sirsystemerror | FF3 Solo Monk (NES) Part II

With Solo finally back to normal size and me able to actually play the game again instead of running away all the time, things were looking up. Solo chose to stay in the back row for defensive reasons. He had trouble hitting the enemy at times, but they had more trouble hitting/hurting him. Even when he was asleep as shown here, they still couldn't hit him! That was amusing, to say the least.

He also found this useful spellcasting item. This casts Haste when used in battle, which doubles hits. There's only five of them in the game, with the rest being ultra rare drops.

Solo able to upgrade his equipment at the Ancient's Village. He found a Kenpo Gi earlier, and was able to purchase a Headband from this shop.

We have a ship, but we can't access everywhere due to a whirlpool being in the way. So next up is a dungeon you need to be a frog to enter, the Tower of Owen. Thankfully, you don't need to be a Toad the rest of the way. Being a Toad is like being Mini, only you can't cast any magic but Toad.

These guys caused Solo a bit of grief on the way up, inflicting the Blind status. He only had one Eyedrop in stock, so you can guess how that ended.

On hitting Level 17, Solo got two more attack multipliers. If I'm reading the data correctly, he'll be at 6 hits for a while yet. But in between 30-35, he'll jump to 8 and from 10.

He was thusly able to break out these improved brawling skills on the next boss, Medusa. She can do two things: a physical attack that doesn't do a lot of damage, or Break. Thankfully on that last one, the spell is inaccurate. So this didn't become a diceroll of a battle.

Beating this dungeon removes that whirlpool. The third-tier nunchucks were purchasable in the next...well, it's a cave of dwarves. Solo's fists were already better than two of these; he found a freebie earlier, but only able to access the one, it plus the second tier nunchuck were weaker than his fists.

Also, Hi Potions were purchasable here! Solo stuck to the regular stuff for the time being, but bought 20 Hi Potions in case he needed them. I should've mentioned this before, but note that when you buy in bulk in FF3, you get a discount. Specifically, a 10% discount when you buy 4 (well, 25/256 to be precise), and a 20% discount (51/256) when you buy 10. So instead of 12000, each set of 10 Hi Potions only cost 9610.

The next dungeon has petrifying enemies. Saw this screen a couple times before it was over.

Guzco was a snap. You'd expect someone with his build to be a melee-orientated attacker. This might be a good time to talk about how FF3's AI "scripts" work. Each enemy has a set chance to use a special attack. In Guzco's case, it's 80%. If this check passes, then they roll to see which attack they use. Guzco only has Fire2 to choose from, so that's what he always uses. Because Solo actually had his defenses from not being mini (yes, magic defense is zeroed when small too!), this spell abuse was moot.

Guzco someone survives this encounter, steals both of the Dwarves' horns, and retreats to the Flame Cave. For some odd reason, you can swim through lava in FF3 like it's nothing. Waterfalls of any kind hurt, though - whether they're made of lava like the ones in here, or water like the ones back in an early town. The only treasure in here for Solo was two Hi Potions. He picked up the Blizzard sword just for selling purposes.

This dungeon also has the first bombs and slimes in FF3. Thankfully, in this game, the slime enemies have no physical defenses to speak of, so Solo simply punched them a few times before they died.

There was also another enemy in here that could inflict Petrify on Solo, which sort of looked like a Chimera. He took these out whenever possible, but still suffered a reload.

The boss of this dungeon, the Salamander, has an 80% chance of using his lone special attack: Flame, which does an impressive amount of damage, if not for the fact that Solo now has Hi Potions. They easily outhealed this for about 430HP of restoration. Solo punched the lizard to death and moved on.

Next up...PAIN. Hyne's Castle is one of the nastier dungeons in the game, and not just because you're committed to it once you're thrown into it (literally). Those Pharoah enemies could inflict Sleep on Solo. Those Lamias could inflict Confuse. They could simply inflict status over and over, and Solo would never get a turn past his first. I ended up getting him a few more levels, and sending him to the back row once more. With this, the battles were no less annoying, but far more manageable.

It's certainly one of the more interesting dungeons graphically as far as the NES games go, at least. It's a fortress in a magically corrupted tree.

Hyne himself is certainly one of the game's more interesting bosses. Every third turn, he's guaranteed to use WallChange, which will switch his weakness to Fire, Ice, or Lightning. He absorbs all other elements. Knowing this, I was able to slip in some SouthWinds at the start to sneak in some extra damage.

Other than that, he has a 99% chance of attacking with a special skill. 37.5% of the time, it will be Ice2 or Bolt2. 25% of the time, it's Fire2.

You're supposed to use mages for this fight again as with the Big Rat; the game pushes you to take advantage of the Scholar job, which has a command much like the Cid in FF4's or the Blue Mage in FF5 to check enemy weaknesses. Hyne has 4x60% evasion to foil physical attackers, but has a paltry 11 defense. Solo just kept plinking away, sucking down Hi Potions as needed.

Even without the SouthWinds, this would've been a straightforward, if lengthier encounter. A bit more dangerous than some of the recent boss fights, but by no means hard.

You get Airship access shortly after finishing this dungeon (well, again; you're given one as your first vehicle, but it's quickly destroyed). Solo picked up some Magic Keys, which would be needed to access some treasures. He could get these later, and wanted them for an upcoming dungeon, but it was convenient to get them now.

Most notable is this find in Arguss Castle. Elixirs are hard to come by in this game, and restore HP and spell charges to maximum. You can never buy them anywhere in FF3, only get them as a drop from a lategame enemy, and potions never improve past Hi Potions, so their usefulness - if need to conserve them - can't be understated.

And that ends what I suppose you could consider the World 1 of FF3, the Floating Continent. Up next is the surface world, which would be World 2. Look out for it. And I do mean look out, because this is where the game's dungeons get longer, and the bosses get nastier.

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