Final Fantasy III DS has some of the worst, level design that I've seen in an RPG

Warning: tl;dr!

I was curious to play a Final Fantasy game since I had never played a single FF game before. The first game that popped into my head was Final Fantasy III. I remember watching one of my friends play it in 12th grade during our daily 30 minute long lunch break. She told me that the graphics greatly resembled FF7 since the characters in the overworld were super deformed and the graphics were playstation-quality. However, she told me that unlike FF7, the plot was extremely simple (Four orphans were chosen by the light to fend off darkness) and its battle system was even simpler (resembling that of the FF games before IV). Also, I thought that the super deformed look of the overworld characters in FF7 were charmingly cute. All that greatly sparked my interest in the game. She even recommended me to play the game since it's accessible for beginners. Two years later (this early August), I received my new Acekard 2 in the mail, so I decided to download the rom into my computer, stuff it with the other roms in my microSDHC card, and play it.

My first impressions of the game were good. When I booted up the game, I was greeted with a really well-done FMV before entering the title screen. The title screen itself was really simple (with the top screen featuring a simple "FINAL FANTASY III" logo sticking out of a white background and the touch screen featuring simple text options (one to start a new game/load a new game/change wifi options). That didn't surprise me though, since all of the squaresoft games (Kingdom hearts I and II) that I had played before had minimalist title screens. Thus I think the game left a good first impression.

However, what really surprised me was the horrendous level design that plagued the first few towns. As my norm for typical RPGs, I was expecting a steady increase in difficulty as I moved from an old town to a new town. In this game, the difficulty of the monsters was random; it ranged from extremely easy to impossible. The game doesn't even give any warning that the baddies in a certain dungeon are potentially overpowered. At the beginning of the game, I entered the mythril caves in Kazus (the second town, which is very close to the first town) after receiving my first ally (which I named Xander). Me and Xander were both level 2, and we were both exploring around and grinding, but not straying too far from the first two towns. In the mythril caves, we were looking for items which could be helpful for us later in the game. While searching through any nook or cranny we could find before going out to heal, we randomly encounter two skeleton enemies with swords. I was hoping that these enemies would be as easy as the other enemies I faced (Berserkers/Goblins/Killer Bees) which lurk outside of the two towns. They were not; they were MUCH STRONGER than the other enemies. The two skeletons ganged up on Xander; one hit shaved off 38 out of his total 40 HP, and the next hit shaved off the rest. I tried to run away, but one of the *******s wailed a critical hit on me before I could run and KO'd me too. Instead of allowing me to restart from the beginning of the town, the game took me right back to the title screen. Worse, I didn't know how to save and I was an hour into the game, so I had to restart from the very beginning of the game! Being new to the series, this was a serious kick in the groin. Thus the horrible level designs in this game surprised me.

I restarted the game and now my party members are all level 22, but I constantly save in the overworld just in case I enter a dungeon filled with uberly powerful enemies. I didn't have to save so frequently while playing pokemon blue, since it wouldn't make me fight a level 20 raticate amongst level 4 spearows on route 102. I kinda feel bad for any japanese gamer who had the NES version, which had no save feature.

Also, Earthbound for the SNES had the same goddamn problem. Stupid pogo riders/skaters...

itt talk about games with horrible level design

pictures would be nice

all final fantasies that I've played have terrible levels

Final Fantasy IV has you spend half the time randomly searching the map for some untold location

so basically you went into an area you weren't supposed to until much, much later into the game.

ok.

i ****ing love ffiiids

um


pretty sure every FF has a save feature

Uhh, basically this.

The game is that way because it's a pretty faithful remake, for a 2D to 3D adaptation. Games weren't really "easy," per se, back then. They didn't always tell you "LOL YOU CAN'T GO THERE YET," unlike today's games.

In short: Get over it.

yeah this is what happened

you probably shouldn't go places you aren't told to go

If you can't handle the heat, get out of the fire dungeon

I thought most games encouraged exploring...? That's how I can find useful items..?

If you read more closely, I wrote in the OP that the game should have given me some sort of a warning (Not something obvious like "DONT GO IN THERE YOULL GET PWNED" but something more like "I don't think we should enter there yet. Weren't we supposed to <insert current objective here>?").

im angry at you

FFIV is the best ff imo

the ds remake is gorgeous in every way imaginable.

ff3ds however is balls, ill admit that. amazing character designs and wonderful graphics. 90% GRINDING

You just contradicted yourself right here.

>games encourage exploring
>I wish the game would have deterred me from exploring

You can't have it both ways.

I mean, really, walking into a new area you're not supposed to be in and getting wasted is part of the risk.

This post has been edited by Chippermonkey on Aug 19 2009, 09:52 PM

i beat it the first time i played through it with no grinding at all save for a little bit before the kraken fight because that fight is bull****

that's about it though.

You find useful items as you progress through the game. The exploration of certain areas comes at the time when you're supposed to be there.

ooops

i got it wrong

its V not IV

I have the GBA one

I didn't imply that FF3DS encouraged exploring. In fact, it deters players from exploring which is why I think it has horrible level design. I'm just saying that it could have warned me to not explore around, since every other game that I've played encourages me to do otherwise.

FFV WAS AWESOME TOO, YOU JERK ;_;

ffv and ffvi are my favorites ♥

ffvii isnt a bad one to start with if you want to get into the series, it seems like this one was a lot of people's first

ffiii is pretty uhh- bland I guess is the word I'm looking for. I love the game, but it's completely understandable (and well deserved) why a lot of people don't like it

i couldn't really get into it

the story wasn't very intense either, so i just didn't feel motivated to play it