chuckro | Final Fantasy Legend 3

I recently replayed Final Fantasy Legend 3, known as Jikuu no Hasha ~ SaGa 3 ("The Ruler of Time and Space: SaGa 3") in Japan, the last game in that series released for the Game Boy and the last one brought to the states until SaGa Frontier, five years later.

There's a fair amount to this game that I didn't realize when I first played it many years ago. Apparently, the fact that it's the easiest game in the SaGa series (plus the only one with a standard levelling system, one of the few without breakable weapons, and the only one with noteworthy jumping and block-pushing puzzles) is due to the fact that it wasn't made by the primary SaGa team, as they were busy working on Romancing SaGa for the SNES at the time. This was mostly made by the team that went on to make Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest--which also has a low difficulty level, jumping and block-pushing, and questionable implementation of staus ailments.

Also, TVTropes pointed out how much this game owes to H.P. Lovecraft. The plot revolves around a water entity from another dimension that releases evil water to flood the world; monsters emerge from the water, and the people who live in coastal and underwater cities transform into monsters and lose their minds. The sprite designs for the "Masters" of Pureland (particularly Argon and Jörmungandr) owe a lot to his work. Of course, they then put a seriously anime-esque spin on it, because you need to use an awesome time-travelling ship from the future to travel to the Pureland and destroy the Masters using mystic swords. (With a rocket-belt, some cloning, and similar high-technology stuff along with the magic that you can buy at any store and all of your characters can use. Oh, and you can eat monster meat or install robot parts to transform into them, with no ill effects.) Lovecraft would have just had you go insane.

The part where you go to Pureland actually was a big surprise to me back when I originally played the game. The map that comes with the game only shows the original world, and the time-travel gimmick (making the areas past, present, future and "floatland") seemed like they could make a whole game out of it. Turns out, that's barely the first third of the game. (To this day, I feel like they should have done more with the time travel--there's only one stable time loop, and one obvious case where you change the past to revisit the same area in the future. It's really more of a setting excuse than a gameplay mechanic.)

The game itself is a significantly faster-playing game than the other FFL games, because you can generally get through it without grinding and if you do need to grind, there are normal XP and levels. Changing into a Monster, Beast, Cyborg or Robot is keyed to your level, and there's a set selection of 1-4 of each type you can become per level. The robot side is much less well-designed--there are fewer choices, for one. Cyborgs' stats are determined by your equipment, but there isn't that wide a range of equipment at any given time and you can only equip one weapon, one suit of armor, etc. (as opposed to FFL2, where you could equip 5 swords and 3 helmets). Robots improve their stats with pills you can buy, which means you can't afford to use them early on and they're too much trouble to build up in the late game.

The selection of weapons is pretty much cosmetic. If you leave the two Mutants in their original form, the Psi knife, sword and gun are really the only useful choices for them. The two humans are pretty much always better off with the best strength-based weapon available (typically a sword or axe, occasionally a blackjack). The bombs and cannons are essentially useless, because they cost the same as other weapons but only get one use apiece, and the increase in damage isn't that significant. Agility-based weapons like bows and guns are just always outpaced by strength or mana-based ones, because the levelling system means you gain all of the skills evenly.

However, Beast characters become the best choice as soon as "techniques" (Punch, Kick, etc) become available, because they generally do more damage with them than humans do with the equivalent weapons, they get higher HP and MP, and they can use Talents, infinite-use abilities that often have the same effects as spells that cost MP. Starting around the time you get to Pureland, at least one Beast per level has a Stongaze or Stonskin talent, which function as instant-kill attacks that most enemies aren't immune to. (Monsters also get talents, but they lose the benefits of equipment.)

The game definitely shows its age, and the translation isn't amazing (but it gets the job done, especially if you've got a good imagination--and it was actually Ted Woolsey's first project). I'd love to see a remake with a more fleshed-out plot, but I suspect that any remake that was done today would bring it more firmly into the SaGa system, with randomized stat-ups and breakable weapons.

I'm not sure whether this or FFL2 is my favorite of the SaGa series, but I have fond memories of both.