Final Fantasy III Walkthrough

We begin our journey in a cave with our ambidexterous quadruplet orphans, unless you are playing the DS version and you have a “well thought out” party of heroes…  Head the only way you can, looting as you go, until you are met with your first boss.  The land turtle should be a fairly easy fight, just heal as you go, you can use those southwinds if you want but I really suggest holding on to them.  After the fight grab the crystal and you will be transported outside of the cave.  Reenter the cave and go about half a screen and make a hard eastward turn, press A when you cannot go any further, then go  through the wall.  There are two chest full of gold, about 2000 gold, so yeah go back and get that.  With the first crystal you get the introduction of my favorite part of the entire Final Fantasy series, the Job system.  Now your travelers can be one of five classes: Fighter, Monk, Red/Black/White Mage – sound familiar?  The job system allows of such an array of neat things to be accomplished, you will see what I mean soon enough.

After the cave you are near the town of Ur.  Now if you are from Boston dont worry this is not the Mooninite Ur, just a township, no need to call the bomb squad.  Ur will let you equip your heroes in the most basic of fashions.  Armor for everyone, weapons, spells if they need it, and ofcourse the all important tents.  However you may realize that you get a discount if you buy in bulk, something the previous two games did not have.  Your family house is in the in the southwest of town and back story will happen.  The right candle holds a secret passage to several useful items, Cure for one.  South of Ur is Kazus, a city of ghosts and Cid.  Cid is the ghost in the inn who will lend you his airship.  Nearby there is a cave that is really only decent for experience, but not really worth it right now.  Take the airship to the nearby castle – since you cannot go over mountains, it is kinda easy to guess where you have to go.  Head to the throne room and talk to the king.  Next step is the Left Tower, which is full of weak undead and a nasty guarded chest.  The guarded chest contains the Wightslayer, which you can imagine is just nasty to undead.  After you have that head to the Right Tower and to the Princess’s room.    Sleep in the Princess’s bed – I know what some of you are thinking but she is not in it.   After your night of sleep it is time for some more cave diving.  Head toward the Cave of the Seal and let the Wightslayer wielding character lead the way.  It is a pretty easy adventure, at the split take the right path then talk to the skull and bingo bango you found Princess Sara.  She will tag along behind you and you and after another split in the road you will run into a good fight, the Jinn.  Sara will get you back to the castle and her father will give you the canoe.  Head back to the ghost town.

Kazus’s curse has been lifted and Cid will run to you as you enter.  The Inn is free, so some grinding is in due order.   You find out that to progress you will have to climb a mountain.  When entering the road to the summit of said mountain you see a old friend fly by.  But dont let it fool you, this Bahamat/Bahumut is not a nice fella and wont give you more jobs.  He will however kill you and feast on your corpse.  When you do end up fighting him on the top of the mountain, just run away.  He wont die unless you are cheating.  After the fight Desh, a fella who is nearby, “joins” the party and it is time to head to the Tozas area.  It is highly suggested to level up a lot here.  I know what you are thinking, man this guy must not be any good at RPG’s he just keeps telling me I need to level.  Well if you dont believe me, look at any walkthrough for the game.  My personal favorite comes from a friend at Gamefaqs “…this next part is, to put it this way: A real bitch. But, that’s really only if you’re not prepared.”  This next part is simply not easy.

In the woods nearby there is a healing spring area, which should help with your leveling, and a short fellow.  The midget will tell you that to reach Tozas you must be a midget.  So when you are ready, use mini on your team and head south of the healing spring.  Do note that while mini your weapons and armor do not work, you can somehow still carry them though, so an all magic user party is suggested, but you could be foolish like myself and not, then the experience is even harder.  In Tozas there are several things to steal from the house in the north, namley Cure 2, and a midget who has needs an antidote.  Give him an antidote then take the stairs he shows you to the “hidden path.”  The path will lead you to the overworld and a little village of Vikings.  Now you can enter the village still minied, to get some items or you can enter it while unminied to get a ship, or both if you so choose.  I suggest unminiing one character – I know “uminiing” and “uniminied” are not words.  However do not take the boat out to far, Nepto does not like that.  So head to Neptos nearby shrine, mini any large teammates and go through the statues eye socket.  Now I believe this part is the hardest part of any Final Fantasy game.

The Nepto Shrine is not very long and does contain some decent weapons, but the fact that again you are minied and this time your spells are in short order, makes it easily the toughest.  Save your highlevel spells and southwinds for the boss.  You will see the boss, a sewer rat, before you actually fight it, so you can heal.  While he only packs 420 hp, the Big Rat is simply difficult.  Use all your highlevel spells, and if you run out use the southwinds.  He likes to hit your team for a couple hundred hitpoints a turn, so if you are not properly leveled he can one shot your characters.  After all of this you will get the Nepto’s eye.  Leave the dungeon, unmini, and put the eye in the statue.  Dont ask questions about how you can carry the eye through the eyesocket.  Nepto will show up and give you the water fang.  Now the boat is useful.  Head southeast on the boat to Tokkle.  It seems that soldiers attacked Tokkle.  Northwest of town there is a forest with a talking Elder Tree, good backstory stuff here.  Southwest of here there is a Chocobo forest, if you want – if you do run all around the continent for a prize in the next town.  Whatever you do, our next stop is the Ancient’s Village – if you did the Chocobo thing you can get some bread from a kid.  Some people in town will tell you to head to Agrass castle, which happens to be Northwest of Sasoon, so grab your Chocobo and go.

Go talk to the right fire, then loot the castle.  When you dont think you can loot anymore, talk to the wall below the elixer chest and go through the hidden passage way to more loot.  Northwest of the castle is the Gurgen valley – you could actually skip the castle, but free is free.  In the middle of the Valley you will be given the spell toad, but dont worry no need to get to upset yet.  The Tower of Owen is Northeast, and again you get to play with status effects to get through a hole.  However after you have gone through the hole as a frog this time you can revert back to your normal self, no fighting required.  Inside the tower there is a haunting voice that will tell you that it will be your tomb, it wasnt terribly cliché at the time.  Hidden switches and treasure lay between you and Medusa.  The gorgon is fairly immune to magic, so go all physical if you can.  Go talk to the ball of flame afterwards.

Sail toward Gishal, since the whirlpool has disappeared.  In Gishal you will find a Shuriken, hold on to it, move it to the bottom of your inventory if you have to – this is true of all Shiruken’s you find throughout the game.  In the nearby dwarf cave you discover that a fella name Guzco stole the ice horns and is hiding in the lake.  Do your civic duty and give chase – which means another toad entry.  The underwater cave is a standard water cave, a couple treasures here, a decently powerful monster there, and ofcourse a boss that is not terribly difficult.  Guzco does like to use fire2 a lot, and I mean a lot.  After you defeat Guzco you get the Dwarf horn and a white line that follows you.  Head back to the cave and put the horn on the altar.  The white line was Guzco, he steals the horn and makes his way north.  Tricksy dwarves…  He ends up in a fire cave north of town, so stock up its time to hunt more dwarf.  The Flame Cave has a couple southwinds and a rocking Ice sword amongst the standard loot from chest.  If you are playing the NES version there are some crazy palette issues with the ground and lava tiles.  At the dead end beside the highpotion, talk to the rock and head through the hidden pathway to fight the salamander.  Now if you have the Icesword and are of a decent level, this fight should be quick, but he does cast fire2 on your party under the guise of flame.  After the fight talk to the crystal and get your next set of jobs: Hunter, Thief, Knight, and Scholar.  Which out of the lot only the Knight is good right now, switch your Fighter to it.  Also the Hunter can only equip 20 arrows at one time, so keep an eye on those, you can change them out during a battle, but it is a sad time when your Hunter cannot attack.

Back in the Dwarf cave you are asked to help burn down Tokkle.  When you head to Tokkle you are paralyzed and taken to Hyne’s castle.  When in prison talk to the fellas around you and you will fight a daemon.  After the fight you get to play the mini overworld game for a short while again.  More hidden walkways are between you and Hyne.  Then when you finally do reach Hyne it is a joke of a fight.  Sure he changes his weakness a lot and if you dont have a scholar you will have a hard time keeping up with him.  This is sad since this is really the only fight that the Scholar is incredibly useful.  After the tree thanks you head back to Argass Castle, the king will give you the time gear, then head back to old Cid.  Cid will take the time gear and change the Enterprise into a naval airship – not as handy as that airship that you blewup, but man that was cool.  When flying around the world you should notice that the world is mostly under water.  There is a sunken ship, a tower, and a temple, head to the ship.  At the bottom of the ship you will find an old man who will tell you what is going on, think a large scale Atlantis thing, and a girl who is sick.  Give the girl an antidote and she is going to join  you on your trip to the temple.  Near the Water Temple is the Water Cave, which the girl will let you passed the barrier.  In the Water Crystal room an old friend wants to play again.  Thats right boys and girls, the Kraken is back.  This Kraken is weaker than the one in FFI, but he puts up more of a fight than the one in Dynamite Deka 2/Dynamite Cop.  The Water Crystal gives you the third chunk of jobs:  Geomancer, Dragoon, Viking, Karateka, Magic Knight, Conjurer, and Bard.  Then the stage starts to shake and you end up in Amur.

Amur holds a lot of armor that will make the thief one of the best classes at this point in the game, arguably the best – over 90% evade is hard to argue against though.  When ready the Sewer awaits, again.  This time around you head up and down and across bridges quite a bit.  There are four old men in the cave which happens to be your boss.  The fight is a set of eight goblins – be afraid, be very very afraid.  Keep spelunking and you will end up in Amur again.  Turns out somebody chained up your ship, so take your canoe south, then east, then north and into the house there.  Go in and head one floor up, loot that jerk.  If you dont want to keep the armor, it is an easy 27,500.  In the main room you want the top right door.  A winding passage and several false walls later you will run into Goldor.  Goldor has pretty good magic defense, but you can easily take him down with physical attacks.  Make sure you touch the key after the fight, it will unlock the boat.  Once you are back on the boat, head to the other islands northeast corner and the town of Leprit – Dont worry about the floating one for now.

This town is important because it is the first town where you can get summons in the entire saga, also meaning the Conjurer class is now useful.  In town you need to fall down a chimney in the north part of town, there are a lot of fake trees.  Inside the house talk to the top right candle then make your way through the passage for an Elixir.      Head southwest to Dester, the town, not the castle, unless you have stocked up and are ready for some fun, just head over the castle.  You get shot down and lose the ship, that makes two…  You end up in Salonia where most shops are closed and your locked in.  When you are tired of talking to people, or finding carrots, head into the pub.  There is a fight with Golden Knights.  After the bar fight you the Prince Allus joins you.  Now it is time to enter the tower in the middle of town.  The tower is all about fights and gathering treasure, namely the Dragon Armor.  When you are done with the tower, and any leveling you may so inclined to do with it, head to the castle.  The king will invite you to stay the night, but before you do change your party to all dragoons.  At night you will be attacked by Garuda, and you can easily defeat him by jumping every turn.  After the fight you have no other monsters in the castle so you can treasure hunt at your leisure.  It is imperative that you talk to the scholar in the east part of the castle to get the Nautilus.  And now that you have saved this small part of the world, it is time to go save the rest of it.

Southwest of here you will find a mountain range, follow it until you find an opening with a castle.  Inside the castle moogles will attack you, but Dorga will stop them.  Dorga, who happens to live in the castle and is friend to the moogles, will join you.  The moogles are shrewed salesmen, their magic is simply “off the chain” as we use to say.  When you are done trying to buy magic, there is a secret passage in the library.  Which leads to a midget hole…I know I know I hate them to.  But this time you have the Geomancer class, which actually rocks in this part.  After a bit of adventuring you will endup outside of Dorga’s castle and can finally unmini yourself, no boss makes it not terribly difficult, just tedious.  At the southern part of the continent there is a temple underwater.  This temple contains all sorts of nice diamond equipment and a lot of locked doors – a thief, or switching to a thief is very helpful.  There are many waterfalls and a couple hidden walls between you and Noah’s Flute.  The flute is used on Unne, slightly north of here to get you to Unne’s Shrine.  Eventually you will end up on the Invincible, which is good since the Nautilus, while fun, is not that good of a craft, well that and the Invincible now has a shop on it.  With the Invincible back in your control head north of Amur.  Over the mountains you can run into monsters, but the ship will do a preemptive attack on them.  Oh dont worry, it is a maze of mountains.

At the end of the mountain maze the Cave of Darkness, in which a soldier will tell you that the monsters will split if you attack them with a sword.  So magic it is, though a knight in the back row with two shields and covering their teammates can even out the damage you receive.  It is also important to note that if the monsters are confused, they wont split – if you can explain this I am all ears.  Go read a walkthrough and find out all of the hidden what nots and have yous if you care.  But know that the Genji Armor is well worth it.  You will end up fighting Hekaton, a tough fight and he has a nasty habit to target your healer.  Now that Hekaton is gone, head to the Ancient Labyrinth.  It is a straight shot to the Titan and the Earth Crystal.  The Crystal will give you another set of jobs: Warlock, Summoner, and Shaman – Warlock being a more powerful Black Mage and Summoner being a better Conjurer.  Head back to the Ancient Ruins, switch out to the Nautilus and go see our old friend Dorga – ok I lied, I always liked the Nautilus, but the Enterprise is cooler.  Dorga and Unne have been up to no good and you will be teleported to Dorga’s Cave.  Dorga and Unne attack in order, yes your friends attack you, two boss fights back to back.  After the fights they will give you the Sylx and Eureka Keys.  Now head back to the Ancient Labyrinth.  After the Labyrinth you get to use those keys you just fought your friends for.  The Slyx tower is a straight shot to a talking door.  The door requires the Eureka key and you fall into the Forbidden Land.  There are a couple side paths here to big treasure, but the Shuriken is worth hunting for.  In the end you run into Amon, who looks like Hyne but in green.  After the fight there is a fork in the road.  Left will lead you to a fenix down, right will lead you to the talking sword masamune.  Talking because it is protected by Kunoichi (female ninja).  Equip the sword and head downstairs to another sword.  Its stuck in a rock it must be Excalibur, but again it is protected.  The General hits really hard but you can take him down quick enough.  Down another floor you find another talking sword, Ragnarok. Guardian is a tough, but not as tough as the General.  One last talking weapon to between you and getting out of here.  The rod is protected by Scylla, who reminds me a lot  of Cerebus and is equally as difficult.  With the Elder staff in hand you now have access to the last two jobs: Ninja and Sage – note that there is no Pirate class, but if there was it would obviously be in the next level of classes, they just did not want you to have an overpowered team.  In the next room there is a healing spring, shurikens, and the best magic in the game.

Now I am sure you are wondering why I told you to hold onto all shurikens throughout the game.  Well Ninjas can throw them in battle and cause a sick amount of damage, and if you have enough the final boss only takes a few rounds.  You can do a lot of sidequest right now, like go fight Bahamat, among others.  You have a couple mandatory fights and a large dungeon left until the end of the game.  But it is highly recommended that before you reenter the Sylx tower to gather atleast 30 shurikens, personally I like a lot more than that, but thats just me, what else am I supposed to spend my money on?

I am going to leave the rambling part of the tower to those who know more about the tower than I do – this is just a cheap way of saying I have forgotten what you need to do.  You fight Zande, a 21000 hp monster.  Extra shurikens come in handy here, but you will want to have atleast thirty after this fight – you can beat the game with 0, but it makes it easier.  The next fight is Dark Cloud/Cloud of Darkness, which you just need to lose.  You can speed it up if you off your teammates.  After you die you end up in the Dark World which is not unlike hell.  Between the next fights  you can fight Zande Clones for Ribbons, highly suggested, but it leads me to think that Zande must be in cahoots with the Telixu.  First up is Cerebus, much like Scylla he is a pain, however with a party of Ninjas and Sages can fell him pretty easily.  Then an Echidna, this is where those shurikens come into handy.  He hits hard and has a lot of high level spells he is not ashamed of using.  After Echidna lays Ahriman, who needs to be taken out just like Echidna.  Right behind him is a Twoheaded Dragon.  The Dragon has nasty physical attack, but you should be able to heal a lot faster than he can hurt you.  Finally you get to fight that damn Dark Cloud.  It has 45000 hp and you can take it down really quickly if you have enough shurikens, Bahamat, and a level head.  Granted if you gathered the onion equipment, your onion knights can kill it in nothing flat.

There you have it Final Fantasy III, one of the most impressive NES games ever made.