Final Fantasy Legend 3, Part 6 - Masamune Okazaki

 

Today, I go after the remaining Mystic Swords, the big super-weapons of FFL3. Also I'm going to get into the origins of these weapons, since SaGa of course is going to draw on mythology.

Pureland is the largest overworld out of all of them in this game, and bears a striking resemblance to Elden Ring's world map. It even has the northern head-like area as the ice zone, and the cape at the east end, and the lake to the west, with a mystery gap in the middle surrounded by six "towers". Weird. Actually more than weird, this seems like one of those "obscure similarities" that is either a hell of a coincidence or Fromsoft dev team members liked this game growing up.

Before I go on to the final leg of this surprisingly-short journey (I've been going intentionally slow and it's still short), I need to get the party some upgrades.

First up, now that I have better gear, I give Cyborg another go with Sharon. Looks like Shogun is one of the best Cyborg forms, and her stats are decent.

She gets the Sun Sword (which I found in a random cave) and should finally be a viable force. However, it's worth noting that she's still lower on HP than the rest of the group, so even now with great gear Cyborg isn't really all that.

Meanwhile, Arthur gets some parts, and with his advanced level, he ascends to the most powerful Robot in the game: Venus. It's another Day the Earth Stood Still robot. Look at all those 9's though.

This red mage dude can forge (some of) the strongest spells in the game if you give him magic stones. So the magic stones I've been collecting for the entire game finally have a purpose, glad I didn't sell them. Not sure if it even lets you sell them, I hope not.

Red mage guy takes up residence on the Talon as the resident spell merchant, and he's got...

...some seriously useful spells. CureA and CureB are both group heals that restore a lot of health and a LOT of health respectively. Cure3 is still better for healing a single person, and seems to be a full heal no matter what. CureA is good for patching everyone up / conserving MP, while CureB is good AOE-recovery / emergency healing.

As for the mixable spells, most of them aren't much to write home about. Just a bunch of attack spells / AOEs that are, at this point, outpaced by physical damage. Physical damage is the order of the day in this game, and it's even moreso late game once you start getting Mystic Swords.

There's one particular spell that is very worth getting, though. LifeB revives the entire group with full HP, basically rendering the group unkillable if you have a couple of them. I had more Water Stones than any others, so I was able to get two LifeB and put them on the two Mutants. Even as Beasts, they still function as my primary casters.

Next stop, this town to the north that inexplicably exists on a cloud.

"For purely peaceful purposes, I assure you! He wants to use the Mystic Swords to develop medicine!"

Oh, well in that case!

Wonder if King Clamin is an actual clam. It is SaGa, after all.

I'm always on the lookout for new Talon powerups, and by the end they make grinding levels a snap if you fly around in Talon to do it. That said, there isn't much need to grind endgame unless you're still in the starting classes, which I think I might have done back in 2003 when I played this. At level 30ish, which is normal for this point, the party I have now can easily get it done.

This guy can forge the Aegis Shield if I bring him these items. I didn't bother with this (would have if I'd stumbled on them, but didn't go out of my way for it). It's the best shield in the game, but not exactly necessary. Those new heal spells are game-breaking for pretty much everything except the final boss.

Next goal is to get the Emperor sword forged, as well as finding the other two. Far as I can tell, forging Emperor is required for the story to progress, so my initial idea of only getting two Mystic Swords for Arthur/Sharon wasn't going to fly. That and the endgame nerfs everything besides Mystic Swords, so you really need all four.

Excalibur is a matter of having Faye pull the sword out of a stone. Why is it that only Faye can do it? Who knows, considering it isn't like she can wield it against Xagor or anything. They should have had Sharon be the one to pull it, since a woman was fated to do it and she's the one who makes the most sense using it.

I give this to Sharon right away and she'll use it for the rest. It's the strongest of the four Mystic Swords, and balances out Sharon being a little less-potent than the rest of the party. Actually, with this and endgame gear, Cyborg could well surge into the lead offensively.

I collect the last of the Talon merchants. This guy can forge Emperor and de-curse Masamune.

Yep, that's all of them. The weapon guy can also forge weapons using Light and Dark stones:

None of these are particularly useful to me, considering that the four Mystic Swords replace everything. The Petrify hammer is probably really good if it petrifies, considering almost every non-boss enemy in the game is vulnerable to it.

Next stop is the Underworld, where I'll get the parts for Emperor. Traveling there is a matter of going through "whirlgates", in what is probably a callback to the Ultima series and the swirling portals that take you to the Great Stygian Abyss.

Huh, Elden Ring also had a sprawling Underworld area under the main overworld. COINCIDENCE?

The Underworld is sprawling and has a bunch of areas, like the bizarre mushroom forests.

The very last town in the game sells some powerful stuff, like Karate (the best martial arts attack for Beasts, which does damage on par with Mystic Swords). Also some potent single-use attacks like Missile and Nuke. They have to be equipped like a regular weapon and then attacked with, and since you can change a character's weapons midfight in this, you could theoretically keep launching them.

In other words, I could get 9 Nukes and then for the final battle, equip them on my characters and just launch salvos for the first two rounds. They do about 2x the damage that Excalibur does so they're strong. 50,000 G strong? Not really, no, but they're here if someone wants to absolutely gimp the final boss.

The last spell merchant has the deadly White/Nuke spells, generally the strongest single-target spells in FFs from this era.

In my case, even those spells can't hold a candle to the damage I do with physical attacks. I got one of each in case I ran into a physical-immune foe (Spoilers: I didn't)

Sharon reaches the highest tier of Cyborg... the aptly-named "Removed"

Not sure if this is the actual name of the Cyborg or if they just literally removed whatever was supposed to be on this tier. Either way, this form is so strong that she's very nearly at max stats across the board. Cyborg went from being pretty bad for 80% of the game to probably the best class for the last 5% of it. At least for damage output, can't speak for her casting/healing prowess.

The next dungeon is the most annoying in the entire game, a tower that flips upside down whenever you press this switch.

Wait a minute, Elden Ring also had a tower that was like this, and flipped upside-down once you hit a switch.

Alright, at this point I'm pretty sure that FFL3 was an influence on someone who worked on Elden Ring. Not really much of a stretch, considering how many RPGs from the 90's modern games draw elements from.

The point of doing that incredibly obnoxious dungeon was to get this piece of Emperor. I just followed a guide to get through the tower as quick as possible, because trying to do it normally was a confusing mess.

I completely missed this while traversing the Underworld. Turns out that to get Masamune, you need to uncurse this sword, so I go back and scrounge it up. Not getting it on the first run-through meant a lot of backtracking.

Emerging from the Underworld, it's time to get the last two swords done. First, I get the last Emperor piece from...

...THE CAPTAIN here.

That's all of them, now to get the thing forged.

After The Captain gives us the blade, he and everyone else in his house disappear. Just poof into thin air. Well, that was ominous.

The weapon shop dude uncurses Muramasa, and that's the second-strongest weapon in the game. This one goes on Arthur, with Durand getting hand-me-downed to Gloria. It's the weakest of the four swords and Gloria is the least-likely to be attacking due to her spell repertoire.

Lastly, the third-strongest Mystic Sword goes to Curtis, so I've finally replaced the martial arts attacks on both Beasts. Everyone now hits for similar amounts, so I think the party is really well-balanced.

This would be a good time to mention what the deal is with these four swords, since as is SaGa tradition they all have mythological underpinnings:

Excalibur - Everybody knows this one, the sword in the stone, and the mightiest of all swords, wielded by King Arthur.

Masamune - Named after a Japanese blacksmith, Masamune Okazaki, the guy who perfected the katana having the right balance of looking good and being physically sturdy, using a forging method of layering different consistencies of carbon steel.

Durend - Based on Durandal, a holy sword from the French story The Song of Roland. It's said to have been blessed with the power of multiple saints, by incorporating things like their blood. Also a tooth from Saint Peter. Not sure about this one.

Emperor - The three items that compose this (the Katana, Emblem, and Crystal) are references to the Imperial Regalia of Japan and how it consists of the Three Sacred Treasures. The three treasures in question are intended to represent valor, wisdom, and benevolence. These go back around a thousand years.

Now that I have four Mystic Swords and can shred enemy groups (with some help from Talon), I take 40 minutes or so and farm up enough money for those NINE NUKES I mentioned before.

Editor's Note: This is completely unnecessary

Much like Kim Jong Un buying nuclear tech from Pakistan, now I too can BOMB BOMB BOMB.

Final stats before going into the last two dungeons. Beasts flip between Anubis and Aeshma once they're over level 30, and generally you want them in Anubis form as much as possible since it's the better of the two. They switch every time they level, so I'm going to try to keep them at an even-numbered level for the final battle.

In other news, with FFL3 just about concluded, I tried DK Bananza. Couldn't get into it, but I found this kinda funny: If you squint, you can see the great golden tree of DK Land. That's right, Bananza is borrowing design elements from Elden Ring. Someday, another game will ape the design elements of Bananza. The circle of life continues.

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