New Year, Same Niche Interests

[New Year, Same Niche Interests]

Final Fantasy III Masterpost

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

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 (Touches upon the prior two points)

Xande used Doga and Unei’s cells to create the clones

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

I think that’s enough for now, but I will surely add more in the future.

[New Year, Same Niche Interests]

FFIII Fun Facts of the Whatever: Dev Interview Edition

[superthatguy62]

When the DS version of the Final Fantasy III remake was released in Japan, Square-Enix released an official strategy guide to go with it. This strategy guide went into quite a lot of detail about the game, giving tips on how to use jobs, showing off unusual team compositions and even discussing some mechanics that may not be clear.

I’ll talk about that stuff later, but the most interesting aspect is an interview with the game staff at the back of the manual, touching upon various aspects of the game.

Thanks to Alex Highsmith of Shmupulations, part of this interview has been translated. I only had enough for an excerpt, but this excerpt is very interesting: In it, Kazuhiko Aoki (Battle Supervisor) and Hiroaki Yabuta (Main Planner) discuss the battle system for III, several of the jobs, a few ideas that didn’t make it into the final game and a rather surprising fact: A PVP mode was considered.

Keep reading

[New Year, Same Niche Interests]

Mirror B. and Tierno exist on opposite sides of a spectrum.

What spectrum that is exactly (beyond just “the Groove Spectrum”) I’m not sure, but they do.

[New Year, Same Niche Interests]

“Honestly, Ingus. You’re not one to have such an active imagination. Perhaps you should go lie down.” - Sara (?)

The joke is that Sara’s lines in the comic are a paraphrase of one of the toads in b3313.

[New Year, Same Niche Interests]

[haniwahead]

elephant mario op pls nerf

[New Year, Same Niche Interests]

[suppermariobroth]

Unused image found in the files of Mario Party 9 depicting a heart-themed area on Bowser's board, Bowser Station. While the final version of the board contains a section where the players roll special dice with hearts on them, the heart decorations from this image have all been removed.

It is possible that the developers decided such decorations would not fit Bowser's personality or aesthetic.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source

[superthatguy62]

Very Bowser’s Bachelor Pad adjacent, despite that not having hearts.

[New Year, Same Niche Interests]

FFIII Fun Facts of the Whatever: Dev Interview Edition

When the DS version of the Final Fantasy III remake was released in Japan, Square-Enix released an official strategy guide to go with it. This strategy guide went into quite a lot of detail about the game, giving tips on how to use jobs, showing off unusual team compositions and even discussing some mechanics that may not be clear.

I’ll talk about that stuff later, but the most interesting aspect is an interview with the game staff at the back of the manual, touching upon various aspects of the game.

Thanks to Alex Highsmith of Shmupulations, part of this interview has been translated. I only had enough for an excerpt, but this excerpt is very interesting: In it, Kazuhiko Aoki (Battle Supervisor) and Hiroaki Yabuta (Main Planner) discuss the battle system for III, several of the jobs, a few ideas that didn’t make it into the final game and a rather surprising fact: A PVP mode was considered.

[New Year, Same Niche Interests]

[zerosocialskillz]

I wonder if Japan has the same fanon as we do when it comes with Zero/02: that they cannot feel positive emotions. Turns out, they don’t, apparently.

From what I’ve observed, it’s a Western-only thing. In Japan, the information that spurred that fanon we have—the fact that Dark Matter Blade was jealous of Popstar because he hadn’t had friends but the inhabitants there did—was apparently more obscure than in the west, even though the source for that information is literally in Japanese. As a result, this information is just that. It’s just this specific guy. It wasn’t expanded upon to apply to literally the entire species, because not only was it more obscure, but there wasn’t any evidence in canon to suggest that this is the case at all.

I wonder how the Japanese fandom would react when they see this flanderization. Would they think it’s weird that this flanderization happened in the first place?

Actually, scratch that. Why did this flanderization happen in the first place, to the point where I have written fanfics about this piece of fanon that has no real evidence to suggest that it’s canon?

[superthatguy62]

I think it was a combination of two factors primarily:

1. The west more heavily classifying the Dark Matter as a species or hive-mind. In Japan, the clouds identified as “Dark Matter” are referred to simply as ‘dark clouds’ and the like, with Dark Matter itself being implied to be more of an individual than you would assume from how the west handles it. (As an aside, Kumazaki apparently acknowledged said backstory as canon during DL2′s development in a Nintendo Dream article, but I can’t confirm that).

2. The weapon used to fight Dark Matter and Zero being the “Love Love Stick” which is created by making all the inhabitants of Pop Star happy. The hearts that make up the Love Love Stick can exorcise the Hyper Zone’s influence from an area (which you need to do to make the bosses friendly), hence the implication or theory that positive emotions hurt the Dark Matter/Zero (with Void Termina making things more complicated).

So those combined led to the fanon that Zero can’t feel positive emotions, has no friends and hates everything as a result.

[New Year, Same Niche Interests]

“Know that you stand before the ruler of countless ages- the Lord of Time! Across the eons, several mighty warriors have stood before me as you do now, all wanting to acquire my powers. And in my labyrinth I test their minds, weeding the weak out from the strong. Kneel before me, brave souls! I bestow upon you an honor reserved only for the wisest of sages, I offer you the power of time!

“Indeed, the very power I possess-

shall be fed by your powers!”

_____________________________________________________________

“I am the flow of time itself.

I can come to no end.”

Remember Chronodia? What was up with it?

[New Year, Same Niche Interests]

Octopath Traveler II Spoilers

[New Year, Same Niche Interests]

Brandt, Aire, Yunita and Jusqua were featured in Bravely Default Praying Brage, a web browser game that ran from 2012 to 2019.

This is another explicit connect between Bravely Default and Final Fantasy: the 4 Heroes of Light, understandable as the former was originally (and, in some ways, still is) a sequel to the latter.

Notably, this is also a rare case of the main characters of 4HOL, much less characters in that game in general, appearing elsewhere.