Pixel Remaster
My money definitely isnāt going up very fast if at all
The economy of these three games has been messed up every time so far. You seem to get very little Gil early on and too much later on. FF3 also makes money scarcity more palpable since you have to potentially gear up so many classes with different requirements.
At the same time I feel like the game is more generous with loot since you get free items in dungeons but also by exploring towns, and often very good items too. I think this is another way the devs try to nudge you towards certain classes at key moments.
pacing
Personally I found this week felt very short, and was expecting there to be a bit more.
Yeah I realized that when I was replaying through the week on Famicom on Friday right before I posted the thread. In my first playthrough a little while ago on the PR I took the time to transcribe everything, so it would always take quite a bit of time and I didnāt realize how short it was when I was playing normally. Doesnāt help that the dungeons so far are so inconsequential compared to FF2. No Semit Falls or Ice Cave to buffer between story moments.
3D Remake, Kanon
As story-dominated as this section is, the 3D section is even more so. The gameplay parts are all identical, but new story bits are inserted amid the regular story. Since the blacksmithās daughter is now your party member, she takes off when her dad calls. Of course, she doesnāt want to be a blacksmith, she wants to be a chosen one, so she runs away from homeā¦ again. The funny thing is that Cid starts his dialogue about ramming the rock, which is identical to the original text, immediately after she has all of this running-away-from-home-character-building-v1.0.2.txt. Totally oblivious to the vibe in the room. Where did he even come from? In the original, he tells you this in town, but this scene happens in the airship, where Refia has run off to (again).
Given how much more realistic this game is, it seriously just looks like everyone died a fiery death in the airship crash. Whereād Cid go? Did he leave the ship before we set out? I have no idea!
Week 2
I also expected this week to be a bit longer, since the ćć©ć“ć³ć®å±± didnāt quite feel like a complete dungeon and neither did the tunnel. I didnāt mind however! Iām enjoying exploring the towns, it almost feels like they moved some of the ādungeoningā there by having you find all these little secrets. I was pleasantly surprised by the little side mission of giving Cidās wife something to make her better. Considering what the item was, I figured it was something you took note of and came back much later, but exploring around actually gives you one of the required item! Really nice.
The mini village was cute, most of my annoyance was mostly in the fact that itās a level 2 spell, and my white mage only had two uses of those, so I had to use the spell, restore my two uses at the spring, then do the other two.
Iām still in mini form at the end of this section.
The having to work around the mini status was interesting, but Iām a bit perplexed about the dungeon part. It was very short so it felt almost inconsequential. I switched my party to Two black mages, one red and one white mage expecting at least a boss at the end of the tunnel, so I was very surprised when we simply got out. You could have probably ran away from all battles without switching jobs around at that point.
(That said, those leprechauns or goblins or whatever hit pretty hard if they decided to spam spells on one character in particular)
Week 2 in 3D
This week we finally set off on our adventure. I liked the scene where Refia reunited with her Dad. I do find it interesting how in the 3D version they have her the smith backstory and she has to basically run away again lol. Itās so funny how they are all like āyour an orphan?! Iām an orphan!ā shockedpikachuface
Cid in this version is 
Also yes the explosion was funny. We lived though!
Look at that boy. Perfection I did not realize my first time playing that I needed to run from Bahamut and had a rough time lol.
I didnāt take any photos of the small people town, but itās really cute in the 3D version! I basically sprinted through the cave to get to the world map where we are stopping for the week. No way am I changing my characterās classes just for a small section, I am STUBBORN.
I really like how the 3D version uses much less kanji than the pixel remaster version. A lot of the kanji I actually KNOW and this is the first game Iāve been able to mostly read without furigana!! This game came at a perfect time for me, itās just what I needed for practice. It almost makes me want to replay the 3D version of 4 as well lol.
Mail in the 3D verson
Weāve got our first (and second!) letter! In the 3D version there is a feature called mognet mail where NPCās will write to you throughout the game. Iām not sure if any of them are missable? On the actual DS version there were certain pieces of mail you could only get by connecting with other people, but they took that out in the steam re-release. Iāll throw in whatever mail I find behind a spoiler, they are kinda neat.
Mail 1 from ćØć±ć±, the elder who raises Luneth and Arc in the 3D version, everyone in the OG version
Mail 2 from ćØć±ć±
You can cast the spell on the full party with a single use!
Oh the mail thing is like the one from FFIX? Thatās fun.
Oh, itās full kana? Less fun.
Yay, Iām here for this series! Iām fine playing Pixel Remaster but I did consider get the 3D version and now I donāt feel like Iām missing out.
My exact thoughts!
I get them though, I, too, have chosen to write kana instead of kanji when writing lettersā¦
On the internet, nobody knows youāre a mog.
Spoilers for week three
Pretty sure you do an actual dungeon as mini shortly after this, though I canāt be 100% sure since I just went inside. For all I know itās just as short.
edit: followup
It is longerā¦ but only barely. To be fair, having to use only magic - using the Vancian system and no way to restore charges - drastically limits how long you can last.
Iāve noticed so far that this oneās substantially harder than the last two. I have no way to revive people but with items, and phoenix tails are hard to come by. Spell charges are way limited, and money doesnāt come nearly as fast as in FF1/2. At least in compensation they let my black mage absolutely murder people with a bow, which is weird but appreciated.
As we discussed in the previous club the PR version of FF2 was heavily trivialized compared to the original, while FF3 plays pretty much the same in both versions. I think thatās why FF3 PR feels comparatively significantly harder.
I do think FF3 is probably the hardest of the 3 so far though, even in the original versions (unless you play Famicom FF2 without cheesing the combat system at all, in which case itās the hardest by a long shot).
My favourite fantasy race are vikings:
Not exactly. Was reading a bit about FF3 and found out that the Mognet originally was something you could send other players 
I donāt have a huge problem with that, however, there is a certain side quest that requires you to do it to unlock a certain job (the Onion Knight!)
This seems a bit crazy to me. It doesnāt work anymore to send mail to other players though, so now instead the quest unlocks when you have seen 25 % of the bestiary.
More details about the Mognet here.
Week 2
Made it through this week without much issue. Since Iāve played the game before, I didnāt fall for the Bahamut trap like so many others. I played the DS version when I was in high school almost 20 years ago though so I canāt remember if I tried to stick around back then or not. lol I had been curious about the world map since you could see it in towns and dungeons in the PR versions of I and II but the same button combination didnāt work here. Thatās when I learned the ćć³ćØć®ćć³ fills that role here. I ended up buying a few in the village since itās nice to be able to access the treasure tracker while in a town or dungeon without exiting to the world map.
My original playthroughs of FFII and III were years apart so I didnāt get the same experience Iām getting now with the change from more serious storytelling to a lighthearted adventure. This game firmly establishes the pattern weāll see in the first 6 games of āodd numbered games are fun adventures about crystals and even numbered games are more dramatic stories of opposing evil empiresā. Iām really enjoying playing these back to back and getting the full experience.