Your Goal is to accumulate Money, and avoid the Devil at all cos
@superthatguy62
I want whoever picked the characters for Opera Omnia to lower me into my grave, so that they can let me down one last time. (Bowser & Junior, Kirby/Dark Matter, Final Fantasy (III-centric), Evolution (Worlds))
Header art by HELD@VGen
It has recently occurred to me that, given how much I talk of Final Fantasy III, I should make a Masterpost for everything in one place.
Links
The DeepL translated FF3 remake unused dialogue
Two interviews for Final Fantasy III’s 30th Anniversary: Part 1 is with Hiromichi Tanaka and he is joined in Part 2 by Koichi Ishii, who describes some of the details that went into the sprites (including background lore elements).
“Final Fantasy Dictionary”: A Japanese fansite/wiki. It’s somewhat casual in tone has some interesting stuff regarding both characters and gameplay mechanics if you know Japanese or just use DeepL like I did. One of the sources I used in learning the NTT guidebook stuff.
http://ww5.et.tiki.ne.jp/~blueapple/game/a-ff3.htm: Another page that has NTT guide-centric info for FF3
A snippet of the interview at the back of the official Final Fantasy III DS strategy guide:
Part 1: Goes into the decision to give the protagonists new identities, renovations to the original and the Capacity Point/Job Adjustment Phase systems.
Part 2: Goes into the game’s difficulty, some of the jobs/job decisions and a scrapped PVP mode.
The “Creator’s Voice” interview for the remake: which goes into detail about certain decisions (JP only). The page linked discusses the influences FFXI had on the remake.
Hiromichi Tanaka Interview with Thomas Nickel regarding the Final Fantasy III remake: While largely a reflection on Final Fantasy III and Tanaka’s Final Fantasy involvement, it also touches on Final Fantasy XI, including further emphasis of the influence that the first three games had on that system.
Unused Content-related posts
Sara’s Ring was once Refia’s
Desch’s Room
Luneth & Falb in Castle Hein
Ingus & the Four Fellows
Arc’s expanded Saronia subplot
Refia and the Spoony Bard of Duster
Luneth remembers the airship crash
Ingus was born in Falgabard (+ Extra)
Hints of the Flood of Light
Unused Boss animations
Unused Mandragora
Guidebook-related lore:
General History of Saronia
Xande used Doga and Unei’s cells to create the clones
The Sasune-Saronia War
Magic Spells
Locations (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3)
I try (and fail) to summarize the FFIII manga
Bonus
Cid & Sara
Desch
Hein, Ifrit & Shiva (Gore warning)
Alus
Doga, Unei & Xande (Nudity warning. No, really)
Misc Posts/Musings
The Dark Knight job in FF3 is technically not Dark Knight
The Sigils of the three kingdoms (Remake vs PR)
Arc and Refia are 14 & 15, Luneth and Ingus’ ages are unknown
A talk of FFIII’s many protagonists
Story changes between FFIII3D and FFIIIPR
The Overall themes of Final Fantasy III
Luneth uses Onion Knight’s moves in spinoffs (except that one time where Ingus did more)
The name of Onion Knight’s costumes in Japanese (+ Bonus)
Remake Strategy Guide interview touching upon goals for the combat system and jobs
The Invincible is featured in Final Fantasy Extra Collection with a unique design
The Invincible’s interior was changed in the remake.
Games that could be considered successors to Final Fantasy III
I think that’s enough for now, but I will surely add more in the future.
Heyy, I just wanted to say that I’m a really big fan of your work (on ao3 and FanFiction.net) and I absolutely love the way you depict the characters in your fanfics. You’ve actually inspired me to start writing my own fanfiction (even though I have no experience in that at all except for reading it lol). So yeah, thank you so much for writing them ❤️
Ps. You pretty much sold me on the Megaman x Bowser Jr Idea, it’s genuinely one of the cutest ships I’ve seen and I’m actually working on some fanart of them based on one of the fanfics you wrote on them lol
Aw, thanks. I'm happy to inspire. The magic of writing and other artistic pursuits is that the world is your oyster, which is a good thing when your interests are niche - which, in the context of Smash, Bowser and especially Bowser Jr. are. That was actually one of my driving forces for making Smash fics centered around those two: It was rare to find by the "For" era and Junior especially I felt most fic writers didn't really do justice, so...
With Bowser Jr. and Mega Man I had the dynamic of a sort of impasse. On one end, the later Mega Man games have Mega Man get tired of Wily's shenanigans, which makes him fun to pit against Bowser - who more or less makes it his purpose in life to be a villain - and especially Junior, who looks up to the former. On the opposite end is Bowser Jr., who would find Mega Man super cool, but be disappointed in him being so morally-upright, not to mention that this was around the time that spinoffs really started to explore Junior's previously hinted at lonely side. It leads to a character dynamic that can go in different directions from fierce rivals to odd friends and so forth.
I don't know when/if I'll ever get back into Smash enough to write more (I did leave the two "Bowser's Modern Life" fics on cliffhangers and I do want to write something to wrap it up, preferably before the next Smash game lest someone gets cut), but I definitely will continue writing the Bowsers in the future.
Square-Enix showed off some new cards for the Final Fantasy Trading Card Game's upcoming set: Memories of Life - which appears to largely be themed around Final Fantasy IX and XI while also being an anniversary set for the card game itself. One of the new illustrated cards is for Refia, making her the second remake character to get a new card after Luneth. This is also Refia's third card, as she also got a World of Final Fantasy card previously, making her the protagonist with the most illustrated cards.
Luneth's second card was illustrated by Sara Shimokobe, but this new Refia card is apparently illustrated by Yukihiro Kajimoto - Kajimoto is a Square-Enix artist, having recently done a day 1 illustration for The Adventures of Elliot (and maybe art for the game in general?) as well as doing character illustrations for Star Ocean: The Second Story R.
Right now, it's not clear if there are more FF3-related cards. The differing styles between Luneth and Refia's cards also suggest that whenever Arc and Ingus get cards, they might be in different styles as well.
Freyr - Profound Darkness: This clone of a certain Red Mage is certainly determined, going to the mysterious Radiant Emerald, empowering himself with the Chaos Rings and even sacrificing himself to become the embodiment of darkness. Is this truly to avenge the life his progenitor could have had? Or is there a more personal reason for his revenge? Perhaps the motive doesn't matter - just that he's the final challenge our champions must face!
"Onion Knight" - Light of Destruction: After its bid to hijack Xande's plan failed, this counterfeit youth followed Freyr to the edge of time and space. However, Freyr tossed him into a super-dark ring and the boy's fervor to the light has caused him to become consumed by it! Now acting as the vessal for a certain Sun God, he seems more concerned with those who stand in his way than the forces of darkness he seemed set on destroying."
Yes, another AU-related thing with these two. It'll be (or at least, it's intended to be) the last one featuring these two at least for a while: Future Chaos Theory-related commissions I get whenever that is will feature the other members of the cast, or at least the other Warriors of Light, and play up the crossover aspect a bit more.
More info/An explanation of what all that text above means under the cut.
I talked about Freyr and "Onion Knight" previously here and here. To summarize: In this AU, Xande meddles with forces beyond his control - at least, at first. Specifically, Xande studies the rings (from the Sonic series - this AU does a Namco x Capcom/SRW thing) and intends to reverse engineer them in such a way that they lead the Chaos Emeralds to the wielder rather than vice-versa. He also targets Ulticannon (Evolution): the legendary Cyframe said to have the capacity to turn humans into gods. All for the sake of his immortality.
At least, that's how it starts. Learning what became of his fellow pupils, Xande snaps and decides to surpass his master, Noah. And since Noah was practically a god, well...
In any case, Xande creates clones of Doga and Unei's "weapons" to aid him in his schemes. The clones have varying degrees of sentience with the "leaders" of each group having varying degrees of loyalty.
King Moon (Luneth) is mostly a treasure hunter with little stake in Xande's plans beyond finding a particular ore.
The Arc-Mage (Arc) studies the properties of this ore, its capacity to hold the energy of the chaos emeralds or other similar substances. He's more interested in his findings than advancing Xande's agenda though.
The Steel Maiden refines the material into weapons and jewelry. She's a bit of a perfectionist and more concerned with making "Father Takka" proud than fulfilling Xande's demands.
Freyr the Warmage (Ingus)... seemingly does what he is meant to be doing. He seems to focus on training other clones to act as foot soliders.
And lastly, the "Onion Knight" (er, Onion Knight)... well, he seems to work directly under Xande, but nobody knows what he's up to.
All of this is well and good until Xande succeeds in summoning Evolutia, at which point the "Onion Knight's" sudden yet inevitable betrayal occurs: He shoves Xande out of the way and commands Ulticannon to reset the cycle by destroying all life on the planet, intending to create a world of pure light. Thanks to the power of friendship and fists, the Adventurers manage to stop the machine.
Meanwhile, Freyr has learned of a mysterious point. A place where made out of the very same ore that is so compatible with the Chaos Emeralds. A place called Radiant Emerald...
Freyr and "Onion Knight" are intended as the "True Final Boss" of this AU. In these forms, they represent pure darkness and light respectively. Freyr attacks largely by warping - whether that be himself, his opponent or elements from the special stages in the Sonic series - as well as lasers, a time-honored Darkness tradition, among other moves. "Onion Knight" primarily uses hardlight swords and beams of light.
If you're interested in this AU, I do have more info on a sideblog here. There's not too much at the moment, but I hope to change that in the time to come.
The Head of the Launcher Family
Something a little out of my usual fare.
Just wanted to do a little bit of fanart for a game that I grew up w/ and I think about often.
I’ve never finished the game and WAS recently playing it, but have lost interest. A cute little game, but frankly I want a bit more from my RPGs, story wise, these days.
I'm on anon because im shy but I'm really curious about that cut ff3 ds stuff about the rotation of the sun and earth getting reversed. :o what do you think they were cooking with that? I don't think there's any indication of that being a thing in the pixel remaster version
Hi, thanks for the ask.
The whole "Earth and the Sun" thing ties back to Xande's motive in the remake. The original game (which the PR is based on) was vague about what Xande's overall goal was beyond flooding the world with darkness. The 3D remake gave him a more explicit goal of stopping time as a means of delaying his now-mortal death.
So within the cosmology of the remake, it seems that the world and the sun have some sort of relationship. Desch's unused dialogue in the Village of the Ancients (t09) implies that a similar time stop may have happened during the flood of light? At the very least, the sun stopped moving whereas one of the Warriors of the Dark describes what Xande did as:
The really interesting bit is that it's heavily implied that it had to do with the Warriors of the Dark. The game doesn't explain how the Warriors of the Dark stopped the Cloud of Darkness previously other than "at great cost". This is in sharp contrast to the Warriors of the Light, who couldn't even scratch it until the Warriors of the Dark sacrificed themselves (and, if you want to count Opera Omnia, it doesn't matter how many light-aspected folks you throw at it). The Cloud of Darkness' Brave Exvius descriptions state that it was sealed away by both the Warriors of Light and Dark, but the game itself never mentions a prior group of Warriors of Light to my knowledge.
So, how did the Warriors of the Dark stop the Cloud of Darkness?
And seeing as how there's no mention of the Warriors of the Light changing the relationship between the Earth and the Sun, it probably wasn't as simple as beating up the Cloud.
But, in conclusion, the cosmology of the DS remake is roughly as follows:
The earth and the sun have a link: The Wrath of Light caused the sun to stop moving and the Wrath of Dark severed the link between them (which the Floating Continent dodged by being in the sky and having two crystals)
The imbalance also summons the Cloud of Darkness, an entity which requires both Warriors of Light and Warriors of Dark to force back.
The Warriors of Dark fought the Cloud of Darkness during the Wrath of Light. There is no indication that there were Warriors of Light in that period, although Brave Exvius raises the possibility. The Dark Warriors defeat it at great cost.
According to Desch and Doga, the Sun used to revolve around the Earth. After the Wrath/Flood of Light, the Earth now revolves around the Sun.
A 1000 or so years later, Xande - presumably remembering the effects of the Flood of Light - triggers a Flood of Darkness as a crude means of nullifying Noah's "gift of mortality"
Freyr - Profound Darkness: This clone of a certain Red Mage is certainly determined, going to the mysterious Radiant Emerald, empowering himself with the Chaos Rings and even sacrificing himself to become the embodiment of darkness. Is this truly to avenge the life his progenitor could have had? Or is there a more personal reason for his revenge? Perhaps the motive doesn't matter - just that he's the final challenge our champions must face!
"Onion Knight" - Light of Destruction: After its bid to hijack Xande's plan failed, this counterfeit youth followed Freyr to the edge of time and space. However, Freyr tossed him into a super-dark ring and the boy's fervor to the light has caused him to become consumed by it! Now acting as the vessal for a certain Sun God, he seems more concerned with those who stand in his way than the forces of darkness he seemed set on destroying."
Yes, another AU-related thing with these two. It'll be (or at least, it's intended to be) the last one featuring these two at least for a while: Future Chaos Theory-related commissions I get whenever that is will feature the other members of the cast, or at least the other Warriors of Light, and play up the crossover aspect a bit more.
More info/An explanation of what all that text above means under the cut.
I talked about Freyr and "Onion Knight" previously here and here. To summarize: In this AU, Xande meddles with forces beyond his control - at least, at first. Specifically, Xande studies the rings (from the Sonic series - this AU does a Namco x Capcom/SRW thing) and intends to reverse engineer them in such a way that they lead the Chaos Emeralds to the wielder rather than vice-versa. He also targets Ulticannon (Evolution): the legendary Cyframe said to have the capacity to turn humans into gods. All for the sake of his immortality.
At least, that's how it starts. Learning what became of his fellow pupils, Xande snaps and decides to surpass his master, Noah. And since Noah was practically a god, well...
In any case, Xande creates clones of Doga and Unei's "weapons" to aid him in his schemes. The clones have varying degrees of sentience with the "leaders" of each group having varying degrees of loyalty.
King Moon (Luneth) is mostly a treasure hunter with little stake in Xande's plans beyond finding a particular ore.
The Arc-Mage (Arc) studies the properties of this ore, its capacity to hold the energy of the chaos emeralds or other similar substances. He's more interested in his findings than advancing Xande's agenda though.
The Steel Maiden refines the material into weapons and jewelry. She's a bit of a perfectionist and more concerned with making "Father Takka" proud than fulfilling Xande's demands.
Freyr the Warmage (Ingus)... seemingly does what he is meant to be doing. He seems to focus on training other clones to act as foot soliders.
And lastly, the "Onion Knight" (er, Onion Knight)... well, he seems to work directly under Xande, but nobody knows what he's up to.
All of this is well and good until Xande succeeds in summoning Evolutia, at which point the "Onion Knight's" sudden yet inevitable betrayal occurs: He shoves Xande out of the way and commands Ulticannon to reset the cycle by destroying all life on the planet, intending to create a world of pure light. Thanks to the power of friendship and fists, the Adventurers manage to stop the machine.
Meanwhile, Freyr has learned of a mysterious point. A place where made out of the very same ore that is so compatible with the Chaos Emeralds. A place called Radiant Emerald...
Freyr and "Onion Knight" are intended as the "True Final Boss" of this AU. In these forms, they represent pure darkness and light respectively. Freyr attacks largely by warping - whether that be himself, his opponent or elements from the special stages in the Sonic series - as well as lasers, a time-honored Darkness tradition, among other moves. "Onion Knight" primarily uses hardlight swords and beams of light.
If you're interested in this AU, I do have more info on a sideblog here. There's not too much at the moment, but I hope to change that in the time to come.
Got another commission from HELD on Vgen. This time, it's Alex Kidd with STELLA.
In terms of misc details:
While I asked for the Enchanted Castle look for Alex (which is the one used for Alex's later appearances), I did ask HELD to add the hair spike from Alex's classic design, which is reflected nicely here.
The Zodiac sign on the image is Aries; Not only is it the first stage's sign in the Lost Stars, but the planet that Alex and Stella are from is also named Aries.
I followed Archie's example in having Stella utilize abilities more in line with Lost Stars' powerups - though I asked HELD to make it more star-based - to contrast with Alex's use of Shellcore. I do headcanon Stella as a martial artist who also trained under Saint Nurari (and thus knew Alex). For her it was more of a hobby.
This is using HELD's chibi style for this one. Considering Alex Kidd was heavily influenced by Dragon Ball and Archie's own take on it, I figured that was the right call. HELD's proportions are somewhere in-between Archie's take and Lost Stars' own take (outside of the chibified artwork, Alex and Stella had taller proportions), which works very well.
Anyway, 10/10, I would recommend you commission them. Plenty of bang for your buck.
A candle-lit cathedral made of marble and wax, built on a myriad of bones: a love letter to all the gothic enthusiasts - with a touch of baroque and a sprinkle of holy art.
Asset pack now available on Patreon - itch.io
Ko-fi - Prints
Do you know which scenes in the unused dialogue for FF3 reference Arc’s height insecurity? I’m trying to do research for a full character bio
The primary one is a conversation in Tozus (t06) where Desch tries to cheer Arc up about his disappoint at having to be mini (since he wanted to feel taller) by lyingclaiming to have been even shorter at his age. This conversation is also noteworthy for establishing that Arc is 14.
The other is one of the Castle Sasune (t24), though it's less direct than I originally thought. It's after the party meets with Alus and Refia says that Arc grew up. Arc seems to assume she meant literally, causing Ingus to tell him not to get mad, but he has grown.
In addition to the one scene in the final that directly mentions it (also with Desch), there is another, indirect nod to it: In one of the Saronia conversation scenes, when the party notices Arc getting along with Alus, Luneth flippantly says this line:
It's probably because someone who's even shorter than him is doing his best to help his country.
Which, looking back, I saw people at the time getting annoyed at Ingus for chastising him over that line, so they may have missed the initial scene that established Arc's height issues? From what I remember, anyway.
Final Fantasy III Manga Errata Part: FINAL Lore Edition
This is the final part of my little miniseries going back over the Final Fantasy III manga now that a translation courtesy of TrafalgerLogs is available.
I'm gonna do things a bit differently. Rather than giving a play-by-play (as a lot of the fight scenes play out roughly identically), I'll instead go by character.
But for those who don't know. The Manga more or less decouples completely from the game once the surface world comes into play. Forget what you know about III's endgame, because there's no Cloud of Darkness or Dark Crystals where we're going.
But first, some unfinished business:
Muuchi fights against Ifrit until the Wind intervenes. Ifrit appears to hear it, but Hein does not.
Ifrit draws the cross on his chest because it's a sign of armistice - i.e. he's saying he doesn't want to fight. Hence Hein losing it.
Muuchi states that the Ancients Sword contains the thoughts of the Ancients. The Warriors realize that the living trees are, in fact, the spirits of the Ancients. This is also why, when Muuchi later throws the sword on the surface, it guides them in the direction they need to go.
Desch freaks out because he remembers his past as an ancestor of the Ancients. He informs the Warriors of the motherland (the surface) and how he survived to meet them.
Doug's episode on the surface is due to him being disturbed at the realization that the floating continent was just a tiny part of a bigger world.
And now that we're caught up:
Alus Restor:
When I initially looked at the manga, I had to rely on the FF dictionary (a japanese fansite) to understand the details of what was happening with Alus, beyond the similarities to Aria in the game. And know, with the translation, here's some further context:
Alus in this adaptation was the prince of Solrados. Xande initially unleashed the Great Earthquake on the region. Buildings collapsed, people taken by the waves. Pure pandemonium. While Alus' father/Gorn's manga equivalent tried praying to the gods, but nothing worked. Alus' family, and eventually Alus himself, were consumed by the waves.
At the same time, Unei was clashing with Xande. She casted the ultimate White Magic spell Wrath of the Dream World and Xande put a curse on her in-turn to make her fall asleep. Spotting Alus' soul, she bound herself to him - making him her Dream Child and granting him her lifeforce and charging him with waiting for the Warriors of the Wind to lead them to the Water Crystal. Alus was able to save Melfi from falling off of the ravine by moving inhumanely quickly. And his entourage seems to be a manifestation of Unei's magic
As the Water Crystal is being unearthed, Alus binds his consciousness to the Warriors of the Wind, allowing them to rescue Unei at the cost of his life. With Unei now awaken once more, she reveals that she gave Alus a dreamless sleep. While the dead also dream, Unei notes that their dreams can be joyous or maddening and for Alus' "hate-stained soul", that was the greatest kind of peace she could give him.
Doga:
Doga is the initially seen when the Warriors of the Wind arrive on the surface and is only named when they meet Unei. Doga's been involved far earlier though, as it turns out he was the wind that has been guiding the Warriors of Light to their goal throughout the story. By the time they reach the motherland, however, Xande is beginning to break his seal. When he and Unei reunite, he reveals that he was following the will of the wind crystal.
Doga is nicknamed "Wind" in this adaptation.
Unei:
Unei is initially trapped underneath the Water Crystal, her heart pierced by it, but is eventually freed by the Warriors of Light. Notably, she immediately transforms into her younger self rather than staying in her old form. The DS remake would eventually suggest that the apprentices could bring themselves back to life via magic, but Doga and Unei don't seem to have the ability to de-age themselves (and it gets confusing with Noah later).
Unei explains more or less everything that happened up to that point, such as how the Floating Continent was created by Doga/Wind and her and Doga's past with Noah and how that plays into the threat their facing: Xande. But by this time, she and Doga have had their magic bound by Xande, so all they could do is buy time and prepare the Warriors to face off against him. Unei also explains to Melfi the concept of the "Empty Spring" - something that Noah told her and Doga: It's the moment that someone falls in love with someone else and that as long as one is human, falling into the spring will make you fragile and can potentially weaken you. Doga and Unei fell into the spring and Xande promptly took advantage of it.
Unei is nicknamed "Dreams" in this adaptation.
Noah:
Surprisingly enough, the manga is the only adaptation of III to actually show Noah, in all his crescent moon-horned glory.
Noah's no slouch in the ability department either. According to Unei's flashback, Noah was an incarnation of the gods of creation and had the talent to match, said to wield enough power to destroy the world and revive it just as quickly.
But Noah was still mortal, no matter how many centuries-long lifespan expanding techniques he knew. On his deathbed, he granted Doga mastery over black magic and Unei mastery over White Magic and...
*Checks notes*
...Nope. That's it. That's all we hear of what he gave.
This implies that Xande - in this adaptation - is acting out of envy of his fellow disciples for getting gifts. This would track with some of the things about him in this adaptation.
Oh, and speaking of:
Xande:
Xande is not a complicated character in this adaptation. He emerges towards the middle of the third volume as the seal Doga placed on him begins to weaken. Most of his dialogue isn't worth examining in detail as it's pretty much what you would expect outside of two lines.
The thing that stands out to me about Xande in this adaptation is that he is self-centered. It's implied that his turning into a demon and all the shenanigans he enacted were due to his master not leaving him anything. And Xande declares himself to be the world after his initial shell is broken.
The point is emphasized when Muuchi points out that Xande taking advantage of Doga and Unei's love for each other is inhumane; Unei responds that Xande is no longer human and only cares about empowering himself, not caring for any other human.
It also frames him using Doga and Unei (or at least, their bodies) as weapons in an even darker light. The game is generally ambiguous about Xande's thoughts on Doga and Unei since turning evil (although Memory of Heroes portrays him as envious of them and feeling that they are trying to undermine him in the one line that he mentions them for), but the manga 's portrayal of him really makes it hard not to think that he thinks almost nothing of them and only sees them as an obstacle.
And, of course, the Cloud of Darkness doesn't exist in this adaptation. Nothing really indicates that Xande fell under the control of some outside force either, at least beyond general "darkness".
Conclusion:
Now that I can actually understand the manga, it's an interesting work. I wouldn't necessarily consider it to be canonical (my stance is "does it contradict what other media says), it still has some interesting ideas like Noah's power levels, Sara being a descendant of the Ancients, and of course the main characters; While it'd be wrong to outright say that the DS characters were inspired by the manga protagonists, I can see shades of their personalities and general dynamics in some of their interactions. But even in their own right, they're fun characters.
(Also there's a cute little 4-page Fat Chocobo mini comic at the end of the third volume that I have somehow neglected to mention up to this point)
But of course, viewer beware. There's some nudity, violence beyond what the games themselves had and what I'll just call "Japanese humor". If those don't put you off, then give it a whirl. It's on Mangadex right now.
