Final boss of FF3, Cloud of Darkness, defeated with everybody in the party at lv. 29.

The challenge was started back in 2009, with the last video dating back to March 2010. This does mean I am effectively completing the challenge run after an 11-year long break. That's even longer than gap in the Path of Radiance 0% growths playthrough! It hasn't been 11 years since I last touched the game either. On multiple occasions, prompted by people commenting on my older videos (presumably, taking the same challenge), I revisited the run, moving to old nocashgba saves over to desmume (whose save state feature makes experimenting with strats a lot more convenient). My verdict each time was the same: it's hopeless / too luck-reliant to ever result in a victory.

This was the case until 2021, when I simply wanted to make a recording for posterity, a demonstration that the victory isn't going to occur at these levels. Suddenly...

Challenge playlist:
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I expected, erroneously, that Cloud of Darkness would be the pinnacle of all tactics effect in a low-level run of this game. CoD has 120,000 HP and has only two moves. Before getting to the 80% HP threshold, the powerful physical will be used twice per turn. Once that threshold is reached and until hitting 30% HP, there is a 30% chance Particle Beam will be used against the entire party to a disastrous effect. The 2nd move will always remain the normal attack (this applies to all bosses and enemies iirc; if they, say, act three times per turn, they can only cast one spell, the other actions being normal physicals). When CoD goes below 30% HP, Particle Beam is guaranteed on its turns. Deciding whether to try to survive PB or try to avoid it somehow had always been the key to establishing a successful strategy.

CoD isn't alone, either. Her two tentacles, Left and Right, seem to have somewhere between 60,000 and 66,666 (sic) health (the game is poorly documented, so there appears to be no exact number). The left one will use Lightning 100% of the time, no exceptions. Without buffs applied, Lightning will hit extremely hard, sometimes OHKOing at low levels. The right tentacle is more versatile, with a 50% chance to use Bad Breath and a 90% chance to use either Haste or Protect. Don't ask me how this is supposed to add up; I credit Kainmaster for sending me each boss's (starting with Amon anyway) algorithm more than a decade ago. When the right tentacle uses none of its abilities, it will simply attack a random party member physically, and Viking's Provoke on CoD will not affect its targeting preference.

I entertained and actively tested three different party ideas before succeeding.

The first one was Viking/Devout/Bard/Ninja. The Viking uses Provoke on CoD every turn, absorbing all of her physical attacks. Its heavy-armoured build also lets it tank magic better than the others. The Devout is the magic user with the most extensive spell list, especially highest-tier spells healing more than 100% of our max HP (in the worst scenario). Devout is very fast for a caster, often outspeeding CoD, which can be a problem when Particle Beam is used - you may go before Particle Beam, then fail to outspeed CoD on the following turn to emergency-heal. There is little rhyme or reason to the turn order in FF3 DS; it's just a clusterfuck.

Bard is needed to help the party survive the attacks. Besides Minne reducing damage by 20% or so, there's Requiem for fractional damage to everybody (runs the risk of triggering PB HP range early) and Elegy for reducing magic damage specifically, affecting Lightning and Particle Beam. Ninja throws shurikens for 12K-21K damage for better damage output than Requiem (whose power grows weaker as the current HP of the bosses keeps going down).

The problem with this strat is that the party's survival of Particle Beam is luck-reliant, with the Ninja being the weakest link defensively. Presumably, having manipulated the highest possible HP growths during the entire run in classes like Knight and Black Belt gives the party more vitality to take higher PB damage rolls. I barely did that in my run, so the party was poorly prepared to take PBs.

The second strategy is 2x Bard instead of Bard/Ninja. Elegy and Minne are refreshed all the time, unless Bad Breath or surprise KOs from the Right Tentacle interfere, and the party can generally survive a Particle Beam, with the Devout expected to heal the damage off with Curaga/Curaja. I've already outlined the main issue with this strategy; the characters take their turns in a random order, so the Devout may be healing when no damage has been done yet and failing to go before the next PB. One way is to replace the Devout with a Sage. Less MP for the good spells, but a Sage is much slower than a Devout and should act more predictably. It probably wouldn't guarantee anything; who am I kidding.

(out of space; see the comments section for the rest)

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