🧅 Final Fantasy 3 - Week 6

[simias]

Final Fantasy 3 Beginner Club W06

Week 06	2026-05-01T15:00:00Z
Previous week	🧅 Final Fantasy 3 - Week 5
Next week	🧅 Final Fantasy 3 - Week 7
Home Threads	FFBC / FF3BC

Vocabulary sheets, transcriptions etc.:

FFIII BC

Stopping point

Once you regain the ability to sail your ship.

Then you can explore the world if you want, there are a bunch of towns you can visit to gather gear for next week, but you have to make sure to avoid traveling over Salonia (the huge city on the North-Western continent) as it will automatically trigger next week’s events even if you don’t land on it. Every other place can be visited at your leisure.

More details

Last week we lit the water crystal and unflooded the world. We woke up in the town of Amur.

Amur

Where to next? Well not very far, it turns out, because if you decide to board your ship you’ll quickly notice that it’s moored to the coast. You can talk to the citizens of Amur to figure out what happened and what you need to do, but the short of it is that a guy named Goldor has the Earth Crystal and knows that you’re here to take it from him, so he chained your ship to impede your progress..

Goldor lives in a mansion to the South of where we are, but there’s a deadly swamp in the way. In order to go through we need magic shoes. Apparently a woman living in the sewers can help. Why not.

If you attempt to reach the sewers, you’ll see that there’s a locked fence blocking your way. Fortunately that’s not too bothersome: we just have to talk to ジル in his house nearby to get the key.

Then you can dive into the sewers until you find the shoes. You’ll be teleported out of the dungeon automatically after that.

Goldor manor

With you sweet new kicks on, you can cross the swamp and reach Goldor manor. This is the “heist” dungeon. If you struggle with it or are stuck, here are some tips:

• There are a bunch of locked doors in the dungeon. I think you can use magic keys but having a thief in your party lets you unlock them for free (on the Famicom version you have to make sure the Thief is the active member by using SELECT in order to use his skill).
• In order to reach the end of the dungeon you have to use a secret path through a fake wall. Closely observe the walls to find one that looks a bit different from the others. On the Pixel Remaster it’s quite obvious, on Famicom a lot less so.

Once you reach the crystal and collect the key to unmoor your ship, you’re done for this week.

Yes, it’s a bit short but I couldn’t find a good place to cut after that. Note that you can explore the world with the ship now and visit a bunch of town with some cool gear for your new jobs. As mentioned above, just avoid the huge city on the North-West of the map, flying over it will trigger next week’s events even if you don’t land on it.

Map

Participation

• I’m playing along
• I will catch up later
• I’m still playing but I haven’t reached this section yet
• I’m a filthy preplayer but I’m here for the discussion

[Daisoujou]

This week is kind of good?

I’ll get my biggest nitpick out of the way first: my experience at the beginning of the week was walking straight into the house for the person who opens the sewer and talking to them basically first, so my party just divinely intuits the need to enter the sewers for shoes and asks for it. I was going to criticize them more for putting his house right at the front of the town, making this situation more likely, but I did forget we actually entered this town initially through waking up at the inn, so, ehh, they get half let off the hook for that much.

Now that we’re on a new continent, a guy directly meddling with our transportation is a good idea, doubly so when it’s directly related to the crystal quest for once. I do wish reaching him and his crystal wasn’t the same way you fix the ship. Meaning, like, we should have to fix the ship by other means and THEN go to him and his crystal. Otherwise breaking the ship literally just put a target on his back and doesn’t make much sense because it doesn’t prevent us from showing up. Guess he didn’t know we had a canoe huh? This is the sort of nitpick I’m much more willing to ultimately forgive but it feels like they were 95% of the way to perfecting their best arc this whole game and still weirdly fumbled a little which is unfortunate in its own way. I was thinking maybe the shoes and the swamp could’ve been bypassed but I’m guessing the swamp is the narrow strip you’re forced to walk through no matter what? I was a little hazy on remembering why we even needed shoes; I just did it cause my party declared I should lol.

But yeah I like the gold place (I stocked up on magic keys before so I refused to change class because of the inventory management needed ), the sewers have super annoying paralysis and confusion enemies but they’re fine, the game maybe overindulges in quirkiness sometime by the time it has shown us the fake heroes like 4 times and there are exploding shoes from the sewer woman… but all the same there was nothing I really disliked about the experience enough to bug me for real and it felt like they finally did their little vignettes while maintaining some level of focus on the overall plot.

What an image this is. The contrast between field and battle sprites is crazy; I was shocked when these were generic goblins. There were some raft enemies I rather liked the sprites of, should’ve taken pictures of them.

Gotta say though, if I was playing this alone in the time before internet guides this might be where my playthrough ended. The walls you can walk through are so subtle on the famicom and as far as I know there’s no prompting to be looking for that? I didn’t bother talking to every single person in the bar in town and stuff so maybe one of them said it but I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t.

I didn’t explore the rest of the world yet because the last thing I ever want is to add more items to my inventory.

[simias]

geopolitics

@Daisoujou

Otherwise breaking the ship literally just put a target on his back and doesn’t make much sense because it doesn’t prevent us from showing up.

I almost mentioned that in my post but I suppose one could argue that he thought that the swamp couldn’t be crossed and therefore his only concern was our flying ship. Now you could retort that our ship can only land at sea so it wouldn’t be able to reach the 館 anyway, but maybe he didn’t know that?

I agree that it’s contrived but by the standards of the game of that time (and even by the standards of this very game frankly) it’s not too bad I guess.

@Daisoujou

The walls you can walk through are so subtle on the famicom and as far as I know there’s no prompting to be looking for that?

No but actually if you pay attention you can find those in other places, there are two in the sewers as well.

For reference, the original:

And the Pixel Remaster:

You can even see that there’s a room on the other side, in case the cracked wall is not conspicuous enough.

[Daisoujou]

Walls

Even in your emulator photo I think the crack seems more clear than it is on my CRT, the way the stuff gets blended it’s only barely noticeable when you’re looking for it.

And yeah broadly I think a small change like I said would perfect the ship sabotage plot but I still think it’s good and this was more a moment where I went “wait a minute…” than a significant problem.

[simias]

reply

Yeah it’s really subtle. It does kind of work out well for me because I have a hazy recollection of going through these dungeons a little while ago in the PR so I usually remember roughly where the secret stuff is but not precisely enough that I don’t have to look for those subtle marks, so I feel rewarded when I notice them.

It is a very unique way to play the game, admittedly.

I’m actually a bit concerned about a future dungeon which is completely trivialized (almost to a broken degree) in the Pixel Remaster but could be the most horrible thing ever designed in the Famicom version depending on how they implemented it. So you can look forward to that I guess.

By the way this is where the secret walls are located in the sewers if you want to train your fake-wall seeking:

[simias]

You 3D players didn’t tell me that the name of the default job (Freelancer in English) is 素っぴん. That’s a funny word. Until now I assumed it would be フリーランサー or something like that.

[JupiterJesus]

@simias

You 3D players didn’t tell me that the name of the default job (Freelancer in English) is 素っぴん. That’s a funny word. Until now I assumed it would be フリーランサー or something like that.

A quote from myself, week 1, after starting the 3d version:

Random fourth wall breaking tutorials are scattered around, baked into the text of existing townsfolk. It’s no circle of old men in bathrobes… One of them taught me this fun word, 素すっぴん, meaning “jobless” in video games.

I suppose I forgot to mention that it’s the word specifically for your “default” class but yeah, that’s what they were referring to in the tutorials.

[Kelsyy]

私は日本語読めない Not me needing to use the wiki to figure out what jobs I obtained last week lol…

[simias]

I realized that I should have described some of the more esoteric jobs we have unlocked recently, I’ll start doing it next week. Better late than never…

[VikingSchism]

Week 6

Yeah, it was a week of Final Fantasy alright. I have to admit the 4 old guys who thought they were the real heroes was a funny bit, and the old woman at the bottom of the sewers tossing shoes at us (though strange women lying in sewers distributing shoes is no basis for a system of government). That said, it’s by far the wackiest thing in the game thus far and did feel a bit out of left-field

I tried switching my white mage over to bard, since bard does get healing (and no spell-slots needed) but yeah it wasn’t worth it. Didn’t have enough defence, and was possible for it to get oneshot, especially if they healed themself out of critical health (meaning the knight wouldn’t protect them). The 空手家 was great though - the new kick command is really fun, since it does damage to every enemy, and also the charge command. Seems like it’s better damage-wise to charge for a few turns and then unleash it, rather than just attacking. He was hitting the boss for over 1000 damage per double-charged attack

Speaking of which, the boss being gold-obsessed was also fun. Having the entire place made of gold, and then gold swords in all of the chests, and having gold in the name. Surprised he hadn’t employed Goldar from Power Rangers (although Zyuranger, the Super Sentai series Power Rangers was based on came out in 1992, while this game was 1990)

Luckily I had stocked up on keys and had just enough to cover all 4 doors. I’ve since returned to ギサール and bought even more

Knight did die during the boss battle after he got thundara’d while confused. Was basically a oneshot from almost full health. Luckily I was able to revive and heal up before the finishing blow landed

Now we’ve got the airship back, and no idea what to do about the fire crystal. I don’t love when the game leaves you with no direction and no idea where to look. Like just a breadcrumb towards the goal would be nice

Anyway, I did go to ダスター and buy some gear for both the bard and 風水師 and have switched both mages over to try them out. Only done a couple of test fights, but yeah seems fun. From what I understand, the bard’s songs get more powerful as they level up and they also unlock new ones. So will try sticking with it for a bit

Not relevant directly to the game, but was trying out a new controller this week

Normally I use a dualsense which I think is pretty nice, but this week I decided to try playing with the 8bitdo Pro 2 since I had one lying around and felt bad about not using it as much. The buttons are a bit more clicky in general, they take some more actuation force, but I think it does make the dpad feel a bit nicer. There is one issue for this game, and it’s that the X and Y are inverted from where square and triangle are, but because on the playstation controller the game uses circle and x for confirm and deny, and the A button is where circle is, those are still in the same place. This messes up my muscle memory, but it’s not a huge deal. This controller does have extra paddle buttons, which I have assigned to X and Y so that one opens the menu and one opens the map. Thus I don’t need to go directly to X and Y and can just use the paddles

Might go back to the dualsense next week, or might stick with the 8bitdo a bit longer. We’ll see. There’s also the new Steam Controller releasing on Monday, and I am planning on ordering one given that it doesn’t sell out before I can secure one

[simias]

I’m using an 8bitdo SF30 Pro for all my gaming these days. It’s very compact and works well. The rumble is weak, but I suppose that’s a tradeoff for the form-factor.

[VikingSchism]

Really the main problem on a wider scale, and this exists with the Switch Pro controllers too, is that some games fall flat on their face as soon as it has to handle a controller with the Nintendo layout. Especially when they display positional button prompts. It will have the PlayStation controller and Xbox controller buttons in the right places, but it will show the bottom button but be expecting A (which is the rightmost button on Switch)

[Daisoujou]

Controllers

I’ve not been able to find a controller for the PC I really like and it frustrates me – I had a Gulikit I really liked the feel of, ZenPro maybe? But every time I try a third party one they end up having bizarre input issues on my computer after a while, I don’t know what it is. The buttons just weren’t working and were doing strange things on their own and I went through so much effort with the software and the like to fix that. I feel like having all their weird options to bind macros and stuff backfired into creating a source of problems. I forget what happened but an 8bitdo of some sort also started giving me issues with inputs…

I settled for the new Xbox controllers but I think they they feel pretty bad; the buttons and d-pad are both super clicky in a way that I don’t really like. Not a fan of needing batteries either but I got some rechargeable ones for them. I think I want to try to get a new Steam Controller as well…

Honestly the switch pro 2 is very comfortable but it’s got the usual awful quality control issues with drift, and I haven’t had reasons to use the d-pad extensively but I imagine it’s still a little too imprecise like recent Nintendo controllers have been.

Sony controllers just kinda suck; it’s probably the worst feeling modern one and the triggers are super fragile. If you don’t use a super light touch (which the triggers having so much movement and even their resistance gimmick will make you likely to press harder to get the full press) it’s very easy to snap the spring inside them. My PS5 controller went limp from dashing in Hollow Knight’s path of pain.

[VikingSchism]

Further controller discussion

I have some pretty specific desires with my controllers that makes it harder to find a good one. I have a strong preference for symmetrical stick layouts (I don’t really care for the xbox-style asymmetrical layout ). I also really like gyroscopic controls, because I sometimes play games that involve aiming. Getting used to gyro aiming is genuinely life-changing when it comes to aiming on a controller. Like I can play DOOM 2016 or Ultrakill on my controller with gyro and not want to die (I can even hit the coin with the marksman in Ultrakill without much trouble) and without any aim-assist. However using gyro also necessitates having a spare button for disabling the gyro for readjusting or ratcheting (if you want always-on gyro). Sometimes you can get away with gyro being enabled by the trigger (eg: aim down sights). Xbox controllers don’t have gyro, and they’re asymmetrical so that’s a no-go for me. The 8bitdo Pro 2 does have gyro, but only when it’s in Switch mode. This means that Steam doesn’t see it as a Pro 2, but as a Switch controller though so extra buttons aren’t remappable. Then there’s the aforementioned issues with mapping in some games. I’ve heard the Pro 3 has swappable buttons and gyro in d-input mode so that might be worth looking into further

The dualsense and dualshock 4 are genuinely the best confluence of all options that I’ve found so far. I find it pretty comfortable to hold, though the buttons are uninspiring and a bit mushy sometimes. Plus I’ve had one dualsense develop stick drift on me, so I would love to find another controller that can become my standard. I am very used to the playstation button symbols, so that doesn’t help either

The new Steam Controller seems quite promising on the fronts I am specifically interested in. For instance having capacitive touch on the triggers is really cool and works very well for enabling gyro. Trackpads are fun too, and can be quite useful as supplemental inputs (eg: Steam allows you to set up touch menus for more complicated inputs). And it has symmetrical sticks! My main worry is actually on the ergonomics, because it does look a bit chunky…

[Daisoujou]

Gyro

Gyro is fantastic. My problem is that I grew to love it from Splatoon but nowhere else does it really work quite the same way. Splatoon has both a dedicated button to reset where your controller is right now to be the base neutral camera forward position, but also the stick works such that it only moves your camera left and right. That way you’re a lot less likely to need to reset camera too often anyway, but also it works very well to make the stick give you entirely reliable horizontal camera swinging and then small adjustments and any vertical aim are done with the gyro. I see games add it in and had tried turning gyro on a few times but they never seem to have that level of care put in (and often for some reason don’t feel quite as smooth and good as Splatoon’s, either)

There may be a way with the Steam Controller to kind of force emulating Splatoon’s setup by only binding left and right on the stick and leaving gyro always on, IF the game has a sort of camera reset button. But that’s not gonna exist in FPSes for sure, maybe third person.

[VikingSchism]

Gyro (zepelli?)

Yeah, a lot of official gyro options are lacking in my opinion. I generally use Steam Input to manually set up gyro controls and that also allows for flick-stick to be applied to the right stick. This is a fairly radical control method where the stick controls rotation only (for example if you flick the stick to the right, you turn 90 degrees clockwise in-game, or if you pull the stick back you do a 180). This takes a lot of getting used to but it can be very effective for FPS games where you need to be able to react quickly. It can also take some time to actually set up because you need to dial in the values, but once you have it’s set-and-forget. Worth adding that you can also set up a button to do a splatoon-style camera reset too

Steam translates the gyro to mouse input, so sometimes it doesn’t work because some games don’t allow for dual-input. I had this issue in Metal Gear Solid V (where I set it up to use gyro when aiming down sights). The solution here is that you can set gyro as a joystick, but this comes with drawbacks like having acceleration curves and large deadzones which don’t exist with gyro-as-mouse

All of these settings are a rabbit-hole, but you can get some pretty good results
Fortunately Steam does also have the function to share mappings, where sometimes people will share their setups with notes on what mouse sensitivity to set it to in order to get the settings fully dialled in without needing to test things yourself

[Kelsyy]

Week 6 in 3D

Ayo elder, I’m here for the sewer key.

If you go to the top of the Inn, you can play the piano and make everyone dance. Luneth gots some mad skills lol.

EVIL FROGS WILL EAT THE QUADRUPLETS.

Or we can save them. I’m not sure why they all decided to stand at a different edge. Individuality?

Baba over there looks so creepy.

<3 (I actually love these guys)

Skip to boss. Everyone’s level 25. I didn’t leave and heal like I planned. Oh well!

Bro went down pretty easily. No deaths!

I forgot to take a photo of his battle sprite. It wasn’t much different beyond him being much taller lol.

IF I CAN’T HAVE IT, NOBODY CAN

The world is doomed, Refia.

Chocobro, more like god?!

And we get our boat back! Quite an easy week. Let’s explore!

Let's explore to the North!

Hmm, so we have a trail filled with rocks. なるほどなるほど.

Don’t walk through this in the 3D version. I’m serious

Interesting map layout. Next week we sail to the west, probably.

This weeks mail

What a riveting story from our old pal Cid.

[simias]

古代の像

@Kelsyy

Don’t walk through this in the 3D version. I’m serious

Oh, in the PR you just bounce off the statues I think, but in the original they do instakill you if you attempt it:

[Kelsyy]

古代の像 reply

The first time I played I lost over an hour of progress to those stupid statues I also lost like 30 minutes to the swamp Punished for exploring, FF3 building trauma one landmark at a time.

[simias]

rereply

Oh the swamp kills you too? You also bounce off in the PR if I’m not mistaken. I thought it was weird that it was called the “death swamp” when it doesn’t seem too deadly.

Honestly I kind of like these uncompromising choices, technically the game does warn you of the swamp (and to a lesser extent of the statues, and those are completely out of the way so you have to really try to get there anyway) and it makes those things memorable and impactful.