Pack your bags – we’re off on a Final Fantasy Adventure! Got enough keys? No, you don’t have enough keys. Bring more keys. Go back and get more keys. See the majestic and incredibly brief ocean! Enjoy a relaxing night staying at a discount Hotel Transylvania type situation where surely nothing fishy ever happens. Fight a monster that’s just a face. It’s just a face. That’s pretty creepy, right? Just a face? Also, how do magic trees reproduce? What are the Medusa contagion rules? Which character should Keanu Reeves play in a movie adaptation? None of that matters! You know what matters? Keys! Keys matter! You can never have enough! Stock up. I’m telling you! For real. Get so many keys. More keys than you think you need. Way more.

Mike & Remy play through the entirety of The Final Fantasy Legend, a Gameboy game that beats us up, gives us swirlies, and pushes us inside our lockers. We’ll learn to RTFM, discover the importance of a proper diet for monsters, and commit the podcast’s very first act of deicide. Will it be our last? Stay tuned. But probably no.

Mike & Remy set the controllers down and get literary AF. How many books and manga have been written about Final Fantasy I, II, and III? This many. All of these. We'll talk about all of them but especially Final Fantasy I * II * III: Memory of Heroes.

Books & Manga Covered

• Komikku-Ban Final Fantasy (Final Fantasy Comic Version), by Yuu Kaimeiji; manga, 12/1/1989, pub.: Takarajimasha, Inc.
• Final Fantasy II Shōri e no Tabidachi (Final Fantasy II: Journey to Victory), by Naoko Uehara; gamebook, pub.: 12/31/1988, Tokuma Shoten
• Final Fantasy II Muma no Meikyū (Final Fantasy II: Labyrinth of Nightmares), by Kenji Terada; novel, pub.: 4/1/1989, Kadokawa Shoten
• Final Fantasy II Shōgun Bōgen to no Shitō! (Final Fantasy II: Battle to the Death with General Borghen!), by Ryūji Kōsaku and Hiroyuki Fukuda; gamebook, pub.: 1/13/1988, Tairuku Shobō Publishing Co.
• Final Fantasy II Hihō no Doragon (Final Fantasy II: Dragon of the Hidden Treasure), by Naomi Inoue; gamebook, pub.: 12/1/1988, Futabasha Publishers Ltd.
• Yūkyū no Kaze Densetsu Final Fantasy III Yori (Legend of the Eternal Wind: from Final Fantasy III), by Kenji Terada and Yuu Kunitani; manga, pub.: 1991-1993, Kadokawa Shoten
• Final Fantasy I * I * III: Memory of Heroes, by Takashi Umemura; novella collection, pub.: 10/25/2012, Square Enix (JP); 8/18/2020, Yen On (EN)

Special music this episode

Monastery by Joseph R. Lilore (CC BY 4.0)

Let’s power through this Crystal Tower and finish Final Fantasy III. These final dungeons do go on a bit, don't they? Unei offers unsettling dream interpretation. Xande pulls a classic villain move. Force Ghost Doga returns to feed elderly men to dragons. We lose a fight with nasty weather and mash that snooze button on the cosmic alarm clock. Apologies to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

Benny Hill "Yackety Sax" Style Alternative https://toolofgod.com/my-music/royalty-free-benny-hill-theme-style-alternative/

Onward to the Labyrinth of Ancients and Syrcus Tower! We fight a Titan made up of four Gastlies then touch another crystal and are imbued with exciting new vocational skills. Remy timeloops back to Eureka. Talking weapons are cool. The knight job is okay I guess. Does the ranger have wilderness survival skills or…?

Mike acquires some summon monsters. We get a rad new airship that comes with guns and a free bed – but who services the Invincible’s vending machines? How does Unei use dream mastery to clean up some rock mess? How precious is human mortality actually? I wonder how the Hecatoncheir feels about his precious mortality after we kill him dead. Mike spills some tea about the development of FF3. Along the way we'll visit the Temple of Time, the Ancient Ruins, Falgabard, and the Cave of Shadows.

Music used for Gutsco Protein Powder segment: "P R E S I D E N T A T O R" by Anonymous420 (CC BY 4.0)

Thanks, Anonymous420! Sorry, Anonymous420. -_-

Four geezers save us from exploding shoes then trick us with shrooms. Goldor, who likes gold, throws his evilest money at us. Bards sing some tunes. We get shot down in Saronia for interrupting a heated shirts vs. skins staring contest. Remy stumbles upon one weird trick Odins hate. Mike gets quizzed on colors. Stops at Goldor Manor, the Circle Cave, the Sunken Cavern, and the Saronia catacombs.

The mystery of the gysahl greens is revealed! A piano is played. We bask in our sheer confusion re: fundamental aspects of these player characters’ identities. Which of these lil dudes gets invited back to Princess Sarah’s castle after the adventure concludes? Desch’s girlfriend needs a pep talk. A blue lady is a key. A generosity challenge is undertaken and one of us is shooting for extra credit on the assignment. Goldor hatches a questionable plan. We question his questionable plan. Somebody tells us to get shoes from a sewer. Smarter podcasts discuss literary themes and influences in these games while we’re stuck simply trying to make sense of what’s happening.

You know what? Let's keep playing this game and nab that fire crystal. Experiments are conducted to answer questions from last episode. Lali-ho! Dwarves have more hats. We bought a bunch of Gutsco Protein Powder and became our own bosses. But what’s going on with that snake around Gutsco? The mystery of the missing Glass Tower is not that big of a mystery. How does thievery work? Should we steal from demons? Books are the weapons of scholars and therefore should be unbannable if that's how the 2nd amendment works. We end up being tree doctors and then call it a day.

First we cast toad. Now we become the toads. Plus, honeys, we shrunk ourselves! Hey, what's in this gnomish bread? Also a snake attacked. It hurt us. It hurt us real bad. Can we hurt it real bad? Probably not, right? This dungeon has a serious rodent problem. Remy learns about double negatives the hard way. A chocobo travel dare is undertaken.

Original Chocobo Art: https://gamerant.com/final-fantasy-chocobo-facts-trivia/

Exiting the cave: https://finalfancast.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/PXL_20240507_043023416-scaled.jpg

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