Mini is the biggest ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ever!

[Blackthorn]

I just want to know what you think. I HATE the mini mechanic! You have to shrink yourself in size but not only that, you are now unable to attack and defend normally! Great! All you can do is run from battles. You also have to switch jobs every 5 minutes because you have only 2 MP for lvl 2 when you get to the second mini part (this temple thingy). You also dont have enough MP to fight against every enemy and flee almost never works when you are mini. And thats ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!

[MassConnect]

Unlike other FF games, I find that the pacing in III is the most lacking. And what I mean by pacing is the fact that just following the main story alone is not enough to level you as quickly as the story's difficulty will progress.

In yet more other words, there's just not enough content, which makes grinding unavoidable. Because of that, I am not surprised someone might reach the mini portion far too soon and have difficulty with it. There are very thorough people who reach the second town and have difficulty with enemies in the mine (even though they weren't meant to/don't have to tackle that ASAP).

All that said, casting isn't really necessary for mages unless you're in a boss battle. You should be using the magic weapons as items, because this will cast spells for free.

[Dave The Red]

It takes some level grinding to get to the point you can handle those battles even in mini. It is a bit slow getting there, but there's always been some grinding in each FF game that I've played.

[LilG]

Best way to survive when mini is use mage jobs keep them in the back row & cast spells. If you're having mp issues lvup a bit more.
Casting mini on yourself or others while mini removes the effect.
Not sure why you're switching jobs every 5 mins good setup is 1 healer, 1 nuker, 2 melee types.

[DCT]

Originally posted by Tweak:

Unlike other FF games, I find that the pacing in III is the most lacking. And what I mean by pacing is the fact that just following the main story alone is not enough to level you as quickly as the story's difficulty will progress.
-snip-

Obviously you never played the orginal versions of Final Fantasy 1 or 2(or even 3 for that matter) they were filled with points where you needed to grind to survive hell in FF1 the second dungeon which was the Marsh cave would slaughter you if you didn't grind out your party to a decent enough level. Grinding eventually became much more laxed from four on though four had some areas where you should grind up a few levels before hand such as your trips through the Tower of Babel where you during your first go around you should grind up to level 50, while it wasn't nesscarry it did make that area alot easier. It just how games were back then, it was a reminent of the forefathers of Video game RPGs Wizardry and early Ultima's(1-3) which early versions of what we now call JRPGs(the orginal Dragon Slayer and Dungeon don't really count since they were more arcadey type games) on the consoles and home computers took either direct or inderect insperation from(either they were directly inspired by them or they were inspired by Dragon Quest and Black Oynx which in turn were inspired by Ultima and Wizardry)

But yeah this version of 3 is not like say the Dawn of souls version of FF1 or 2(well more so the DOS version of 1 anyway, still found 2 to be a pain in the ass but that is more due to it's silly stat raising mechanics) where there was a bit more rebalancing, while this version of 3 is more of it's FF3 with some expanded story elements but same core gameplay and difficulty that was in the famicom orginal.

[Devoras]

Yeah, I was enjoying it until I hit that part where you are forced to go mini, it was a huge wall in my progress so I lost interest and stopped playing. It wouldn't be so bad if you knew it was coming and had all your characters just level up in mage jobs until that point, so I may go back and restart someday.

[Lugum]

Just use black magic and level up, isn't hard eventually.

The random encounters which i hoped would be less (might be but there is still alot), are bugging me more.

[Azerate]

Yes it was annoying but not that much, hearing that someone quit because of that...really? This game is too good to dump it because of something like that.

My party is Thief, Warrior, Black Mage, White Mage. The part when I had to go "MINI" i owned with my white and black mages. I was casting fire with fire rod on my black mage and the white mage just did nothing and on boss fights I made him cast "Aero". Never fleed any battles during that period.

[Devoras]

I was using a thief, red mage, warrior and freelancer. I didn't have anything fancy like a fire rod(though I did have a pretty cool wraith sword I had found somewhere, which was useless in mini) My red mage didn't have enough spell slots to defeat all the enemies, and he was the only one who could even hurt them; though the freelancer had a lot of cure spells she could use to keep us alive.

Mini forces you into certain party compositions, and I didn't have a correct one. Like I said though I will probably go back again someday with 3-4 spellcasters. I don't like having to redo the two hours I already went through.

[Daft Gamer]

Man, I miss the games where you could choose job specializations. I just can't see spending $10US for this with as many people that I've heard from/read about having issues with lost save files or issues with the game.

[Dave The Red]

I haven't had any issues with this game so far. I have an average computer and it seems to run very well. I have played Final Fantasy since I first got the game on nintendo way back when the series started in the U.S. so maybe I'm used to the level grinding and such.

[Azerate]

Originally posted by Devoras:

I was using a thief, red mage, warrior and freelancer. I didn't have anything fancy like a fire rod(though I did have a pretty cool wraith sword I had found somewhere, which was useless in mini) My red mage didn't have enough spell slots to defeat all the enemies, and he was the only one who could even hurt them; though the freelancer had a lot of cure spells she could use to keep us alive.

Mini forces you into certain party compositions, and I didn't have a correct one. Like I said though I will probably go back again someday with 3-4 spellcasters. I don't like having to redo the two hours I already went through.

Well sorry but If you didn't have at least one rod that casts offensive spells for free at the time you had to go MINI, then you just skipped it and it was an error on your behalf, not the fault of the game. Yes the part that requires being MINI may be seen as problematic, but that's kinda the point - you have to adjust and come up with a plan how to be successful even though you can't use physical attacks. This can be done either by changing jobs or using the rods as I said before. You could also probably just cast some spells and visit the inn a bit more to replenish your mp, whatever works for you. The great thing is that there is a challenge like that imo.

The problem here is that it's an old school style mechanic, and many people used to contemporary games have difficulties to stomach situations in which you have to drastically change your battling strategy even for a brief time.

Originally posted by Daft Gamer:

Man, I miss the games where you could choose job specializations. I just can't see spending $10US for this with as many people that I've heard from/read about having issues with lost save files or issues with the game.

Making decision about purchasing or not purchasing something basing on a couple complaints on the internet is something that you should probably avoid. You will find people who didn't like some aspects of the game in almost every game, and you will also find people who had bugs in every game.

[Daft Gamer]

"Making decision about purchasing or not purchasing something basing on a couple complaints on the internet is something that you should probably avoid. You will find people who didn't like some aspects of the game in almost every game, and you will also find people who had bugs in every game."

If it were some random internet people that I was talking about, I wouldn't sweat it any. However, some of the problems I've heard are from people that I've been friends with for the past several years. I admit that some of the issues are possibly due to user error and I'm willing to lay down a little money on that. However, with limited income, $10 is too much to wager for an Android port. The only reason I own FF4 here on Steam is because that was the first time that a console RPG truly and completely captured my imagination and emotions.

Regardless, I've gotten some great deals this sale so if it doesn't drop any further, I'll still have plenty to play. Who knows, this might give me the reason to go ahead and break down to buy Bravely Default on 3DS. That is one title that needs to get either a PC or home console release. It's a shame that JRPG's similar to those from back in the day are relegated to re-releases or ports to portables(a way of playing a game that isn't conducive to grind-heavy experiences).

[Devoras]

Interesting if rods can cast spells for free with no consequence, that sounds like an op exploit but it would certainly make things easier on difficult fights, will consider that next time I play through.

The game isn't bad, I would say average, just this one part has poor balancing. Choosing jobs isn't as exciting as it is in later games so you may be a little disappointed with that aspect, but it's worth buying.

[Azerate]

Originally posted by Devoras:

Interesting if rods can cast spells for free with no consequence, that sounds like an op exploit but it would certainly make things easier on difficult fights, will consider that next time I play through.

That's not really as good as it sounds, especially later in the game, because the rods only cast level 1 spells (fire, blizzard etc.). This is good for random encounters however, if you want to get through them faster and still have some mages in your team.

[Dave The Red]

The Ice rod casts blizzaga, I used it even late in the game as an item with my Devout when she wasn't healing.