FF3 Fun Facts of the Whenever: Luneth’s Character Development
How have I not posted about this yet.
When it comes to the Final Fantasy III remake, the unused dialogue is not just leftover text. In some cases, it acts as window into what the developers planned, before deciding to stay close to the original game rather than deviate drastically.
Of the four main characters, the two most heavily impacted by this are Luneth and Ingus. In Luneth’s case, he lost a number of scenes showcasing his brash nature or some subtleties of his personality, such as showing surprising concern for Aria or him getting sick on airships.
And then, there’s Castle Hein.
Castle Hein and its related areas (Tokkul, Argus) noticeably contain far more unused dialogue than probably any other dungeon. This is because the entire sequence was going to possibly be made complex, to the point of introducing a new character.
Everything starts off in Tokkul; While the village is optional to visit, it is accessible as soon as you get the Enterprise and it hints at what it to come. Thus, the party and Desch go there.
In the final game, one of the houses contains a woman hiding in the back (with her child if I remember correctly?); At one point, however, she also had a brother. Said brother is a man on a mission: avenge his wife and child who were killed by Hein. The woman points out the man has never used a weapon in his life, but the man decides to seek out the “title of the lost heroes” (lost title of the brave? I dunno) to inherit their power. The man vows to find it no matter what and leaves despite the woman and Desch’s concerns.
Also, there’s an odd scene where Arc mentions that Luneth was avoided by everyone back in Ur, with Luneth telling him not to say anything else. Refia muses that Luneth is insensitive to his surroundings and Ingus noting that something is wrong with the village either way. This seemingly doesn’t connect to the actual story arc, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
Skipping ahead, Luneth finds himself in Hein’s Castle. The big deviation is apparent both here and in one of Luneth’s lines for Tokkul; Luneth is alone. Luneth speculates that the others abandoned him. Eventually, he pulls himself together and looks for a way out.
He winds up finding King Argus, talking to what is implied to be the guy from earlier. The man reveals that he has procured a “sigil of courage” (suggested to be a crystal piece) allowing him to use the Evoker job; A job whose abilities can ignore Hein’s Barrier Shift. Luneth goes over to complement him, but the man (now identified as Falb) simply replies that it’s about his own struggle and how, to avenge his family, he can only do his best with what he has.
Seeing an opportunity, Falb stages a jailbreak and proceeds to hold off the guards while allowing Luneth to escape. Luneth muses on Falb’s words before wondering where everyone else is.
While Arc and Refia’s rescue comments were either scrubbed or not written before the scenario was scrapped, Ingus’ (the last to be rescued) remain: Ingus finds this behavior off for Luneth, noting that the old Luneth would’ve been too arrogant and turned his nose at the idea of help. Luneth is surprisingly humble, admitting that he let his guard down and got caught before echoing Falb’s words from before. Speaking of, Ingus asks about Luneth’s helper and Luneth states that Falb is fighting alone and that they need to help him.
Eventually, Luneth returns to find Falb beaten up. He tries to encourage Falb, mentioning his family, but Falb instead hands over the crystal piece to Luneth, giving the party the Evoker ability. Falb asks Luneth to defeat Hein and Luneth promises before telling Falb not to die.
After Hein’s defeated, the party takes in the more lively atmosphere of Castle Argus. This prompts Luneth to make a serious observation about how they have to protect people’s lives. Refia teases Luneth for actually being serious for once, but Ingus speaks up for him, telling Luneth that he’s grown a little, a compliment Luneth sheepishly agrees with. Refia finds the two men’s understanding boring.
As a coda to this sequence, Falb was meant to be found in Castle Argus after all was said and done. He apologizes to and thanks Luneth for giving him the revenge he swore to take, only for Luneth to instead thank Falb, pointing out his bravery and how he taught Luneth something. Falb then reveals that he was brought on as a castle keeper by King Argus and how his new fight is to rebuild Tokkul. Both he and the party wish each other good luck.
On one hand, I can understand why this was cut, but it’s also a very intriguing piece in general. Even impactwise, it probably would’ve been significant: Falb is one of two new characters in the FF3 remake (the other being the Legendary Smith). Would he have been a playable character in some of the spinoffs like Brave Exvius? Likewise, this sequence gives Luneth a tie to the Evoker job: Would that have been his go-to secondary job in the same way that Dark Knight seems to have (as seen in FFRK and FFBE)?
Hein is one of the more notable Final Fantasy III bosses. His stand-out design, being the first enemy with the Barrier Shift ability and status as the last boss of the floating continent combine to make hin memorable despite his minor role in the big picture of the plot. Hein is one of the more referenced villains too: He got a counterpart in Sorcerer Hyne in FFVIII's backstory, XIV combined him with his Eureka counterpart Amon for the Crystal Tower raid, and he appears as a (JP-only as of this writing) unit alongside Xande in Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. Hein also appears in the manga, with a similar role as in the game. However, here he's accompanied by two stands summons: Shiva and Ifirit.
Shiva and Ifirit are recurring summons in Final Fantasy, with III being their first appearance (along with summoning in general). Unlike most later games though, Ifirit and Shiva could be purchased from shops and were not tied to boss fights like others such as Leviathan or Odin. As a result, they are entirely detached from the plot. By contrast, they’re the only summons to show up in the manga.
Fair warning for this chapter of the manga though: It has some rather gory/graphic elements, so if that stuff grosses or freaks you out, you may want to skip past those parts. Also, a lot more scans this time around.
Hein appears in the second half of Volume 2 and his fight carries into the first third of Volume 3. The Warriors of the Wind, along with Desch, enter the Living Woods. There, Desch remembers the town Castle of the Ancients, which is apparently around somewhere. Hein has made his base here and he's not too keen on giving it up. Thus, he uses his fancy ring to call upon Shiva, who multiplies into four different Shivas and fights the Warriors. Special mention to Desch, who calls a bird to attack Hein, not that it stops Hein from commanding Shiva to summon twin ice snakes.
Throughout the battle, Muuchi refuses to give in, even when Shiva freezes his blade solid and breaks it. Muuchi charges at Shiva and gets a new sword by
...Yeah.
Back on the battlefield, Hein is still giving Shiva commands as she attacks the rest of the party, only for Muuchi to test out his new blade by cutting Hein's ring finger off.
Unluckily for Muuchi, Ifirit shows up wielding Tomohawks and Hein is able to escape, leaving Muuchi in Hein's M.C. Escher funhouse with Ifirit. To make matters worse, the rest of the Warriors are defeated and incased in a pillar of ice by Shiva.
Ifirit and Muuchi continue their duel and, after creating a cyclone to throw Ifirit around, Muuchi manages to impress him to the extent that Ifirit no longer attacks.
Naturally, Hein is less than thrilled that his monster is playing nice now, uses the ring to subdue Ifirit and creates a sword to execute him. Muuchi saves Ifirit via a good ol' punch to the face, hard enough to actually knock Hein's hat off.
By this point, the fight has been tame, by this manga's standards. Don't worry though, since this is the point that it all goes off the rails: Hein apparently gets fed up and sucks the energy out of Ifirit and Shiva and takes it for himself, causing him to turn into this horrible horrible thing:
(Credit to FFwiki for this image)
Why yes, that face on his stomach is sentient, how could you tell?
Things look bad for Muuchi by this point as Hein has him on the defensive. This culminates in Hein stabbing Muuchi through his stomach. For a moment, it seems as if Muuchi will die in the fight. However, thinking of Melfi, Doug, Bowie and Desch convinces him to get up. He then takes off his cape and uses it as a makeshift bandage for the wound.
Rather than killing Muuchi physically, Hein takes a different approach; He creates a clone of Muuchi. Said clone does not last long before its face cracks and its head melts in a graphic manner.
This is followed up by a worm monster emerging from Muuchi's chest and attempting to eat him.
Of course, it's all just illusions by Hein, but it's not doing favors for Muuchi's sanity. Luckily for Muuchi, though, Ifirit and Shiva are able to clear his mind. They distract Hein with their weakened forms giving Muuchi enough time to shove his sword into Hein's skull. An explosion rocks the castle, Muuchi is sent falling into a lake, but J saves him. Ifirit and Shiva then take their leave. Spoilers: They'll be back.
Muuchi wakes up to the others, his wound now healed. Desch suddenly regains his memories and proceeds to use the mother tree/living woods (?) to clear up the clouds blocking the surface. Then he fuses with the Mother Tree/Living Woods (?) bidding the Warriors of Light farewell as they're warped to the surface. Unlike his game counterpart, he's truly gone here.
All in all, a pretty crazy chapter. Hein may not have his Barrier Shift, but he makes up for it in a big way. Meanwhile, Desch resembles his game counterpart towards the end.
Doga, Unei and Xande are next, And I hope you didn’t get used to how much of a detailed accurate play-by-play this is because it’s most certainly not happening for the next one. Instead, it’ll probably be just vague summing up of how they are since the ending is probably the most nuts part of this “adaptation” (if one can even call it that by that point).
Next Time:
- Noah appearing on-screen!
- Nudity! (Maybe, depending on whether I’m willing to gamble with Tumblr’s flagging algorithm)
- The scrapped design for Guardian’s summon!
- A special guest appearance by Unei’s in-game design!
- And how does one end a Final Fantasy III adaptation without The Crystal Tower, the Cloud of Darkness or the Warriors of Darkness?
If you know me from DeviantART, you probably know I’ve been doing a small thing where run the unused dialogue of Final Fantasy III for the Nintendo DS into three machine translators in an attempt to parse out what it says (and if you don’t, then check it out or head on down to the The Cutting Room Floor if you know Japanese and would like to help out). I’m preparing the Castle Hein ‘translations’ as they are probably the best example of giving an idea of where development of this remake was going at the time. There is one scene translated on TCRF’s page and it’s this scene, commonly mistaken for an argument between Luneth and Ingus:
%shuyaku4% 「ん…？」
Ingus:
Hmm...?
%shuyaku1% 「さあ ハインをやっつけに行こうぜ！」
Luneth:
Come on! Let's go defeat Hein!
３人を助け出し パーティーを再結成した！
3 people rescued!
The party was united!
%shuyaku4% 「%shuyaku1% なんだかお前らしくないな
Ingus:
Luneth.
It doesn't really seem like you.
みんなを助け出したんだ 以前のお前なら そうとう鼻を高くしていたはずだが？」
You helped everyone out. If it was the you before then,
I expected you would've been too proud?
%shuyaku1% 「へへっ… うぬぼれても仕方がないって気づいたのさ
Luneth:
Heh heh heh...
So you've noticed I can't help but be conceited.
自分の力を過信してたら 油断して捕まっちまった…
I have too much confidence in my abilities.
And was completely caught off guard...
今の俺にできることは できる範囲で最大限の努力をする… それしかないのかな って…」
I wonder if I... have reached the limit of my abilities within my efforts...
%shuyaku4% 「ふぅむ いい心がけだな ところで 助っ人って誰だ？」
Ingus:
Hmm. It's good you keep that in mind.
Incidentally, who was the one that backed you up?
%shuyaku1% 「トックルのファルブって男だ 今はひとりで闘ってる… 助けなきゃ」
Luneth:
Falb from Tokkul said men should fight alone... without help.
Now that we are back in Ur, we need to go talk to Topapa right away. So head inside of the Elder’s building, and talk to Topapa. He will say that the children have gone into the Altar Cave, and he asks if we could go look for them. So, head out of here and head into the Altar Cave (which is to the north of Ur, which is also the home of the Wind Crystal). So, head into the Cave, and head to…
