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I went into that windy valley. It's the one place you can be attacked even when in an airship. At the end, I reached a little house where a little wizard lives. It also is the first place you see Moogles in this game (and perhaps the first place you'd see Moogles in any Square game whatsoever).

We had to got through yet another dungeon while MINI. I used a party of two black mages, a conjurer, and a white mage. I saved my most powerful spells for a boss, but there wasn't one. So, it wasn't too hard to get through that.

This part of the story seems like it's missing something. There's no explanation of why this wizard has a dungeon built into his house, and why they needed to be mini to go through it. At the end of the dungeon, your airship gets the ability to go underwater, but why do you need to go through a dungeon to be able to do that? And it seems like what happened at the end of the dungeon started killing the wizard, but why?

Anyway, after that, I found another dungeon underwater. I changed my party to two Karatekas, a thief, and a white mage to explore it. I think that dungeon is supposed to be the next part of the story, but it seemed like I reached a dead end. I'll have to explore it more later. Right now, I'm getting some eye strain, so it's a good time for a break.

I think the only family member of mine who has played an emulator would be my brother, who has played NESter DC. That's probably also the only emulator he has played. He's also probably the family's biggest gamer, after me.


Anyway, I got past that dungeon! It was pretty tough. I gained a couple of levels to make my strategy work a little easier, but it was still tight.

I had two karatekas, and had them Build twice before they'd attack. The other two characters would just support. I discovered, while experimenting on weaker enemies, that if you just have the karatekas Build again and again, eventually they oversaturate (I forget the game's term), damaging themselves in the process, and on the next round they will have no extra strength.

With two Build's, they'd deal about 1200~1400 damage. Sometimes that would kill those splitting enemies in one hit, forestalling their split. Sometimes it wouldn't kill them instantly. And either way, those enemies could still theoretically kill the karatekas in two consecutive hits. (Against my members in the back row, they were not as damaging).

It's miraculous that so far I've managed to keep all of my characters at the exact same experience level. I've occasionally tried that in Final Fantasy 1. I know for a fact I've been able to keep them at the same level at least past Astos, because his RUB ability makes getting past him that way the first major challenge. However, I always eventually give up, usually sooner rather than later. This might make me think that FF3 could be easier, but it still has its challenges.

Getting past that dungeon -- which again had no boss -- got me to the game's fourth airship. This one can leap frog past mountain ranges.

If using M Knights in that dungeon is the canned strategy for getting past it, then I'm proud of myself for coming up with my own solution. And even if it isn't, I'm still proud of myself for coming up with the solution on my own.

I used that airship to reach ANOTHER dungeon loaded with those splitting enemies. That one has an M Knight at the beginning that tells you that you can't use normal swords on the enemies in that cave, or they'll split. So, that must be the "legitimate" clue for figuring out that trick (so I won't mind taking advantage of that fact in the future). However, I still haven't found any weapons for the M Knights, so I'm not sure if I should tackle that dungeon next, or try something else.

As I said, I'm up to the game's fourth airship:

#1 - You get this one right away. It's only useful for avoiding random battles on the overworld, and necessary for reaching the game's second dungeon in the first real quest. After that, you crash it into a rock blocking the way, destroying it and the rock in the process.

#2 - I think this one must start as a boat. Eventually, it is modified so it can transform between a boat and an airship. This one can only land on the water, unlike the others.

#3 - This one can go underwater. I suspect this one must still be where I left it on the way to #4. There are still things that need to be done underwater, and #4 can't do them.

I said there was a valley where you can be attacked even while in the airship. You can also be attacked at any time while underwater.

#4 - My current one. This can jump over mountains, but only mountains a few tiles (maybe only one!) wide. Also, you can explore the airship itself. It has magic, weapons, armor, and item shops. A bed that acts like an Inn. And a Big Chocobo. On the overworld map, it looks pretty huge. The other airships were about the same size, just one tile large. This one must be at least four times larger, with many masts and propellors holding it aloft.

Oh, yeah, and if you're attacked while in this airship, it starts the fight by using a cannon against the enemies. It's not that powerful (~200 damage), but still.



Incidentally, I have saved over 100 times. The game keeps track of how many times you save (and if you copy from one file to another, play on one for a while, and go back to the other, it counts saves in BOTH files), but after 99 saves, it loops back to 1.

I've saved on average close to 3 times per experience level. I'm up to something like level 35 by now.

However, the third is sort of a nonentity so far for being the main motivating factor behind the game.

To elaborate on this a little more, I think it's important for any story like this (where eventually you fight some villain) to always have a villain motivating your quest.

Now, in both Final Fantasy 1 and 4, the villain at the end of the game isn't necessarily the one you thought it would be at the beginning of the game. There are probably some movies where they play a switcheroo, too. But the point is, whether or not the villain at the end of the game is the same as the one at the beginning, you always need one.

Like in Final Fantasy: When the game begins, you're motivated to go on your quest because of Garland. You know that Garland is behind it even before you fight him; the people in the first town talk about him. After that, there's a longer quest that's motivated by Astos. And after that, an even longer quest motivated by the elemental Fiends.

Every single subquest on those longer quests does not directly relate to those villains. Astos isn't the one holding the pirate ship. The fiends didn't hide the airship, or keep you from the class change. But there are always there in the bigger picture: You know you need the pirate ship to reach Astos, and the airship to reach the other fiends. And of course the class change can make the Fiends easier to deal with.

Also note how the larger a shadow the villain casts, the easier it is to move away from him without losing sight of him. There are other quests in the later half of Final Fantasy that don't directly involve the Fiends, like getting the Cube, or finding the caravan. But by then you had already fought two of the fiends, so you aren't likely to forget that they're there. In fact, drawing out the time between the encounters with the fiends probably even makes them seem more significant.



On the other hand, in Final Fantasy 3, I'm thinking back through the game, and the quests are kind of random and unrelated. The individual quests don't seem strongly related to any overarching goal.