Final Fantasy 3 Dual Playthrough: Completed! In the same timeframe, I finished the Crystal Tower of FF14 again so I think I'm Crystal Tower'd out...but screw it, now you are all obligated to listen to this!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uObYHzgtCwcSo here are...THE THOUGHTS OF EACH PART!
-Syrcus Tower gives a very different feel in both. The NES version is longer in terms of shear number of rooms and tiring as a result, FF3DS' just takes longer because everything in FF3DS takes longer except for characters running. Also FF3DS' camera nonsense hits here because there's a number of forks in the road that you cannot see enough, which the NES version you could.
-Enemies, likewise, have a different feel. FF3o's enemies aren't bad so much as clearly not scaled to take on Ninja and Sage. It's easy in a way that makes you feel Overpowered rather than enemies feeling weak, kind of like BoF4 easy vs. BoF1 Easy. It's only easy because of the tools you have and if you're willing to use them (which you really should, because Sage is fun!), not because enemies suck. FF3DS, by contrast, enemies suck because they're basically pseudo-bosses that don't have anything close to remotely scary enough. They double act, and might use some modest MT damage, but you should have plenty of healing and blitz through them; fights are annoying because they take a while, and no real way to speed them since they're Single Target, and generally status immune. The exceptions are Ninjas and such.
-...speaking of which, a really cool thing FF3NES did that was lost in FF3DS stylistically is enemy design, namely that Ninja aspect. FF3NES makes it clear that "Ninjas are the ultimate physical job" even as early as Fargabad where they are referenced. You fight 2 Human Bosses in Eureka...who are both Ninjas (namely Ninja and Kunoichi) and all the human enemies in Syrcus and World of Darkness are Ninjas as well, unless you count the D. General guys who seem more like monstrous ogre things than humans. This is actually a really neat attention to detail that I wouldn't expect out of something like an NES game, and feels like it was intentional because there's a lot of human sprites they could have used and basically avoided all of them but the Ninja-style ones, so cool job there. Why is this lost in the DS version? Because Ninja is no longer treated as the Ultimate Physical Job, just a generic late game one; the Ninja thing is still kept for enemies but only because enemies are kept the same between the games...
-...except for Thors. For some reason they appear in Syrcus even though I'm certain they didn't do so until WoD in the NES version. Could be wrong. Not really meaningful; they're not exactly big scary enemies only noteworthy thing is MT Lightning damage (which is the easiest element to resist in the DS version and...hardest in NES version because Ribbons miss them, heh; mind you, their damage isn't high enough to really be threatening in the NES version.)
-There is on exception to the whole enemies feeling lackluster outside of HP in the DS version, and that's Dragons. These things are tough and mean and running into one could kill you easily. They're harder than most bosses in the game, and rare. I wiped once to a Green Dragon because I couldn't get a run away move up. Second playthrough, I ran into a Red Dragon, swore, managed to get a Teleport spell up last minute and escape. NES version has Dragons in one room I believe, but they're nowhere near this hard. I honestly hate design like this; yes, Warmech in FF1 was similar levels of bullshit. I believe FF2 had something similar in the Iron Giant except it only appeared in an optional room that got you the game's best weapon, so yes, I am saying that FF2 of all things handled the "random super monster in final dungeon" best of the NES games...and yes, I am aware that Warmech is not the final dungeon, and technically Syrcus isn't either.
-Xande kind of sucks in both versions. NES version, he skips every other turn and only scary move he has is Meteor, which if he casts, you use ST Cure 4 on everyone (ST it's full healing, MT it's like 550, so 2 Sages MT Cure 4ing heal about 25% HP...yes, MT Healing in FF3 NES isn't very good.) DS version, he always acts, but sometimes wastes turns casting Protect or something, and he generally can't KO Mages in back row in one turn, so someone constantly casting Curaga/Curaja should keep you alive.
-The 5 Dragon scene is silly in both versions. Of note, though, it's another example of FF3DS making use of the ability to have multiple characters move at once, as the 4 Old Men appear on the screen at the same time, while FF3NES, they had to come one at a time. Similarly, you had to watch each character walk into the cloud of Darkness room one at a time in the NES version; DS version just shows them already standing there with fade aways because DRAMATIC and such. See, this is how you do better exposition with simplistic chibis and such...making the Aria scene look all the worse (and basically half of what goes on in FF4DS.) These two scenes are most annoying because each wipe in WoD means you have to go through the entire sequence AGAIN...
-...by the way, shock and awe, lack of save points in both versions REALLY ****ING SUCKS. In the NES version, I had the worst RNG luck of all time repeatedly that I broke down and used save states and fast forwarding just to get back to where I wiped. How bad was my RNG? Xande Clone #3 back attacked me and used 2 Meteors in a row; there's pretty much no realistic way to survive that unless you have an FEOK and there's absolutely nothing you can do to prevent that; it's pure RNG. I am a bit more lenient to the NES version because "Save Points" weren't a thing yet then, but it's still a flaw the game has and an example of it not aging well as a result, so I still hold that against it. It's MORE frustrating in the DS version of course where they even considered putting Save Points in then said "nah." The game really needed at very least a save prompt after Xande, but apparently polling Japanese Fans who wanted the FRUE ORIGINAL EXPERIENCE!!! was more important...even though a simple "Save Points On/Off" option in the menu would have accomplished the same thing. I mean, FF Origins actually had a whole bunch of option toggles so you can play the game as close to the original as you want, like "Auto Retarget On/Off" and such.
-Dark Guardians are basically inverted in terms of how good they are in each version. So here we go, in the order I fought them!
NES version, he'll murder anyone in the front row, no questions asked. Back Row, someone might survive in the RNG Gods bless them. The result is basically just having a lot of revival and not caring about firm HP scores; if he kills your reviver, just have both characters use resurrection and you're at worst in the same position you were before. Since he's pure ST, this makes him one of the easier ones and failing to kill a character sometimes is a thing that happens. DS version, he splits his physicals up and can kill a character if he focuses, and things like Crits exist so if RNG is off, he can get scary since if characters die, it can be hard to revive since he acts twice. Generally, he's not too bad though 2nd hardest Dark Guardian in the DS version but mostly by default, you'll see why. In the DS version, I had my Red Mage go into pure Tank Mode and he basically couldn't die.
NES version is mean and evil and unfair and WHY DID SHURIKENS DO ONLY 1000-2000 TO HIM I WASTED 4 OF THOSE THINGS GRAH!!! Yeah, you'll learn more about that hate later. The big thing here is Meteor is unfairly cruel; if he fires that off, you could be screwed. Quake is not as bad but still hits really hard especially if it's paired with Meteor; even with Ribbons, Quake can sting. The entire fight is on your seat as a result. His Elemental MT damage isn't too bad otherwise, and you might get lucky seeing him heal himself for laughably low damage, but nonetheless, he's a cruel bastard in the NES version. DS version, he's an utter joke; his physical is laughable, his MT damage is barely scary, he will waste time healing for damage way less than what you can deal, AND he is weak to Wind, so Dragoons can tear him a new one (probably Archers too.) The worst Dark Guardian easily in the DS version.
Echidna is Ahriman-lite in the NES version. She can hurl Meteor on occasion and has Quake but it's not as strong. More to the point, she uses a lot of turns casting Status after you will have at least 2 Ribbons, and doesn't have his evasion. Her Drain at least does damage...not a lot but it's something! DS version is basically the same but with way less damage; double acting with a basic physical doesn't make up for it. FF3DS Status is worse for starters, her Drain actually can't break Mage Magic Defense, and I don't think she has stuff like Meteor to hit you with. She's harder than Ahriman since at least she can hurt people not using Ribbons and her physical is better, and doesn't die horribly to Wind damage, but she's still not very good.
Cerberus spams one move in the NES version SOMETIMES using a shitty physical but the one move is a 4HKO Lightning spell you have no problems healing. hey, it gets past ribbons! If you have Diamond Gear, he's all the worse. He's laughably bad in the NES version. In the DS version, he's the best Dark Guardian by far. Not only is his MT damage legitimately scary, and better than all the others, he triple acts, so he hits two characters for reasonable physical damage. It's really absurd just how much better he is. He can also sometimes ST his spells and do high damage with that which isn't much of a save when he triple acts and can easily gang up on a character. I barely beat him in the NES version thanks to Blood Lance hax, even with my Red Mage in full on tank mode.
-And of course, the final boss time!
NES version, she spams one move and you pray turn order doesn't bite you in the ass. The interesting thing is I use to never have problems with her since with Shurikens I could overpower her in a race to damage with Cure 4. This is the first time the game says otherwise; Shurikens were doing really low damage for some reason, which is odd. We're talking getting in like 2-5 hits and doing 1000-3000 damage, when I'm use to seeing more like 4-8k...and that's AFTER casting Haste in the former's case, so this was downright ridiculous how many times I had to fight her because the RNG was just that bad. Combine that with how the first turn is so hard to figure out because you have no clue what damage will happen when, so you don't know what your Sages should do, etc. I eventually won after a lot of swearing, resetting, etc., but good god was the RNG just painful. DS version, it was a tense fight but beat her on the first try, since I knew some quirks about the fight, like "kill the Tentacles first" and "Protect is your friend" and such. I did gimp myself having only 2 Arises before needing an Elixir since I was using Sage + Red Mage as a healer, but it's nice that I used the same team I did in my first playthrough WITHOUT having to alter them specifically for this fight.
Overall, this was a neat experience and I feel like the two games are similarly good in their own right. One thing that stands out about the DS version though is it seems to take very few attempts to actually improve upon the NES game, more goes out of it's way to be different. Honestly, I don't think that was the right decision; they should have put more effort on banging out the issues the NES game had, but to the game's credit, it doesn't really add any serious flaws that weren't already present in the NES version. There were also times I felt the game went out of it's way to do something because the NES version did it. Even ignoring Save Points, an obvious glaring one to me is the existence of Black Belt, Devout and Magus. Feels like the only reason they were kept is because "the NES version had them!" and they really didn't do much to justify their existence. NES version, jobs obsoleting other jobs was just how that game rolled, so they made sense; here, they try to go "well, White Mage has more low level spell charges but Devout has more high level ones!" but seriously, Devout has better stats and who cares about having more Cures and Curas when you Curaga and Curaja are the spells you care about? Black Belt is even more insulting since they made a high JSkill intensive job LATER than it originally was thereby killing any potential use it could have. Feels like they should have ditched those three, and focused more on fine-tuning the other jobs. Yes, I'm saying less jobs may have helped, because they artificially balanced redundant jobs, trying to pretend they all have a use even though no one in their right mind will look at Black Mage and go "yeah, that totally looks worth using over Magus late game!", where as deleting a handful of redundant Jobs and working on banging out the kinks might have made the options more interesting.
Oh, something worth noting about the DS version is that it strangely lacks conventions that existed since the SNES games, like using L/R to scroll quickly through items and such. There's no reason you should be forced to go through menus one at a time when FF6 and such let you scroll down by pages using buttons that existed on the DS. NES version? Yeah, no choice, but the DS version really should have implemented at least THAT much.
Interesting experiment nonetheless. I would consider doing it with something else, except not sure what else I'd do it with. I mean, yes, FF4 exists but FF4DS is not something I'm really excited to replay at this point.
