Summer Game Challenge 2013 - Begin when ready!

[Violent By Design]

Said this in a few other threads, but I've dropped FF6 3 or 4 different times due to lack of interest.

[Retrogamer0001]

It's a game I've been wanting to beat for a few years now, but I'm somewhat disappointed in the game. Aside from the disjointed story and lack of direction, the enemy encounter rate in this game is INSANE. It is literally every five steps. To me, this is maddening, and I find it really distracts from the gameplay, especially when you just want to get to the next area. I like a few of the characters well enough, but the fact that you have to go around the world collecting them all (with possibly one of the wost map systems I've seen in a game) is annoying. I love the graphics though!

[noiseredux]

I actually think I played more games that were NOT on my list than the ones that were...

This is me every summer. Think i'd be better at a winter game challenge

[BoneSnapDeez]

This is me every summer. Think i'd be better at a winter game challenge

Also, FFVI - best game of all time.

[Retrogamer0001]

This is me every summer. Think i'd be better at a winter game challenge

Also, FFVI - best game of all time.

Disagree. Disagree hard. I'm almost through it now, but I'll write more later on why I think this is a very overrated game.

[BoneSnapDeez]

okay

[Retrogamer0001]

1. Chrono Trigger (SNES) Beaten
2. Shining Force (GEN)
3. Dark Souls (360) Beaten
4. Halo 4 Beaten
5. Silent Hill 2 (PS2) Beaten
6. Donkey Kong Country 2 (SNES) Beaten
7. Monster Rancher 2
8. Pokemon Yellow (GB)
9. Mega Man X2 (SNES) Beaten
10. Final Fantasy 3 (SNES) Beaten

Finished Final Fantasy 3 a little while ago after about 30 hours of gameplay (the last eight of that was just grinding all my characters up to level +40 and teaching each one magic) and can't help but be a little disappointed. This game gets so much praise and hype that my expectations were probably overblown anyway, but I still expected more out of the game. What didn't I like?

1) Lack of any meaningful storyline. The story starts off strong but rapidly falls apart about halfway through, right about when you enter the World of Ruin. After that, it's just putting your party back together and grinding levels. This wouldn't be so bad if it was only the last hour or two, but it was about fifteen hours of just running around and fighting battles. The end isn't great by any stretch of the imagination either.

2) Frustratingly high enemy encounter rate. This is one of the worst games I've ever played as far as the random battles go. Absolutely horrendous. Constant and irritating, and really dragged down the entire experience for me,

3) Poorly designed map system. I found it incredibly annoying that the map system didn't display the names of towns and important places on the map itself, and had to resort to finding a digital copy on the internet just so I would know what town was where. Seems like a minor complaint, but travelling between towns is really important in this game and it's very frustrating being lost because of a poor design choice.

4) Impossible-to-find secrets and characters. Adding to the paper-thin storyline complaint, it is very difficult to figure out how to track down some of your original party members, new party members, and many of the end-game items. There are very few hints in the game telling where certain characters can be found (Locke and Terra, for example) and none at all about others (GoGo). The only way to find many of the items and Espers is to use a guide, which I feel isn't something that should be required.

That being said, I think the game is pretty decent but definitely not worth a lot of the praise it gets - I finished Chrono Trigger earlier this summer and I think that is a much, much better all-around RPG experience. I think FF3 is an above average game, but only an average RPG, and certainly not the best in the series.

[pierrot]

I don't really have anything to say about 1, 2, and 4. I agree for the most part.

3, though, I'm not sure I would really call "poor design." At the time, it was certainly very common for town names to not be listed on the world map. Actually, I don't think I can even really think of any RPGs that have town names listed on the world map other than some Tales games, and games that lack an explorable overworld.

I had anticipated your issue with the map being more about the mode 7, and how some entrances to things can be really unclear (at least to me) which I would have agreed with.

[Retrogamer0001]

I don't really have anything to say about 1, 2, and 4. I agree for the most part.

3, though, I'm not sure I would really call "poor design." At the time, it was certainly very common for town names to not be listed on the world map. Actually, I don't think I can even really think of any RPGs that have town names listed on the world map other than some Tales games, and games that lack an explorable overworld.

I had anticipated your issue with the map being more about the mode 7, and how some entrances to things can be really unclear (at least to me) which I would have agreed with.

+1 on that as well, especially places like Narshe and the Veldt cave. I didn't want to nitpick every single thing though, as almost every game has something annoying or frustrating. Final Fantasy 7 and 8 did the map thing very well, but it's hard to compare those games to this one because of different hardware and the fact that the RPG genre became more and more modernized in the PS1 era.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Fair points Retrogamer00000000000000000001, but if I may respond (spoilers ahead)...

1) Lack of any meaningful storyline. The story starts off strong but rapidly falls apart about halfway through, right about when you enter the World of Ruin. After that, it's just putting your party back together and grinding levels. This wouldn't be so bad if it was only the last hour or two, but it was about fifteen hours of just running around and fighting battles. The end isn't great by any stretch of the imagination either.

I think the transition from the World of Balance to World of Ruin storyline was brilliant. In the World of Balance there's a sense of urgency and a dire need to catch up to Kefka before it's too late. Once the world is destroyed that urgency is replaced by an overwhelming feeling of alienation and purposelessness. You wander the world unsure of which (if any) friends are still alive and what state they'll be in. Watching your party slowly mend itself back together is inspiring.

The weakest part of the story for me is how magic was handled. The whole sub-plot about Espers being transformed into magicite in a factory was ridiculous and contrived (why not just make them slaves or something?). In addition, I don't like how every character could use magic - that should have been reserved for just Terra, Celes, Strago, and Relm. To compensate, the other abilities could have been more fleshed out (ie: Edgar should have had way more tools)... Something to think about for the remake, ya hear me Sqeenix?

2) Frustratingly high enemy encounter rate. This is one of the worst games I've ever played as far as the random battles go. Absolutely horrendous. Constant and irritating, and really dragged down the entire experience for me,

Never really noticed this, to be honest. Is it any worse than Final Fantasy IV or V? Any worse than Dragon Warrior V and VI? Any worse than any other game of the era, for that matter?

3) Poorly designed map system. I found it incredibly annoying that the map system didn't display the names of towns and important places on the map itself, and had to resort to finding a digital copy on the internet just so I would know what town was where. Seems like a minor complaint, but travelling between towns is really important in this game and it's very frustrating being lost because of a poor design choice.

Yeah the map is kinda fuzzy and blurry and crappy. I got FFIII back around launch and thus had the map that came with it so I never got lost. I don't think developers thought much about people who would be playing cart-only copies of the game twenty years down the road.

4) Impossible-to-find secrets and characters. Adding to the paper-thin storyline complaint, it is very difficult to figure out how to track down some of your original party members, new party members, and many of the end-game items. There are very few hints in the game telling where certain characters can be found (Locke and Terra, for example) and none at all about others (GoGo). The only way to find many of the items and Espers is to use a guide, which I feel isn't something that should be required.

I don't think it's too difficult to track down most characters, especially if you're paying close attention to the dialogue. Remember that Gogo and Umaro are "bonus characters" that were meant to be very well-hidden.

And of course, you don't need all characters to finish the game - you can theoretically do it with just three.

That being said, I think the game is pretty decent but definitely not worth a lot of the praise it gets - I finished Chrono Trigger earlier this summer and I think that is a much, much better all-around RPG experience. I think FF3 is an above average game, but only an average RPG, and certainly not the best in the series.

I've always thought of FFVI and Chrono Trigger to be very close in quality. They're my favorite games of all time with EarthBound coming in third place. Chrono Trigger is certainly more streamlined and accessible though, I'll give ya that.