Final Fantasy III, Part 10, Part A
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Last time on Final Fantasy, we defeated Garuda and freed the kingdom of Saronia from his evil clutches, sady losing King Saronia's life in the process.
Sadly, we will fail to seize this opportunity to end the monarchy for good and establish a free democracy of the people, by the people, and for the people, and instead perpetuate the old regime under which some are exalted above others by virtue of their bloodline. I suppose I can't fault the Warriors of Light for their lack of revolutionary fervor, though - they are but children, not yet hardened to the necessity of sometimes putting your own friends to the guillotine for the sake of a better tomorrow. And so Prince Alus inherits the throne.
Counter-revolutionary dogs.
FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT SHOULD BE A UNIVERSAL RIGHT HELD BY DEFAULT BY ALL HUMAN BEINGS, NOT A PRIVILEGE FOR YOU TO GRANT AT YOUR WHIM, TYRANT, BORDERS ARE A LIE MADE UP TO DIVIDE THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN COMMUNITY SO THAT IT CAN BETTER BE RULED BY YOUR KIND
Further hints on where to go next are provided by the court bards:
Note how the lights dim every time they sing, that's neat.
But first, we've got some sightseeing to do - now that peace has returned to Saronia, a lot of places that were closed are open.
New spells, finally bringing in some defensive buffs and the ability to raise KO'd PCs.
This secret treasure place is full of Rusty Mail, which seems like a joke. I'm not sure they have any purpose.
Ah-ah. We're seeing another instance of the game iterating on something introduced by FF2 but this time bigger and bolder: there's a great library containing plot-relevant lore. But this time the library isn't "literally one bookshelf in one empty house in Mysidia," it's, like, a massive building. Although the inside only occupies a single room still.
This is so fascinating.
It's the same thing Lufenia had going on in FF1, but reversed. Instead of showing scifi concepts but talking about them in fantasy terms, the game is showing fantasy concepts, but talking about them in a scifi lexicon. The Tower of Owen is a 'reactor,' the Floating Continent an 'experiment,' Desch's stasis 'cryogenic sleep,' and the Wheel of Time is an engine powered by antimatter. The world we go through is styled in a medieval fashion, with swords and spears, kings and castle, and ancient magic - but the Ancient themselves, when we finally find their records, talk about things in a very blunt, scientific way, stripped of any mysticism.
I'm not clear on what the purpose of keeping the Floating Continent in the air was, but it was certainly important to the Ancients.
The library contains some additional information - about a place where I should go if I want to learn how to wield the 'dark blade,' about airships (written in a way that doesn't quite fit with the actual game), and about how I need the 'four fangs' (of which I have two) if I want to pass through the statues guarding that valley in the north. With that information in mind, I head back out into the Saronian continent!
There's just one problem.
The soldiers blew up my airship. I don't have one anymore.
Luckily they have a chocobo pool.
After some running around on chocobo back exploring the continent and looking for my next destination and mostly coming up empty (the continent isn't connected to much of the map by a land passage so I can't go back to Amur or other places), I find this intriguing cave:
'Cool,' I think, 'spooky old ruin, let's explore,' and then I run into the local wildlife.
These hideous things nearly hand me my ass for lunch. They hit hard, they have a lot of HP, but that's not the real problem. The real problem is this:
They have a move called 'Divide' that makes more of themselves. Oh, and bonus points?
Tsugumi isn't actually high level enough to use those fancy new spells I just bought her.
This single random encounter is quickly turning into a fiasco, and I decide to Flee. I just push a little further into the cave to have an idea what I'm here for before leaving, and it turns out…
…I needn't have bothered, I can't come through anyway.
I do like this bit, though. The fact that there is an archeological expedition to explore these ruins show a world that's actively engaged with its own universe, people who are interested in the mysteries of their own setting, who have agency in uncovering it. We're a long way from "I will rebuild the bridge that is the only way out of our kingdom if you do a favor for me." And it's neat that, when presented with a situation in which a bunch of learned people are investigating things… the game uses the Scholar job sprite. Because these people are, in fact, scholars. The job doesn't exist purely as a mechanical conceit, it has reality within its own narrative. FF3's world has an internal logic that helps make it feel living and breathing.
But.
That means I still have no idea where to go next.
After some more puttering about on my chocobo failing to make any progress, I decide that there's no way the game would take away my airship without providing me another one a second time, and I head back to Saronia where I discover that I, in fact, completely missed two huge towers in the castle that contain the people I need to talk to in order to advance the plot.
Embarrassing.
Now there's some lore. We finally know who 'Xande' is. Noah - if you'll recall, the ancient mage who sealed Bahamut and Leviathan on the Floating Continent, had three disciples. For reasons unknown, one of them, Xande, turned to evil, and now we need to brave the winds of Dalg (a southern island which I previously attempt to explore only for strong air currents to turn my ship around) to find one of the others and recruit their help against the rogue Ancient wizard.
Straightforward enough. It means this Nautilus ship is going to be necessary for the next step of our journey, and we unlock it in the next room over:
Nice.
Although it's weird that the 'Nautilus' is an airship. Especially considering it's, huh, kind of submarine-shaped. Or… no, I think it's shaped more like a dirigible with a rotor on top to move it faster. Am I flying a blimp? I dig the Jules Verne reference, though.
It's actually interesting from a design perspective, though. As we've previously established, airships are current technology in this setting, people know how to build them and there are several in circulation… But this airship is different, it's been retrieved from a ruin, and accordingly it follows a different design from the others. Cid's airships were clearly based on the 'sailship with rotors instead of sails' model it shared with FF1 and FF2, but this airship is noticeably different. I actually wonder if the rotor isn't a Saronian addition as part of refurbishing the old thing - with the original model being purely a lighter-than-air design.
Anyway, with the airship in hand, we can explore the southern continent of Dalg. Where I am taken by surprise by something I did not expect…
Airborne random encounters. Which seem to only happen in Dalg, not the rest of the world. I like the way this battle screen is split in two, with the flying monsters appearing from the sky, and the party facing their assault on the ship's deck. Of course, this means that all these monsters are flying, which means they take extra damage from Mimi's Jump skill, which means this is mostly a game in trying to see how high I can get the damage number to go. At one point I think I manage to land a 6,000 damage attack, truly insane stuff.
And at the heart of Dalg…
Oh, spooky magical mansion in the heart of an unpopulated continent, home of an ancient mage, very good, very…
What?
Oh my god.
Is-
Is this truly how moogles, one of the FF franchise's most iconic staples, are introduced for the first time
I walk into some old wizard's house and I am instantly beset by a bunch of moogle mall cops trying to citizen's arrest me??? There is no explanation for what they are I just walk in and a bunch of FURRY MUPPETS, of goddamned TEDDY BEARS WITH BAT WINGS jump me for forgetting to knock on the door
Thankfully Doga quickly realizes his mistake:
It's interesting that the power of the crystals is visible to people with the right senses. Aria, Doga, I think a couple others - people who are spiritually sensitive take one look at the WoLs and can instantly tell that they've been imbued with the power of the Light. They can sense our power level. Now recognizing us for who we are and not mere trespassers, Doga is willing to share his knowledge with us.
Which includes Xande's reason for doing what he does.
Which just may be the most hilarious villainous motivation I have seen in a Final Fantasy game to date. I absolutely love, it's completely cracked.
That's it. That's the motivation.
Noah saw that he was going to kick the bucket, gifted Doga with PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER, Unei with stewardship over an entire plane of existence, and then he looked at Xande and went
"And for you, my beloved disciple, the greatest gift of all"
"You will McFucking Die"
He just
He just gave his disciple an expiration date without his consent
As a gift
I'm sorry, I just, I can't get over this, every time I think about it it gets funnier
I realize that most likely Noah was trying to make an important philosophical point about the transient nature of existence or whatever, or to allow Xande to share a human perspective and appreciate the world better for knowing that life is fleeting or whatever, the way humans in fantasy are often shown as like, having a deeper understanding of the importance of individual moments because they know their time is short compared to gods or elves or whatever, but
but maybe he should have spent five minutes discussing it with Xande first before assigning him 'Then Perish'
You know what, this is by far the most relatable villain backstory in the series, if I were a godlike immortal wizard and my master told me 'I invented death just for you' I would hold something of a grudge
"My son my gift to you is the power to finally escape Samsara" "But dad, I enjoy the fleeting creature comforts of a material existence!"
fucking
perfect backstory 10/10
I'm going to cut this off here because of the image count and also me dying
Sadly, we will fail to seize this opportunity to end the monarchy for good and establish a free democracy of the people, by the people, and for the people, and instead perpetuate the old regime under which some are exalted above others by virtue of their bloodline. I suppose I can't fault the Warriors of Light for their lack of revolutionary fervor, though - they are but children, not yet hardened to the necessity of sometimes putting your own friends to the guillotine for the sake of a better tomorrow. And so Prince Alus inherits the throne.
Counter-revolutionary dogs.
FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT SHOULD BE A UNIVERSAL RIGHT HELD BY DEFAULT BY ALL HUMAN BEINGS, NOT A PRIVILEGE FOR YOU TO GRANT AT YOUR WHIM, TYRANT, BORDERS ARE A LIE MADE UP TO DIVIDE THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN COMMUNITY SO THAT IT CAN BETTER BE RULED BY YOUR KIND
Further hints on where to go next are provided by the court bards:
Note how the lights dim every time they sing, that's neat.
But first, we've got some sightseeing to do - now that peace has returned to Saronia, a lot of places that were closed are open.
New spells, finally bringing in some defensive buffs and the ability to raise KO'd PCs.
This secret treasure place is full of Rusty Mail, which seems like a joke. I'm not sure they have any purpose.
Ah-ah. We're seeing another instance of the game iterating on something introduced by FF2 but this time bigger and bolder: there's a great library containing plot-relevant lore. But this time the library isn't "literally one bookshelf in one empty house in Mysidia," it's, like, a massive building. Although the inside only occupies a single room still.
This is so fascinating.
It's the same thing Lufenia had going on in FF1, but reversed. Instead of showing scifi concepts but talking about them in fantasy terms, the game is showing fantasy concepts, but talking about them in a scifi lexicon. The Tower of Owen is a 'reactor,' the Floating Continent an 'experiment,' Desch's stasis 'cryogenic sleep,' and the Wheel of Time is an engine powered by antimatter. The world we go through is styled in a medieval fashion, with swords and spears, kings and castle, and ancient magic - but the Ancient themselves, when we finally find their records, talk about things in a very blunt, scientific way, stripped of any mysticism.
I'm not clear on what the purpose of keeping the Floating Continent in the air was, but it was certainly important to the Ancients.
The library contains some additional information - about a place where I should go if I want to learn how to wield the 'dark blade,' about airships (written in a way that doesn't quite fit with the actual game), and about how I need the 'four fangs' (of which I have two) if I want to pass through the statues guarding that valley in the north. With that information in mind, I head back out into the Saronian continent!
There's just one problem.
The soldiers blew up my airship. I don't have one anymore.
Luckily they have a chocobo pool.
After some running around on chocobo back exploring the continent and looking for my next destination and mostly coming up empty (the continent isn't connected to much of the map by a land passage so I can't go back to Amur or other places), I find this intriguing cave:
'Cool,' I think, 'spooky old ruin, let's explore,' and then I run into the local wildlife.
These hideous things nearly hand me my ass for lunch. They hit hard, they have a lot of HP, but that's not the real problem. The real problem is this:
They have a move called 'Divide' that makes more of themselves. Oh, and bonus points?
Tsugumi isn't actually high level enough to use those fancy new spells I just bought her.
This single random encounter is quickly turning into a fiasco, and I decide to Flee. I just push a little further into the cave to have an idea what I'm here for before leaving, and it turns out…
…I needn't have bothered, I can't come through anyway.
I do like this bit, though. The fact that there is an archeological expedition to explore these ruins show a world that's actively engaged with its own universe, people who are interested in the mysteries of their own setting, who have agency in uncovering it. We're a long way from "I will rebuild the bridge that is the only way out of our kingdom if you do a favor for me." And it's neat that, when presented with a situation in which a bunch of learned people are investigating things… the game uses the Scholar job sprite. Because these people are, in fact, scholars. The job doesn't exist purely as a mechanical conceit, it has reality within its own narrative. FF3's world has an internal logic that helps make it feel living and breathing.
But.
That means I still have no idea where to go next.
After some more puttering about on my chocobo failing to make any progress, I decide that there's no way the game would take away my airship without providing me another one a second time, and I head back to Saronia where I discover that I, in fact, completely missed two huge towers in the castle that contain the people I need to talk to in order to advance the plot.
Embarrassing.
Now there's some lore. We finally know who 'Xande' is. Noah - if you'll recall, the ancient mage who sealed Bahamut and Leviathan on the Floating Continent, had three disciples. For reasons unknown, one of them, Xande, turned to evil, and now we need to brave the winds of Dalg (a southern island which I previously attempt to explore only for strong air currents to turn my ship around) to find one of the others and recruit their help against the rogue Ancient wizard.
Straightforward enough. It means this Nautilus ship is going to be necessary for the next step of our journey, and we unlock it in the next room over:
Nice.
Although it's weird that the 'Nautilus' is an airship. Especially considering it's, huh, kind of submarine-shaped. Or… no, I think it's shaped more like a dirigible with a rotor on top to move it faster. Am I flying a blimp? I dig the Jules Verne reference, though.
It's actually interesting from a design perspective, though. As we've previously established, airships are current technology in this setting, people know how to build them and there are several in circulation… But this airship is different, it's been retrieved from a ruin, and accordingly it follows a different design from the others. Cid's airships were clearly based on the 'sailship with rotors instead of sails' model it shared with FF1 and FF2, but this airship is noticeably different. I actually wonder if the rotor isn't a Saronian addition as part of refurbishing the old thing - with the original model being purely a lighter-than-air design.
Anyway, with the airship in hand, we can explore the southern continent of Dalg. Where I am taken by surprise by something I did not expect…
Airborne random encounters. Which seem to only happen in Dalg, not the rest of the world. I like the way this battle screen is split in two, with the flying monsters appearing from the sky, and the party facing their assault on the ship's deck. Of course, this means that all these monsters are flying, which means they take extra damage from Mimi's Jump skill, which means this is mostly a game in trying to see how high I can get the damage number to go. At one point I think I manage to land a 6,000 damage attack, truly insane stuff.
And at the heart of Dalg…
Oh, spooky magical mansion in the heart of an unpopulated continent, home of an ancient mage, very good, very…
What?
Oh my god.
Is-
Is this truly how moogles, one of the FF franchise's most iconic staples, are introduced for the first time
I walk into some old wizard's house and I am instantly beset by a bunch of moogle mall cops trying to citizen's arrest me??? There is no explanation for what they are I just walk in and a bunch of FURRY MUPPETS, of goddamned TEDDY BEARS WITH BAT WINGS jump me for forgetting to knock on the door
Thankfully Doga quickly realizes his mistake:
It's interesting that the power of the crystals is visible to people with the right senses. Aria, Doga, I think a couple others - people who are spiritually sensitive take one look at the WoLs and can instantly tell that they've been imbued with the power of the Light. They can sense our power level. Now recognizing us for who we are and not mere trespassers, Doga is willing to share his knowledge with us.
Which includes Xande's reason for doing what he does.
Which just may be the most hilarious villainous motivation I have seen in a Final Fantasy game to date. I absolutely love, it's completely cracked.
That's it. That's the motivation.
Noah saw that he was going to kick the bucket, gifted Doga with PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER, Unei with stewardship over an entire plane of existence, and then he looked at Xande and went
"And for you, my beloved disciple, the greatest gift of all"
"You will McFucking Die"
He just
He just gave his disciple an expiration date without his consent
As a gift
I'm sorry, I just, I can't get over this, every time I think about it it gets funnier
I realize that most likely Noah was trying to make an important philosophical point about the transient nature of existence or whatever, or to allow Xande to share a human perspective and appreciate the world better for knowing that life is fleeting or whatever, the way humans in fantasy are often shown as like, having a deeper understanding of the importance of individual moments because they know their time is short compared to gods or elves or whatever, but
but maybe he should have spent five minutes discussing it with Xande first before assigning him 'Then Perish'
You know what, this is by far the most relatable villain backstory in the series, if I were a godlike immortal wizard and my master told me 'I invented death just for you' I would hold something of a grudge
"My son my gift to you is the power to finally escape Samsara" "But dad, I enjoy the fleeting creature comforts of a material existence!"
fucking
perfect backstory 10/10
I'm going to cut this off here because of the image count and also me dying
