom we rescue and to whom we were kind and helpful, avert the crisis. The Quartet are primarily comic relief, being a bunch of harmless, slightly kooky old-timers who couldn't defeat a pack of goblins… but they're also of an age with Delilah and know her personally, and she herself is clearly something of an eccentric who doesn't mind their own weirdness, so when they vouch for her, she takes them at their word and helps us immediately.
Once again, the Warriors of Light are rewarded for treating everyone with kindness and respect.
The Quartet teleport everyone outside (using an 'ottershroom', which replicates the effects of the Teleport spell, once again providing further evidence that in this game getting high is the key to incredible magic power), and with the Levigrass Shoes in hand, it's time to head to the DMV and get our boat license renewed.
Split for length!
Now where were we.
Oh yeah you can still support me on Ko-Fi or Patreon if you'd like to finance my struggles with international travel, airplane companies, and an uncaring government benefits system and also writer's block-
Right. New party setup. Time to go do some exploring to try and find some job-appropriate gear. A quick casting of Sight reveals locations on our new map…
As a reminder, every gray dot is an unexplored location you can enter from the overworld. By the standards of FF1 and FF2, taking into account that we already had the Floating Continent map to begin with, FF3's world map is huge and full of stuff. I am pretty sure I could count the overworld locations of FF1 from memory alone if I gave it a shot (without looking: Cornelia, Pirate Town, Elf Town, Matoya's Cave, Sarda's Cave, Lufenia, Ruined Earth Town, Fairy Lake Town, Caravan, Dragon's Lair, Tower of Trials, Chaos Shrine, Mash Cave, Astos's Castle, Earth Cave, Fire Cave, Ice Cave, Sunken Shrine, Mirage Tower, Flying Fortress, Chaos Shrine again… I think I'm forgetting one town? Otherwise I'm pretty sure that's it, so about ~20 location; the above map has 34 + Floating Continent.) However, this is mitigated by the fact that the above map includes a number of Chocobo Forests which, while convenient travel/storage spots, are all individually identical, so it's hard to tell how many unique locations actually exist yet.
And I'm not going to answer that any time soon, because it turns out I actually can't go anywhere yet.
Convenient new addition: the Chocobo can now cross any water you can cross with the canoe! This is surprisingly helpful.
Gotta admit I wasn't expecting the Bard to hit that hard. Quaver's basic attack is basically a magic attack that hits harder than a Fire or Blizzard from Rushanaq, which for a support character ain't half-bad.
So, Goldor Manor, where lives the rich asshole who impounded my boat, is locked off by a bottomless bog. The path through the mountains up north is locked off by Numenorean statues that strike me down the moment I try crossing them. Both of these don't actually kill the party, but do result in being turned around and waking up before the obstacle.
Turns out when the NPCs were saying "hey Goldor impounded your ship, maybe go and confront him first thing," they meant it. It's gating any further progress. Which incidentally also means I can't find any other town to purchase gear at, so I equip Mimi (Dragoon) with two Thunder Spears, the only spears available for purchase at this time, and Rushanaq has to drop her fancy new Evoker class and go back to Black Mage. Isn't it sad, Rushanaq?
No matter, though. If the game wants me to tackle the plot next, then the plot I will tackle. First order of business: in order to cross the Bottomless Bog, I need 'Levigrass Shoes,' which I can only assume are like, enchanted shoes that allow you to cross the surface of the the swamp without sinking into it.
She… lives… in the sewers?
Sure, okay. Find crazy lady, steal magic shoes, got it. This is the Wizard of Oz now. Elfaba, here I come.
In case you're wondering why Mimi is a Knight in those screenshots, it's because I fully visited the town before heading out on my first venture with my new jobs, but I rearranged the order of events slightly for the clarity of narrative.
They seem to be taking this well.
But as I am talking to the local townsfolk to get a better handle on the next step of my journey…
What in God's name.
So there's a quatuor of old geezers who've decided they're the legendary warriors of light, and who appear anywhere in a daisy-chain set to peppy music before leaving, during which everyone on the scene just stares dumbstruck. Incredible.
Well, pretending that didn't happen and swiftly moving on, we learn that some other old dude is the keeper of the sewer gates and head to his house.
Okay, the emphasis on 'YOU four' makes it clear that the proto-Manderville quartet showed up before we did… and presumably got denied entrance to the sewers on account of clearly being a bunch of jobbers. Assuming they even knew where to go in the first place! Which I would doubt, except…
THEY'RE IN THE WALLS
This is obviously meant to be them eavesdropping from the outside of the house, probably listening from an open window or something, but in terms of presentation these guys showing up in THE DARK VOID BEYOND THE SCREEN WORLD is extremely funny. Like, I think that's the first time in the series that something has directly interacted with/existed within the Screen Void, and trust me, when it showed up it sent me for a loop.
Anyway, old man Gill offers to lead the way to the sewers which he will open for us, and the party follows automatically after him (which is good, because the actual location of the sewer entrance is non-obvious).
This is the point where I changed my job set then went and did some exploring outside the town, then left for faraway lands before getting back to the sewers.
These sewers feel more distinctive than FFII's Bafsk Sewers; not by a huge margin, but the floor and walls are clearly from different materials, there are grates and visible water flow, this is neat.
I like the implication that in the FFIIIverse, 'ligers' aren't just big cats with some messed up growth hormones that get very big; in this world, when a tiger and a lion fuck, the result is a giant cat with two heads, one lion, one tiger. Rock on.
A random selection of enemies. The giant toads and creepy spiders are par for the course, the fucked up lion-tigers less so.
Sewer levels. They're a video game staple, aren't they? Not just a JRPG or RPG staple, just a staple of video games in general. We didn't have one in FFI, but they showed up as early as II, leaving me to wonder how common they already were at the time. What was the first sewer level in all of video game? I guess it would have to be a Mario game, what with the pipes and the plumber protagonist?
Monsters make an oddly intuitive level of sense in a video game sewer. We've already established that monsters are either a natural feature of the world, or have cropped up everywhere following some spooky disaster, as in the FF games. Sewers, being dark, unpleasant places where humans are uncomfortable treading but where one might find food, would naturally draw beasts of the creepier and crawlier kind. But this in turn presents an interesting issue to our world - so far, monsters have largely existed in the wilds beyond civilization, or in dungeons long abandoned by people. Cities, with their walls, guards and magic, are safe - for now. But monsters in the sewers betray the first intrusion of the hostile outside into vital human infrastructure. The people of Amur locked the sewers to keep the town safe from monsters - but in so doing, they essentially gave them up. Waste disposal, water filtration, these things will soon be gone as maintenance becomes impossible and the monsters run rampant. If anyone were to venture down there, they would likely be eaten alive. Whether it's taking over the sewers or raiding farms or burning crops, monsters put pressure on humanity to withdraw into their walls and to lesser forms of development and technology. But this does present the interesting notion of a corps of monster-slaying sewer workers, fully trained to venture down into the watery tunnels and dispose of the giant spiders and poisonous toads that have made it their home. I wonder if this is something Amur would develop in time.
Probably not with the 'warriors of light,' though.
So, our four would-be heroes ventured deep into the sewers, and got cornered by a bunch of monsters. Now they're in need of saving. Okay. So far so standard. I'm going to head in and kill the foes and rescue them. Now, though, we've seen a bunch of what the sewers have to offer. Its monsters hit pretty hard - those Twin Ligers could take between 100 and 200 HP a pop off my characters, so healing is frequent to avoid attrition (thankfully, with White Mage job lv 50+, Tsugumi has about 25 Cure casts). The sewers are a dangerous place, even for us.
So what would be the funniest possible encounter to put there?
Eight completely ordinary, un-upgraded goblins who collapse the instant I cast a multispell targeting them all at once.
That's what got our self-proclaimed warriors of legend pinned down and hopeless until we arrived.
This is just plain funny. And, honestly, I can't even be mad at them: it's pretty clear they meant well and just had a, hm, distorted sense of the scope of the threats faced by the WoLs. And, once they see the real WoLs in action, they're quick to accept reality with humility and good humour.
They're like a way less irritating version of Zote the Mighty. I like them.
There's a bit more traipsing through the dungeon to get through, and then…
This doesn't look suspicious at all.
Oh this is neat.
I was 100% expecting some kind of boss fight with Crazed Witch Delilah or whatnot, but what happens is more interesting, and funnier. Delilah's, cantankerous distrustful old sewer-hermit that she is, tosses us a pair of trapped shoes. The Quartet arrives just in time to tell the group to watch out, they back down, and the shoes explode, then one of the Quartet members says that they saw the real shoes before and could tell it was a trap, before interceding in our favor:
So what we have here is an averted boss fight. There's a character who has something we want, but who doesn't believe we are what we claim, and is ready to trap/attack us out of mistrust for our nature/intentions… But then a bunch of character we met earlier, whom we rescue and to whom we were kind and helpful, avert the crisis. The Quartet are primarily comic relief, being a bunch of harmless, slightly kooky old-timers who couldn't defeat a pack of goblins… but they're also of an age with Delilah and know her personally, and she herself is clearly something of an eccentric who doesn't mind their own weirdness, so when they vouch for her, she takes them at their word and helps us immediately.
Once again, the Warriors of Light are rewarded for treating everyone with kindness and respect.
The Quartet teleport everyone outside (using an 'ottershroom', which replicates the effects of the Teleport spell, once again providing further evidence that in this game getting high is the key to incredible magic power), and with the Levigrass Shoes in hand, it's time to head to the DMV and get our boat license renewed.
Split for length!
Last edited:
Final Fantasy III, Part 8, Part B
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I like these guys. They're fun.
Goldor Manor.
One of the townsfolk NPCs warned us that Goldor Manor was made entirely out of gold. I didn't know how seriously to take that; turns out, I should not have doubted.
I don't quite know who Goldor is, where he's from, or what he's about, but considering his status and activity I assume he is some kind of local potentate - not a king or a lord, seeing as people don't really treat him with the respect they usually do their kings in FF games so far, but perhaps some kind of robber baron, ruthlessly asserting his rules over the lands around his manor and exploiting as much wealth as he wants, seemingly with no other goal in mind than hoarding it and living within it. Everything in Goldor Manor is made of gold, and you have to understand, when I say 'everything,' I don't just mean the furniture:
Everything.
Dude has gold-plated monsters. Or, like, monsters made out of gold? Automata? Animated statues? Golems of some kind? It's unclear, but here's what I choose to believe:
Goldor is so obsessed with gold, he has a whole personal outfit of wrestler hunks that are mandated to fight half-naked while oiled up in gold dust-speckled oil, which he then sends out into the wilds to capture some poor animals like bears and giant eagles, which he then has coated with gold dye and included in his personal menagerie. This is the highest canon.
Also he is so obsessed with gold that some of his hoard has taken a life of its own and started roaming the corridors.
Gold.
Goldor Manor is a short dungeon with only one, simple gimmick. As you can see in the first screenshot's minimap, its first floor contains four sub-buildings and one stairway at the back end. Following the backend stairs leads you to this room:
Which is basically just a narrow corridor running around the width of the 'proper' room leading onward. Going all the way around it leads you to a huge number of treasure chests, all but one are filled with…
…Golden Swords, which are absolutely garbage-tier stat-wise and serve only to be sold to vendors. There are eleven of them in total, and they sell individually for a massive (at least at this stage of the game) 2,500 gil, meaning this is actually a huge treasure hoard I just found. It is just extremely funny that I found it in the form of a bunch of absolute trash swords thanks to the place being owned by a very funny man who is completely obsessed with gold.
This is interesting, because in prior games gold equipment was quite valuable - it compromised several mid-to-high tier armors that had lightning resistance, and powerful weapons that could be used to cast lightning spells. Golden swords are perfectly standard fantasy fare, which is why it's amusing to see this game shift towards a more realistic 'golden swords would be very pretty and expensive but absolutely worthless in a fight.'
The last item in the last chest on the right are the Wyvern Claws, which appear to be a powerful Black Belt item, but I do not currently have a Black Belt in my team, so.
Going back down, we still have that first floor and these first sub-buildings. Each one has a door. Now, here's where the game plays a funny joke:
All four doors are locked.
Now, there's an obvious solution to this: as we've established, the locksmith in Gysahl sells Magic Keys. Except, of course, our ship is still impounded, so we can't get back to the Floating Continent. So what's the solution, then?
Hey, remember how the Pixel Remaster made it so there are no penalties for switching jobs?
Yeah, I can just respec Quaver from Bard to Thief for literally five seconds, unlock a door, spec him back to Bard and step through.
Three out of four of these doors turn out to lead to empty rooms, and one of them leads to the next floor, where…
…I start getting low enough on HP and magic (Rushanaq and Quaver both died once) that I decide we've done enough for now and teleport the whole group out.
We head back to Amur, where we rest and resupply (some of the enemies have Blind spells, so we stock up on Eyedrops, as well as Phoenix Down for safety's sake; Tsugumi doesn't have access to Life yet). Then we head back in.
First bad surprise on coming back: the doors reset when you leave the Manor, and have to be opened by a Thief again. Which wouldn't be a problem… unless you're too confident and hasty in your job-switches, and end up accidentally doing something like this:
I went through the menu too quickly. Instead of swapping Quaver back from Thief into Bard, I switched Tsugumi to Bard. This is a problem because, if you switch a character with spell slots (like Tsugumi) to a job with none (Bard), then their spell slots adjust to the lower level… and don't come back when you swap them back to White Mage. Which means, with this one accidental manipulation, I have erased all of Tsugumi's spells for this run.
Meaning I get to run away as fast as I can all the way back to Amur again, before coming back to Goldor Manor again, where at long last, finally, I make my way to the final floor.
This is extremely suspicious, by the way. It has been stated repeatedly that the Earth Crystal was sealed under the earth in an earthquake. I am 100% not buying that this dude just happens to have it stored in his treasured vault, unprotected by some manner of evil fiend serving 'Xande' or 'the darkness,' whoever they are.
Okay.
Here's the deal.
If you've paid attention so far, you may remember that the Amur townsfolk warn us that Goldor is exceptionally strong, and in particular, that strength manifests itself in his immunity to magic. There, the clever move would be to start Goldor Manor with a physical-oriented party, grinding your first few job levels to ensure minimum competency among your party, then kick Goldor's door in and bash his face in.
However, let's say, hypothetically, you went to visit a friend in Poland for about a week (lovely place, great museums, great company, good restaurants, had a lovely time), fail to re-read your past updates to refresh your memory, and instead just YOLO yourself into the Goldor fight with your current party.
Then, hypothetically, your party would be composed of a physical attacker (Mimi, a Dragoon), a magical attacker (Rushanaq, a Black Mage), a healer with one attack spell (Tsugumi, a White Mage), and a support character whose basic weapon attack deals magic damage (Quaver, a Bard).
In this scenario, hypothetically, there would only be one member of your entire party that can even scratch the paint on Goldor's armor.
That was my most powerful offensive spell.
NO PROBLEM. MIMI SMASH! MIMI STRONGEST THERE IS.
Okay, okay, so - actually Rushanaq and Tsugumi can contribute somewhat. Rushanaq actually deals more damage with her stabbitty knives than she does with her spells, which even if it's only about 100 damage is still something. Quaver just reached Bard job lv 10, meaning he unlocked Minuet, a song which boosts the entire party's Strength and Intelligence, which means Mimi and Rushanaq get a slight damage boost, and is otherwise on Paean duty casting low-level heals on the party. Tsugumi, obviously, is still valuable as a White Mage to heal any damage.
Goldor is a powerful lightning-focused opponent, capable of casting Thundara (which takes out half of any party member's HP) or Thundaga (which has the potential to kill any given character). He can also attack for some hefty damage or cast Confuse, which causes a member to turn around and harm themselves, but has a high miss chance.
It's not an easy fight, and it takes a while, but ultimately Tsugumi and Quaver's combined healing power and Mimi's Jump attacks wear through Goldor's HP before he can burn through our resources, and the evil is defeated.
Okay, but, before we move on with the story, just one moment.
This fight was scuffed as hell because it was improperly strategized. I had the info I needed to prepare for Goldor, but I forgot it due to the tyranny of linear time, but if I reload to just before, how can I fare with a better party?
Let's say…
Dragoon for offense power, Knight for defense, Monk for more damage, Quaver for a buff and healing items. Easy, right?
This is actually a nice look at the extent to which Job Levels actually matter. As has been mentioned in the thread before, job levels, at least in Pixel Remaster, aren't gameplay-defining. A new job isn't worthless just because it's jblv 1, and grinding isn't mandatory, at least so far. However, going in against Goldor completely green, not even taking the time to grind the levels you'd get from doing the level normally with this party, with everyone at jblv 1, is kind of a stress test, you know? Kind of pushing things as far as they'll go. And…
Yeah.
I win this fight. I actually do win it - switching to a nearly fully-physical party (even being a dumbass and keeping Quaver as a Bard to use healing items instead of just keeping Tsugumi as WHM and swapping Quaver to a physical class), even with no leveling at all, is enough to get around Goldor's main strength and defeat him.
But wow it's rough. Rushanaq, as a Knight, is dealing only a little more damage than she did as a BLM (although she gets Blood Sword healing and higher defenses, so she's still doing better). Tsugumi as a Monk can use Focus to increase her next attack's damage. Between the lot of them, the group can dish out some hurt… But not all that much, and without the overlapping support of White Mage and Quaver keeping everyone healed and Mimi attacking. This party, ultimately, does worse than my 'wrong' mostly-magic party.
But that's at job level 1. I think it would be as easy as grinding some job levels and buying more job-appropriate gear to make this group outperform my initial party.
At the same time… Eh. I won. What more can you ask for?
For some people to not be SORE FUCKING LOSERS, MAYBE?!?
Goddammit.
Yeah, I am absolutely not buying that this petty lordling managed to shatter one of the four pillars of reality like this. Whatever is going on here, this is extremely sus. Unfortunately we don't get an explanation out of Goldor - the heroes merely shout out in shock and horror, Goldor gloats that the crystal will never ours, and then he fucking dies.
One of the pettiest villains in the franchise so far, I gotta say.
Yeah, Unnamed Warrior of Light, I'm wondering the same thing.
But I think that's enough for today. This was a bit scattershot as I am still fresh off that trip and working half off stuff I remember from a week ago, but we made some progress. Next time, I'm thinking we take the airship, and finally take a proper look as this brave new world we've uncovered.
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
Bards were apparently infamously useless in the original versions but are not here. With their basic attacks in particular the gimmick appears to be that they natively have shockingly strong base damage but absolute dogshit for accuracy - I'm talking a mid-50% on Quaver with a high job level and the best harp compared to the average of like 80-90% on anyone else - so their basic attack is highly unreliable but can potentially whip ass.
Note that they don't explain this right away. How it happens in the game is that the Geezers of Light say they'll take you out of the sewers, and then one just turns to camera and appears to cast Teleport. In the few seconds between that and interacting with one of them in town to learn that it was in-universe just an ottershroom, I felt my entire sense of reality crumble.
However it's perfectly viable to simply use a Thief for the entire run. Both because a Thief is still technically a physical attacker and will do decent damage to Goldilocks, but because if you make sure to fully explore Amur and its sewers for every hidden item - like me, who is a psychopath - you find shockingly good gear for that point in the game which you can then use to fully outfit your Thief and practically make them the MVP of the mansion run. I believe there's four hidden chests behind cracked walls in the sewers that contain two high-tier daggers and then if you make use of the waterways and climb up the waterfall you can get to an island up in the nothern side of town which has a hood, chestpiece and gloves all perfect for a Thief sitting right next to each other as hidden item tiles.
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
In case you missed it, Delilah's dialogue is a reference to Delilah by Tom Jones.
> Be Goldor
> Be immune to magic
> Oppress the citizenry
> Buy gold armor
> Buy gold swords you won't even use
> Buy gold mansion
> Hire Gold Dudes to fetch you Gold Animals
> Impound all aircraft
> Lose fistfight to four children over a rock
> Break rock
> Refuse to Elaborate
> Die
> Be immune to magic
> Oppress the citizenry
> Buy gold armor
> Buy gold swords you won't even use
> Buy gold mansion
> Hire Gold Dudes to fetch you Gold Animals
> Impound all aircraft
> Lose fistfight to four children over a rock
> Break rock
> Refuse to Elaborate
> Die
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Why this man hasn't been a recurring boss in FF like the Four Fiends, the Magus Sisters, Gilgamesh, or Ultros I'll never understand
- Location
- Spain
I am rather surprised and disappointed than you didn't delete Rushanaq spells instead.
We have a theme going here, stick to it.
Oh, back to normal. Good.
Last edited:
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's absolutely fucking disgraceful. Legitimately disgusting how he treats her like this and people cheer him on. Absolutely shameful.
- Location
- Not your place of residence
So, I hope you enjoyed fighting King Midas.
Also, that boss fight REALLY shows the issues that can arise when you need to switch jobs for boss fights and get stat penalties for it, or even if you just have to switch to an underleveled job. Boy I do hope that this issue never arises again in the series.
Definitely not an issue compounded by surprise boss fights with poor save point distribution. Definitely not an issue that makes one of 3 games that came out on the same console have a much worse reputation than the other two.
Also, that boss fight REALLY shows the issues that can arise when you need to switch jobs for boss fights and get stat penalties for it, or even if you just have to switch to an underleveled job. Boy I do hope that this issue never arises again in the series.
Definitely not an issue compounded by surprise boss fights with poor save point distribution. Definitely not an issue that makes one of 3 games that came out on the same console have a much worse reputation than the other two.
Connelly
As useless as a penguin with mittens
- Location
- Salamanca, Spain
Alright, caught up to FF2 now.
Also, shame this version doesn't have dialogue portraits. At least in DoS most named characters had one, and even a few like Hilda get emotional variations.
1 has the WoLs, whatever they might be. 3 has the Orphans (ones actually chosen by a crystal from the start, I mean). 4 has becoming a champion of the world as a form of redemption. 5 has the gang becoming the champions and crystal chosen precisely because they're the ones to investigate things. [skipping crystal-less games here] 9 is a big yarn ball of greek tragedy and Shakespeare vibes about memories so the theme doesn't quite apply. And I've only played the free trial but 14 has Hydalin from the start going "You mah babe, I luv you ok? Bonk the bawdies, hugs and see ya soon!"
The world of 2 is a world where no holy champions rise up, so the people have to do the dirty job because nobody else will.
Your best bet is to choose one or two weapon types for each character to specialize, and ignore everything else, because leveling things in this game can be real time consuming. For example, Guy starts with an axe, and there are really good axes around so it's fine to let him use them if you like. There are also plenty of good swords, so having him and Firion share them (say, you give Guy your best axe and sword to dual wield for Maximum Holy Carnage, while you give Firion your second best sword and a shield to help in both attack and keep himself protected to heal. It's a fairly standard starter way of doing things. As you know now, magic penalty or not bows tend to be a sub-optimal weapon, and any other weapons miss when used from the back row. So what I'd do is give Maria a shield and an unused weapon type, and bring her to the front row. She's going to be the black mage anyway, but this way she's going to actually be able to hit things properly when needed, and build up some hp and avoidance.
Same with spells. Black magic use intelligence, and white magic uses spirit, so it's not a good idea to mix magic schools in a single character, except maybe if you want everyone to have Cura and Esuna for emergencies. If Maria is your caster, then she should go all black, except maybe for Cure, Esuna and Holy. IIRC this is also important late in the game when you get Ultima, because that spell not only scales with its own level, but with the average of all spells the character has and their weapon skills. I personally prefer Firion to be my white mage (white knight?), but I know there are veterans who just have the guest characters be their healers, while they maximize the offensive power of the kids.
But that's just basics for newbies. You can build each character however the frick you want if you know how and it'll probably work, after all.
Incidentally, leveling weapon skills or spells above level 10 is kind of a waste of time because it takes far too much time to do so (except Cure, maybe). You could spend time in leveling up other weapon skills and spell schools with the same character, but by the time you could consider that you're almost at the endgame so, eh.
I remember the DoS version having a very dark and ominous cutscene of the Dreadnought lifting up before the bombing run. Lots of close ups to the hull, weapons and all. Seems like a shame that the PR doesn't have anything like it.
You know, having been an avid Tintin reader as a child, this kind of applies to him...
And if anyone played 9, notice how this part of the game is what the tale that Ramuh tells you talks about, and tries to make you reflect by choosing an end for it.
*quick wiki search* Well fuck me sideways, it was in the NES version. How the hell did I manage to avoid knowing about it?
They tried to allow you to make your player characters to be able to do whatever. And so they had to make sure whatever had to work against anything they threw at you. And that made for "Mechanically Tedius = Yes".
It's a shame, because below the Star Wars copypasta, there are great ideas and experience that benefited the entire series. But can you blame people when they skip this game?
Also, yeah, that dungeon is terrible.
... Git it? Because she has a ship. And is watching. And - *gets crushed by a falling anvil*
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYaWayCSoNc
Also, I find funny to see so many people that kills the Emperor with the Blood Sword. I always forget that I have it, so I get to go the hard way against him.
Damn, that's a nice new sprite for Firion. In older versions he was never shown with his bandana or cape from the artwork.
Minwu: the man, the myth, the legend. Not only he's canonically the only male white mage as such in the series, but the fans apparently love him to bits. A strong full spell selection that guarantees that you won't die when he's with you helps, but him being a bro and being depicted in art as pretty heckin' ripped? The panties just get wet themselves.
IIRC, in the backstory he's supposed to be a wild child before he got adopted along with the others. The funny thing is that it doesn't impair his intellect at all. He's just as able to cast spells as the others, and you can build him as your main black mage if so you choose; it's just easier to make him the big killer tank, building his physical stats and giving him the best gear and weapons to destroy anything with a vaguely hitable corporeal frame (in my last playthrough, he also dabbled into being a healer. His mind stat increase surprised me).
Also, shame this version doesn't have dialogue portraits. At least in DoS most named characters had one, and even a few like Hilda get emotional variations.
Appropriately so, given that the game's plot is so darn bleak. A common complain about people that never finish the game is that things just seem to only go worse, never better. (Hi, final game global genocide state!)
This game is interesting. It still has (probably) a set of four elemental crystals, like 1 and the other crystal FFs. But they're not plot relevant, and the protagonists are not chosen or caught by circumstance, they're just victims of war who decide take up arms. The fourth party slot is occupied by guest characters that for the most part aren't any less or more special than these kids. And all of them end up being the slightly stronger members of a rebellion on the run, but none are considered being as particularly *special*.
1 has the WoLs, whatever they might be. 3 has the Orphans (ones actually chosen by a crystal from the start, I mean). 4 has becoming a champion of the world as a form of redemption. 5 has the gang becoming the champions and crystal chosen precisely because they're the ones to investigate things. [skipping crystal-less games here] 9 is a big yarn ball of greek tragedy and Shakespeare vibes about memories so the theme doesn't quite apply. And I've only played the free trial but 14 has Hydalin from the start going "You mah babe, I luv you ok? Bonk the bawdies, hugs and see ya soon!"
The world of 2 is a world where no holy champions rise up, so the people have to do the dirty job because nobody else will.
As an active dialogue system, which is what is used for, is really awkward (feels more appropiate for an investigation game), but it get kudos for being their first try to do something about it.
Your best bet is to choose one or two weapon types for each character to specialize, and ignore everything else, because leveling things in this game can be real time consuming. For example, Guy starts with an axe, and there are really good axes around so it's fine to let him use them if you like. There are also plenty of good swords, so having him and Firion share them (say, you give Guy your best axe and sword to dual wield for Maximum Holy Carnage, while you give Firion your second best sword and a shield to help in both attack and keep himself protected to heal. It's a fairly standard starter way of doing things. As you know now, magic penalty or not bows tend to be a sub-optimal weapon, and any other weapons miss when used from the back row. So what I'd do is give Maria a shield and an unused weapon type, and bring her to the front row. She's going to be the black mage anyway, but this way she's going to actually be able to hit things properly when needed, and build up some hp and avoidance.
Same with spells. Black magic use intelligence, and white magic uses spirit, so it's not a good idea to mix magic schools in a single character, except maybe if you want everyone to have Cura and Esuna for emergencies. If Maria is your caster, then she should go all black, except maybe for Cure, Esuna and Holy. IIRC this is also important late in the game when you get Ultima, because that spell not only scales with its own level, but with the average of all spells the character has and their weapon skills. I personally prefer Firion to be my white mage (white knight?), but I know there are veterans who just have the guest characters be their healers, while they maximize the offensive power of the kids.
But that's just basics for newbies. You can build each character however the frick you want if you know how and it'll probably work, after all.
Incidentally, leveling weapon skills or spells above level 10 is kind of a waste of time because it takes far too much time to do so (except Cure, maybe). You could spend time in leveling up other weapon skills and spell schools with the same character, but by the time you could consider that you're almost at the endgame so, eh.
I think most people actually favor avoidance instead of brute HP for the purpose of incoming damage, but I like building it up after rising a decent bit your vitality (which determines your hp gains). My last playthrough was funny because I didn't intend it that way, but Maria ended up gaining double the HP that Guy got. Guess who survived certain nukes and who didn't. Girl was swole, mang. :_D
On the upside, if you know how to manage these encounters, you can improve your power leveling for a lot. You can train your Fire/Blizz/Thunder spells in the goblins until they're not pathetic, then start blasting rhinos and ogres for some nice loot. And you can get mithril maces in that area before shops start selling them.
Yup. Again, driving home the point that these are just random kids against a real military force augmented by HELL, not chosen champions or minimally trained fighters.
The problem is that Minwu doesn't really need any grinding, he's ready made to help you get to the next point in the game with little difficulty even with an untrained party. But people train them, and he ends up becoming an ubermench.
He really wants you to look at those abs.
A bigger shame in DoS. You can meet and talk with Leon before the revelation happens properly or the characters start talking about it. But he gets a dialogue portrait when he's still only the "dark knight", and... it's just his normal Leon portrait, but darker. Like, bitch, put a helmet on him or something.
Things like this have prompted a fair number of people to think that there's a degree of the Empire using mind control.
I remember the DoS version having a very dark and ominous cutscene of the Dreadnought lifting up before the bombing run. Lots of close ups to the hull, weapons and all. Seems like a shame that the PR doesn't have anything like it.
*Flamenco de Chocobo intensifies*
You could have found Mysidia though, and stocked up in high level spells and some good gear. Getting back to the rebel hideout would have been a pain though.
You know, having been an avid Tintin reader as a child, this kind of applies to him...
He's a wild child in the (scarce) backstory, so, probably!
Dunno if you realized, but that new girl in the house? She was outside simping for Josef. Once he dies, she moves in to take care of his daughter. Heartwarming stuff.
And if anyone played 9, notice how this part of the game is what the tale that Ramuh tells you talks about, and tries to make you reflect by choosing an end for it.
They just happen to have some seriously cracked need for voyeurs.
IIRC, if you go back to Hilda with Gordon in your party before getting the sunfire and raise the subject, she tears him a new one precisely because of this. :_D
Gordon is actually curious, because if you look his main stats they are actually really, really good compared to the kids if you didn't distract yourself in a run with grinding. Like he's top tier material. He just has pitiful HP at that point in the game, which is what makes people give him a quick look and decide he's crap.
DoS shows the Dreadnought using a crane.
*Battle at the Big Bridge starts playing far away*
I mean, to be fair FF2 dragoons are not that different from these. Lack of rifles aside, they just ride dragons instead of horses. The jumping came in later games.
Surprisingly for a femme Han Solo expy, yes.
It's always amusing to realize that the horniness has always been part of the series' DNA.
I'd swear this comes from the older version.
Wait, is this a PR addition? I don't remember this in either the NES or the DoS versions.
*quick wiki search* Well fuck me sideways, it was in the NES version. How the hell did I manage to avoid knowing about it?
In other words:
They tried to allow you to make your player characters to be able to do whatever. And so they had to make sure whatever had to work against anything they threw at you. And that made for "Mechanically Tedius = Yes".
It's a shame, because below the Star Wars copypasta, there are great ideas and experience that benefited the entire series. But can you blame people when they skip this game?
They clearly wanted a wall for those who haven't gotten the masks yet. But, like, refusing entry from the start would have been simple, and... yeah. What. I got nothin'.
Also, yeah, that dungeon is terrible.
Who knows, man. It's one of the more weirdly handled things in the plot.
Seven hells. Did they nerf him for PR? I remember him kicking some ass in DoS.
This just in: Tirion and Co confirmed as a nuclear terrorist group.
I was expecting a kamehameha reference but this entire paragraph is amazing.
I like to think those are the elemental crystals of this game, they saw you keep on keeping on your adventure and said "hey, they're not WoLs but let's give them a hand".The four lesser crystals around the central one are all also interactable and provide raw stat boosts, which is pretty sick:
Interestingly, they're themed after the four classical elements, not the three spell elements, and each one grants a +10 increase in one of Strength, Agility, Spirit and Intellect to… I think all members of the party? That is an amazing boost.
You know, I want to be able to crack a joke at your expense. But I can't. I did the same thing in my first play. Welcome to the club, here you have your card.
Again, the DoS makes it more ominous. The cyclone turns into a storm black as night, and you find a fucking evil tower of evilness flying inside it.
One of the theories is that he had this as his nuclear option. He just had the Dreadnought commisioned because it'd be a better terror weapon, and safe enough against rebel action. Until Firion and Co proved him wrong.
Emperor Bowie is indeed the fan nickname.
She's the shipper on watch.
... Git it? Because she has a ship. And is watching. And - *gets crushed by a falling anvil*
Heretics, all of you. It was thematically appropriate and this is a hill I'm ready to die on.
This is a fascinating amount of bullshit you're getting out of what's effectively a slightly more plot-ier than the average 8bit era game, gotta say, and I love it.
One theory that floats around is that the attack on Fynn and the intro fight traumatized him, and this type of pseudo Nietzschean bullshit is just his way to cope. I don't know how much stock I'd put on it, but at the same time I seriously doubt there's much mind control involved.
Considering that you find these Princes of Hell in a chest, my mind goes to this:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYaWayCSoNc
[Insert Megamind "Presentation!" Meme Here]
Also, I find funny to see so many people that kills the Emperor with the Blood Sword. I always forget that I have it, so I get to go the hard way against him.
Look, we really don't go to Ravenholm, ok?
Yeah, the swamp and statues? those were game overs in previous versions of the games. Oh, and here is a nasty fact; before the Pixel Remastered version, you were unable to buy Phoenix Downs. Ever. You could only find them in chests and enemy drops, so you needed to use them very wisely.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
"Healing is for people who don't know how to tank properly," Mimi shouts, activating all her mitigations at once and running away with the stack marker, dying instantly
Oh, yeah, I meant to say that - Quaver's damage is swingy as fuck. On one hit, he deals like ~50 damage, weaker than Tsugumi's rod attack, and on 5 hits he hits for 300+, which until the Dragoon swap tied with the actual physical damage class. Bard is fairly effective and ironically it's the healing song that's just kind of weaksauce for this level, and I'm not sure if it'll ever get better.
God, yeah. I didn't put this in the review because I ran out of space and couldn't remember every detail but the bit where the old due says "I'll teleport us out" and then the spell effect happens had me staring at my screen in disbelief.
I can't believe I missed so much stuff I thought I was good at exploring ;_;
Okay, so, I know the song, but I don't get the reference. I don't think this Delilah cheated on me, and due to the absence of a boss fight I did not in fact stab her to death. Maybe I am too literally-minded for it? Or-
...
My, my, my, Delilah
Why, why, why, Delilah
Apparently the DS version uses a different English localization which includes the delightful line of Delilah calling the WoLs 'turnip-squeezing bashi-bouzouks,' but that's got nothing on this particular delayed hit.
Yeah! I absolutely agree.
Sadly, a quick look at the wiki tells me that FF3 is the only game with a Delilah character, and while a few item or lore references exist in latter games, FF1 was the only one with an old witch NPC named Matoya until FFXIV. But perhaps this reunion will come in future expansions...
I'm sorry, I'm probably too mean. Rushanaq is a dignified and noble lady who deserves only respect and care.
Let's just check on her, and see how not-bulliable she looks:
...nevermind, she looks like Mimi spends her time pulling on her hair drills and the only defense Rush-K can muster is squealing "kyaaaa!" in a high-pitched anime voice.
It's an interesting encounter design, and on that makes me very, very glad for the remasters' quicksave feature.
lol. lmao, even. rofl, if you will.
I MISSED THOSE ON PURPOSE I AM VERY ATTENTIVE TO MY ENVIRONMENT AND DEFINITELY EXPLORED EVERYTHING AND SIMPLY DECIDED I DIDN'T NEED ALL THE COOL GEAR MOM
I quite appreciate these commentary posts and find them enjoyable, thank you for your contribution.
Pretty sure in the Pixel remaster the healing is pretty tightly tied with job level, and does get to be pretty substantial if you max it out.
Speaking has the kind of absolute madman that maxed out all jobs on all four characters Bard healing does get pretty good at high levels. Not equal to [End game job] and [Even more end game job] but those two use MP and Bards just do it for free.
Connelly
As useless as a penguin with mittens
- Location
- Salamanca, Spain
Thank you for the nice read, and I have a lot less to joke about with 3 so don't worry, I won't contribute much more to the thread's cringe rating from now on. :_D
Also, if you're finding the fights and job system here interesting, wait until you get to 5. You're gonna love that.
A jerk of a dev: "We force them to crash, and then we have them downgrade to a normal boat, just to keep them on their toes.
"Sakaguchi: "I told you to leave your cockblocking kink at home."
*laughs in shared pain and old traumas of betrayal*C'mon, Desch, don't be a bitch, I'm sure it'll be fine-
I'm sorry what the fuck.
"But then we turn the boat into an airship."
*glares*
"And when they fly off the map, we open to a world ten times the size of the first!"
"Hmr, Dragon Quest did that alread-"
"But it's almost empty, and we fill it out after a dungeon!"
"... You're promoted."
Jump, after all, is interesting as a tactic and a strong damage skill, but there's not... a lot of meat to it besides "1st turn avoid damage, 2nd you do extra". There are synergies with other skills (crack pot cheese in FF5, ho!), but for the most part those tactics are situational.
I remember Freya in 9 being the most interesting named dragoon, toolbox wise. Trance improves her jump (it becomes multitarget with x4 damage, I think?), which could also be changed a bit with some skills, and she can learn "dragon" skills that have her double as a red mage. Those spells didn't follow a particular theme (a mp drain, a party regen, and a party MP on one hand, a battlefield wide berserk and an HP/MP reduction/restore lottery on the other, a potentially 9999 damage hit that needs you to grind dragons on a tentacle...), but they allowed her to do more than just damage if you needed her to, and they were considered skills, not magic, so it made her perfect for the Split The Party Episode.
Honestly, I know very little about what's after the free trial content, but seeing the great job they did with Ultima Weapon, the Warring Triad and the introduction to Omega and Shinryu, it makes me very curious about how they'd tackle the Four Fiends.
... Wait. Hol up. I have a hunch about who we dealing with.
dinomannitro6
all your gender is belong to us
- Location
- The Land Where The Sunflowers Bloom
This is very neat thread, I've never really experienced much Final Fantasy myself (except for some FF XIV) so its neat to see what they're like. Not to mention your great writing.
...I really need to go back and play some more XIV its been like a whole year.
...I really need to go back and play some more XIV its been like a whole year.
Out of curiosity, could we see what the other namesakes look like?
IDK about IV.
V allows you to name one of the main characters, the rest have predetermined names.
VI allows you to name all party-OK characters (though, given that they all have predetermined personalities and plot roles, IDK if it was a good idea, honestly, I think it's better to just leave their names on default unless you're going for a joke).
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Most of the FFs allow you to rename your party, but there's never another blank-slate lineup like 1/3.
Mister Bad Guy
Mr Mercury to friends
- Location
- Bay Area
Fun fact, by the way: the moment you get to name a character is also triggering an important flag in the game that causes it to load in their data to the proper slot. Many characters in the game share slots, so if you can somehow sequence break the game to the point where it thinks a certain character should be in your party but you haven't named them yet, then it instead loads the last character to occupy that slot, which is usually one of that gang of Moogles you control at one point.
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
FFIV's characters can be renamed, but not at the start, and only by talking to a certain NPC. This applies for the original FFIV and the Pixel Remaster, but not for the 3D remake, because that one is voiced, so characters cannot be renamed there.
As mentioned, FFI to FFIII are the only games where you're presented with four "input name" fields at the start of the game and get to name your characters then and there. In FFIV to FFIX, you can rename party member characters when you encounter them, but they all have predefined personalities. In FFX, you can name the main character, but not anyone else (well, you can name the summons), and it's amusing to see the voice acting try mightily to avoid saying the main character's name. FFXI is a MMORPG. I don't think you can name anyone in FFXII and FFXIII. FFXIV is the next MMORPG. I've not played FFXV, but I'd be very surprised if you could name anyone there either.