Final Fantasy 3 Beginner Club W08
| Week 08 | 2026-05-15T15:00:00Z |
|---|---|
| Previous week | 🧅 Final Fantasy 3 - Week 7 |
| Next week | 🧅 Final Fantasy 3 - Week 9 |
| Home Threads | FFBC / FF3BC |
Vocabulary sheets, transcriptions etc.:
Stopping point
After you bring the lute to Une and she joins you.
Side-content
Some optional side-content becomes available this week. I’ll try to schedule it as part of the normal course of the club, taking into account the difficulty and pacing.
This week I propose that we visit the following locations:
- ドーガの村
- 海底洞窟
Meanwhile I recommend ignoring this location for now:
- サロニアの地下の迷路
All of this content remains available until the end of the game, so feel free to do it at your own pace. If you want a challenge and prefer doing everything as soon as it becomes available, have fun but don’t forget to tag your spoilers. On the other hand you may opt to postpone that stuff for later so that you can blitz through it with an overlevelled party.
More details
Last week we rescued Salonia from the influence of the evil 大臣. We can start this week by exploring the newly-liberated city, there are new shops, locations and dialogue available.
In particular you may want to check out the library in North-West Salonia, it contains some lore (including some backstory for our former mate Deshu) and also some less serious texts.
When you’re done studying the lore of FF3, you can continue the story by flying your new ship to the southern continent, the one surrounded by impassable mountains. The Nautilus is fast enough to cross the windy gully on the southern shore and explore the complex valley system beyond. Note that while you don’t normally encounter enemies while flying, you will be attacked while flying over this continent.
Eventually you’ll reach Doga’s Manor.
Doga’s Manor
Explore the manor at your leisure. There’s a very good magic shop in there which sells extremely useful, if pricey spells.
In a room in the back you can find two 壺 (non-Wanikani kanji, you’re welcome) which will heal you, should you need them. You can talk to Doga if you don’t know what you need to do next, which is interacting with the 蝋燭 next to the 壺.
You’ll never guess what you have to do next!
In the Famicom version the path leading to the dungeon section of the manor (the 魔法陣の洞窟) is one-way, but you can always use teleport to bail out if you need some rest.
This is yet another dungeon that you have to do while minified but the good news is that we’ve unlocked a bunch of new jobs since last time so you don’t have to use only mages. The geomancers are pretty good for instance since their 地形 is as powerful as ever and doesn’t use MP. The summoner is also an option.
The monsters in the cave are pretty strong, but it’s not a huge dungeon. Once you reach the end you’ll be teleported back to the mansion.
As a parting gift, Doga will make sure that your Nautilus becomes worthy of its name: you can now go underwater!
Doga tells you that you should fetch the lute from the temple of time, south of Salonia, but first let’s do some side content.
ドーガの村 [side content]
If you take the Nautilus underwater on the East side of the continent where Doga’s manor is located, you’ll find an underwater passage that takes you below the ground and leads to an inner lake. From there you can reach Doga’s village. A good pit stop if you want to complete your spell collection as the sellers there have all the spells up to level 7.
Once you’re done shopping, return whence you came.
海底洞窟 [side content]
We can also visit the underwater cave located under the triangular island East of Goldor’s mansion:
There are some good treasures to be found (make sure that you have the inventory space for them on Famicom). The monsters there are no joke either. If it’s too hard, come back later.
Note that there is a fake wall at the bottom of the cave leading to more treasure.
時の神殿
Enough distractions, time to save the world! Head to the lagoon-looking sea on the far South of the Salonia continent. The Temple of Time awaits underneath.
Explore it and find Noa’s Lute. There will be a bunch of locked doors, so you know the drill: either buy a stack of magic keys ahead of time, or have a thief in your party. You’ll have to teleport back out of the dungeon once you’re done, or walk all the way back.
Note that on the final floor there’s a fake wall on top of the waterfalls that leads to some good gear:
ノアの祠
With the lute in hand, we can fly to a valley a wee bit to the North of the Temple of Time in order to find Noa’s shrine, where Une slumbers.
You have to walk through the wall on the left side of her bed to reach her. Play the lute in order to wake her up. Then talk to her and she’ll join your party.
Map
Miscellaneous
募集・吟遊詩人
The bards have two special skills: 応援(Cheer) and 脅かす (Threaten/Scare).
応援 increases the base damage physical attacks of the entire party by 10 and can stack.
脅かす drops the enemies’ level by 3, and if it drops low enough the enemies may flee.
On top of that the たたかう command is replaced with 歌う, which causes the bard to attack with the equipped harp and possibly cause a status ailment depending on the instrument.
I found this job a bit underwhelming in my limited testing. The 脅かす command doesn’t do a huge difference for high level enemies (going from, say, level 40 to level 37 is not a massive deal and I’m wasting a turn I could use to deal some damage). The damage boost can be nice but only if the rest of your party is focused on physical attacks.
On the other hand when you chose the Scare command the bard screams “WA!” at the enemies, which I think is pretty cute:
The 応援 command has them use a fan with the Japanese flag on it:
According to the fan wiki, in the pixel remaster the effect of the 歌う is not tied to the equipped instrument but to the job level:
I don’t know if there are other differences in the PR/3D versions from what I describe above.
モーグリ
The mogs/moogles are here! Doga’s manor is their first appearance in the series, but much like Chocobos they’ll return in future games. Unlike chocobos they’re able to talk and will often provide various services to the party.
The name モーグル is a combination of モグラ (mole) and コウモリ (bat). In future games they’ll have a distinctive “Kupo!” interjection, although in the original Famicom FF3 they use a cat-like ニャー instead. In the 3D version apparently they retconned it and have them say kupo instead.
The 3D version has also greatly expanded the role of the Moogles, since they appear from the start of the game to provide tutorial info and there have added the “mognet” mail subquest.
ウネ
The name ウネ may ring a bell for those of us who have played FF1. In that game it was the name of the scholar in Melmond who decodes the Rosetta Stone and taught us the Lufenian language.
In the official English translation however FF1’s ウネ is Unne, while FF3’s ウネ is Unei, so the reference is lost.
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