#musing into the void

You probably know all of this, given the blog that this is, but if you somehow don't: When Final Fantasy III first released on the Famicom, the main characters were four non-descript Onion Knights. They had dialogue, but otherwise no real personality or distinction between them.

In 2006, Final Fantasy III was remade for the Nintendo DS. One of the big changes for this version was reinterpreting the Onion Knights into characters with different backgrounds (although two of them are derrived from NPCs in the original): Luneth, Arc, Refia and Ingus. While the developers intended to have a lot of new scenes with these characters to show off their personalities, they eventually decided against it, instead giving little hints while setting up their general motives.

Now people argue on the idea of the new protagonists in general. Personally, I'm in favor of them: The Onion Knights had defined backgrounds (four orphan boys from a small village) and had dialogue, but otherwise were blank slates. To me, they feel like a sort of in-between protagonist compared to the FF1 party, which were blank slates and the other FF protagonists. Doesn't help that that decision was made a response to FF2 according to an interview. I feel like the remake characters are integrated well enough into the setting there is the "we came from the surface world" bit, but even in the usused content, it only matters for one of the characters and only somewhat. That said, I can see the argument that they weaken the idea that the Warriors of Light showed up by chance and what comes of that.

Two years later in 2008, Dissidia Final Fantasy would release: Basically a crossover of all the protagonists and major antagonists of the games up to that point. For Final Fantasy III, they introduced the Onion Knight: A character based upon the original famicom protagonists and has nothing to do with the DS characters. Moving forward, Onion Knight would be the go-to representative of FF3.

S-E handles both of these parties in a very wonky fashion.

I can accept Onion Knight being the representative of Dissidia. He's nostalgic towards the people who grew up with the Famicom version and is generally iconic. But was there really no way to add the DS characters to Theatrhythm (whose 3 representation when it comes to characters in general is rather lackluster, but let's ignore that for now)? Theatrhythm isn't exactly a plot-heavy story or even canon, putting it on the level of the mobile games like Record Keeper or Brave Exvius, both of which have the DS protagonists as characters. It's not like they have much interest in III's other characters, considering they felt content with Cid (of the recurring Cid archtype) and Cloud of Darkness.

But the greatest insult is probably Opera Omnia. Opera Omnia was a different crossover to the previous mobile games. It was a story actually involving the characters from different games interacting with each other. It was a genuine crossover on par with the Dissidia games, but with the extended casts of each game.

In fact, it was a Dissidia game! Guess what that means!

At the time of the game's closure, FF3 tapped out with four characters: Onion Knight, Desch, Cloud of Darkness and Xande. I appreciate what the OO team did with Xande, but overall I couldn't enjoy it. I spent most of my time with that game basically coping, with Act 3 killing my enthusiasm heavily, as the game shifted Onion Knight to a main protagonist role, with the final chapter recreating III's endgame and the final stage having a scripted sequence of using the Warrior of Light and Onion Knight's teamup attack to defeat the boss being the last straw. While Jack [REDACTED] made me hopeful, that last chapter more or less crushed those hopes. I have a theory for what happened in hindsight:

Opera Omnia ignored remakes (and not spinoffs/sequels) for its run. At least, I can't remember any remake-exclusive characters (Jessie from VII is borderline, as she got way more focus in the remake, but she was in the original.) Now, most FF games aren't heavily affected by this because their remake-exclusive characters are usually bonus content (Deumion from II for example) or are in series that don't need to dip in to it (FFVII) though I wonder what that means for Enuo. FFIII only stands out glaringly because its remake-exclusive characters were main characters.

Oh, and did you know that Refia (and Takka, her adopted dad) was the representative character in World of Final Fantasy? Onion Knight was nowhere in sight.

It's a petty thing, but my enjoyment of Dissidia-ajacent stuff more or less has been ruined by Onion Knight. I liked Opera Omnia, but do I miss it? The idea of a Final Fantasy Warriors does not excite me because I feel it would be Dissidia-based. While I do play struggle NT's solo modes, I completely checked out of the story in general. I loved the original Theatrhythm, but actively refused Final Bar Line (it reusing artwork from the remake definitely did not help).

And the crazy part? I would still use Onion Knight in games that feature him. He was one of my two characters in Dissidia PSP, the other being Garland maybe that's why I never really had fun with that game. I don't think I hate Onion Knight himself, so much as what his presence usually means for Luneth's party. I don't know.

Forgive me for bringing up Mario for a second, but part of the reason this feels weird for me is because I was more or less on the opposite side of this debacle there. The cliffnotes: SMB3 gives Bowser seven children called The Koopalings with varied appearances to act as his generals. They stick around for a while before disappearing in the N64 era. In the Gamecube era, a new character is introduced: Bowser Jr., who is identified as Bowser's son. Junior becomes Bowser's defacto sidekick. The Koopalings eventually return in New Super Mario Bros Wii, with some ambiguity in how they relate to Junior and Bowser. Eventually, Miyamoto comes out and says "yeah, currently Junior is an only child." Now I prefer Junior to the Koopalings. I was a Gamecube kid and only got to World 2 in Super Mario Advance 4 (the angry sun scared me, I was a wimp). As time went on, I started to appreciate Junior as a character more and more… so when I read Koopaling fanfics that got him wrong or more or less bashed him, I started feeling less sympathetic. I still like the Koopalings in general, but that fan backlash still lingers. Additionally, in hindsight, it's clear what actually happened to them. It's the same thing that happened to Luigi: Their role in the games was gone due to the structure change in Mario 64 and Nintendo didn't know what else to do with them, since they really do not like breaking up the group. So when the opportunity came along to bring them all back, Nintendo used them (and showed why they were gone, but, as Wonder shows, that's less of a character issue and more of a structure/game design thing). Finally, while they were gone for a long time and are no longer Bowser's kids, the Koopalings still gained a lot from their reintroduction. They started showing up in the RPGs and were even in Mario Kart 8 and Mario Kart Tour. While the Switch 2 era is unclear for now, they still at least had a shining moment and Nintendo proved that they and Junior can coexist. I can't say much the same with Onion Knight and the DS characters. Well, I can, but SE seems hellbent on saying otherwise.

Next year will be the 20th anniversary of the Final Fantasy III remake. I don't expect the FF side to do anything in particular to celebrate it, though I assume Asano (who worked on the 3D remake and still works at SE) will make a comment/reflection on it. Maybe Octopath Traveler Champions of the Continent will formally tie III into the Asano-version, as I think it's the only one not crossed over with either that or Bravely.

The Warriors of the Dark are a background element of FF3′s setting: In the past, the Ancients abused the Light and were almost overrun by it. The Warriors of the Dark soon arrived, however and stopped it by subduing the Cloud of Darkness. However, some mentions in the unused text by Doga as well as one of the Warriors themselves in the final game imply that they died or were put in a position that left everyone to assume they were dead.

Whether it’s actually them or their spirits, the Warriors of the Light end up meeting them after defeating the monsters guarding the Dark Crystals. After plot dumping about what’s going on, the Warriors of the Dark aid the Warriors of the Light by charging at the Cloud of Darkness, sacrificing themselves to weaken it and give the Warriors of the Light a shot at defeating it.

The entire nature of the Warriors and World of Darkness are an oddity. The Warriors are given no clear identity in any III media, save for Memory of Heroes having them use jobs. The original Famicom game gives no details in how they stopped the flood of light and the remake implies that it had something to do with them causing the earth to move after the Flood of Light caused the sun to stop moving. It’s also stated that they fought the Cloud of Darkness, but never said how they initially beat it, outside of the implication that it caused them to get sealed away at best and outright killed at worst.

The other intriguing aspect is the World of Darkness. Final Fantasy III varies on what areas change aesthetics between the OG/Pixel Remaster and the Remake (and occasionally, the OG and the PR themselves). The World of Darkness, owing to its nature, is one of the most starkly different areas between versions of the game.

 The Original/PR versions are cramped and cavernesque with crystalline floors and walls (?). The crystal rooms also look uniform with the World of Light’s crystal rooms. All of the rooms are traditionally connected.

Meanwhile, in the remake, the entire area is in the open with a cosmic night sky, there are no walls, there’s purple crystal floors, a purple mist covers the bottom of the area and the crystal rooms look wildly different, even accounting for the remake generally making them more unique. All of the rooms are connected via warp portals.

(Random Fun Fact: The PSP Dissidia games generally based themselves on the OG WoD area: The main area being based on the Cloud of Darkness’ arena and the alternate rooms in the Omega version being based on the general dungeon. Opera Omnia, on the other hand, bases its WoD on the DS remake’s take.)

Both versions give off the vibe of the area being some form of temple or holy region, with the PR having an ornate entrance for the road to the CoD’s arena and the remake having pillars strewn around the area. Given the words of the Warriors of the Dark, this is obviously not the entirety of the World of Darkness. Still, both versions give off a surreal vibe, moreso the remake.

Dialogue from the Warriors of the Dark suggests that the World of Darkness is intertwined with the World of Light in some fashion. Final Fantasy IV would use a similar aspect for it’s crystals, noting that the world they come from, the Underground, is a sort of “reverse side of the coin”. In the case of III, it’s more figurative: It’s implied that a major crisis on one world can impact both, but also said that if the worlds were to ever meet, they would both cancel out, summoning the Cloud of Darkness to send both worlds back to the Void. This is a stark contrast with most FF games featuring multiple worlds, such as FFV’s world which was once, and eventually returns to being, one rather than the two that it is for most of the game or Dimensions where the plot kicks off with the world splitting in two.