Three games finished! With the fall of the Cloud of Darkness, I can now check Final Fantasy III off my Final Fantasy List of Things to Do. Before I move on to Final Fantasy IV, I thought I’d make a general update on the quest to play all the Final Fantasy games in Japanese.

Here’s a look at some of the numbers…

Gaming Time
Final Fantasy III: 55 hours, 04 minutes

Previously
Final Fantasy II: 55 hours, 11 minutes
Soul of Rebirth: 9 hours, 47 minutes
Final Fantasy I: 46 hours, 23 minutes
Grand Total to Date: 165 hours, 15 minutes

Final Fantasy III took me seven minutes less time than Final Fantasy II, and about nine hours longer than Final Fantasy I. Of my 55 hours with the game, I’d say about 7 hours were spent with the game on but me not playing it for some reason (sleeping, working, writing, etc.). Total actual gaming time was probably slightly under 48 hours.

The Cheat Record
Final Fantasy III: 1
Final Fantasy II: 2
Finatl Fantasy I: 3

I’m a bit confused how to record the Final Fantasy III cheat total, but I officially only looked for one hint, which had to do with the broken pendant. There were a few times when I looked for hints to find places I’d forgotten the location of, and a couple of times when I looked for information on certain classes. I’d also read a bit about the game in correspondence before I even started it. All in all, though, I’ll give myself a “one” for cheats in this one.

Japanese culture loves numbers in games, and one of the neat things about the first two Final Fantasy games is that they come complete with monster almanacs, which record not only what type of monsters you’ve killed, but also how many of each type.

In my neverending struggle to rid the digital world of all forms of goblins, I thought it would be interesting to keep track of how many of the little beasties I kill as I travel this quest to play all the Final Fantasy games in Japanese. Along those lines, I present…

The Goblin Graveyard
Final Fantasy II Goblin Kills
Goblins: 320
Goblin Guards: 207
Goblin Princes: 3
Total: 530

Final Fantasy I Goblin Kills
Goblins: 230
Goblin Guards: 127
Black Goblins: 628
Total: 985

Grand Total: 1,515 Goblins Killed to Date!

At this rate, we’ll could very well kill 10,000 Goblins if we make it all the way to the end and the number of goblins in the series stays consistent with the number in the first two games.

Now that’s an accomplishment to put on job applications!

Picture Credit: www.3DRT.com

Two games are now complete! Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy II are checked off my Final Fantasy List of Things to Do, and for the first time since the spring of 2006, the Final Fantasy GBA cartridge comes out of my Nintendo DS.

Here’s a look at some of the numbers…

Gaming Time
Final Fantasy II: 55 hours, 11 minutes
Soul of Rebirth: 9 hours, 47 minutes
Total: 64 hours, 58 minutes

Previously
Final Fantasy I: 46 hours, 23 minutes
Grand Total to Date: 110 hours, 11 minutes

Final Fantasy II took much longer to complete than Final Fantasy I. I fell asleep a couple of times with the DS on, so about ten of those 65 hours were away from the DS.

The Cheat Record
Final Fantasy II: 2
Finatl Fantasy I: 3

I’d have to say that I cheated twice in Final Fantasy II. Once to read some tips on how to beat Astaroth, and once I accidentally read through some information on the general structure of Soul of Rebirth. Still, I’m pretty happy with how much playing these games has improved my Japanese.

As I progress through this adventure, I think it would be nice to end each session with a simple blurb as to how I ended my previous play session. This will give you the reader an idea how well I’m doing. Now, after much tweaking, I present to you my highly precise status meter:

Done
Killing Stuff with a Purpose
Killing Stuff with a Purpose but Really Bored
Lost
Confused
Stuck
Cluelessly Lost (CL), Wandering in Circles
Really Bored
Fast Asleep

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably expecting me to get started on playing Final Fantasy I now. But such is not the case. If Final Fantasy teaches us anything, it’s that life is never so simple. Neither is this story, and I’ll explain what happened.

I actually started the first Final Fantasy game about five months ago, in July of 2006. During that time I wrote down my impressions in a thread on the Gaming Trend website. This month, I decided to port that project over to this current blog. As a result, the next 20 or so posts are catch up posts that will describe the first five months of the project, as I make my way through the first Final Fantasy game, and start the second game. I’ll put a date on each post to let you know when it was first written. As they say in Japan, wakarimasu ka?