FF3 DS - Low Level Game Part I: Medusa, Gutsco, Salamander

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MoogleBoss

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Published on July 23, 2009 3:27:52 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqtU_sTZE1M

Game:

Final Fantasy III (2006)

Duration: 8:25

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37

Challenge playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL52375112C71523E0

A video showing the boss battles before the fire crystal and us obtaining four new jobs (Ranger, Geomancer, Scholar and Knight).

First of all, a proper introduction into the challenge.

This playthrough is an attempt to beat the DS version of FF3 at as low levelled as possible with our resources. It is not a "strict" lowest level challenge, as we still reach job lv. 99 with certain useful classes to make boss battles possible. A class can be levelled up once while gaining 1 exp by fighting Goblins and taking turns without hurting them. This is a monotonous, overdrawn process that has to be repeated several times during the playthrough and which essentially demands music or audio books playing in the background.

I tried looking for information of previous success in this challenge and didn't find too much. Some people on GameFAQs claimed Cloud of Darkness had been defeated with a party at lv. 28, somebody else insisted that the boss can be reached with levels as low as lv. 22. No detailed documentation is accessible at all, and nobody even knows what strategy was used to complete the game. Well, that's pretty much what caused my interest to try this - the lack of a clear path to be taken to complete the game (these days I start challenges that I can see myself finishing with absolute certainty with great hesitation).

I don't know how far I'll get, but since some YouTubers are interested in watching my progress I might as well post videos of it now and then. Future players will have some knowledge of previous progress then, if they want it.

Oh, about the item duplication trick. It can be abused indefinitely. The party doesn't survive any better because of it, and it's by far superior as means of getting money than, say, stealing Potions from Goblins for fucking ages and selling them, or running around the floating continent on a chocobo to sell the kid's items or whatever.

Not to mention that you MUST dupe items to avoid extra levelling. Mallets are needed to give everyone the Mini status way before you're high-levelled enough to cast it with your Red Mage or White Mage. Elixirs are almost mandatory for dungeons where the Toad spell should be cast twice.


Okay, now to the specifics.

I didn't manage to beat the Giant Rat with just one character. Well, I did, but making it out is so luck-reliant it's not funny and it's frustrating to keep doing this when you have no idea who will take their turn in which order. I had Refia and Ingus survive the boss battle, gaining experience, and I needed to train Ingus for 160 or so exp to be able to cast Toad to enter the Tower of Owen.

Firstly, I regret training a Monk. With over 200 attack power at job level 99, you'd expect him to be really good, but a mage using attack magic is, in fact, not any worse. In case of the Red Mage, a great tank in the back row with two shields equipped, a Monk is simply inferior, dying too fast and not being justified at all.

At job level 99 (Luneth is somewhere in the 80s), Red Mage Arc can function in different ways. The item magic is fine, physical and magical defences are top-notch and an MT Cure spell heals the party for more HP than they can possibly have at their levels. I should have just stuck with four Red Mages at this early point of the challenge, as there's not much to steal at this point either.

Medusa is annoying, as getting to her takes a bit of time (the enemies get more powerful magic and a back attack is undesirable), and she herself knows some -ara spells (maybe just one, I've only seen Fira) and that spell being cast on the whole party is a game over, period.

But she likes to mess with statuses, which tend to fail a lot, and that simplifies our troubles greatly. Refia dies from a critical here, not gaining any experience, due to the irritating turn-based system where you're likely to open a battle with a healing spell when you don't need it, and go last when you need it most.

In the next two battles, it is Ingus, the poor monk with shitty defence that I fail to keep alive until the end of the battle.

Gutsco is not too hard, focusing on physical attacks, which do kill Ingus. You'd expect him to be hit more often, but I've been noticing the AI in this game isn't so random at all, all too often picking a single, weaker character to bully ignoring the odds as if they didn't exist.

Salamander is easily done in by Blizzaga items used by Red Mages and friends, but his fire breath is deadly. Arc, owing to his higher level, can withstand it if at max health but there's no point in continuing the battle after it's used. The lizard doesn't use it on its first few turns so the sooner he dies the better.

With the Knight class now available, Ingus should quickly catch up with others' levels. How experience is spread will matter a lot more in the second half of the game, after all.

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