Final Fantasy Legend III

Not knowing anything about the game except it's the third game in the Final Fantasy Legend series I booted the game up today to give it a spin. I'd been thinking what sort of characters I'd want to play assuming it worked like the last two and would need to pick my classes from the start. I didn't care much for monsters in the first one and really liked both mutants and robots in the second one so I was thinking I'd lean towards those this time around.

I started up the game, got a little back story about how the world has been flooded by some monster from the past, present, and future. Some dude in the future sent three kids back to the past in the hopes of stopping the flooding and they're going to team up with some old guy's granddaughter. Then it asks me to enter a name for a 'Hero'. Then for a 'Boy'. Then for a 'Girl'. Then for a 'Heroine'. No class choices this time! Also interesting was the even gender split which hasn't been the case in any other game played thus far in the marathon.

I start the game and it turns out the boy and girl are mutants and the other two are humans. Ok, sure. The female mutant started with a spell. No one else did. I end up with a 5th party member standing in a different box than the rest so I'm guessing they'll end up rotating as the game progresses. He has way more health than everyone else and starts with three spells! I'm thinking he's just there to make sure I don't lose to an early random encounter - which I then proceed to almost do. I end up running away and barely make it back to town to rest in the inn. On the plus side people who die in combat come back with 1 health after he fight!

I was also given a radar which I can use to scan the time period I'm in for units which I think I use to upgrade my time traveling space ship thing. Seems like a collection quest like in FFLII. I just hope it's a real collection quest where you don't have to find everything but get cool bonuses if you do. I like those a lot more than fake collection quests where you actually have to get everything to progress like the magi in FFLII. 

After finally winning a fight I earned some experience and my living characters went up a level. Sweet! An actual level system! This doesn't seem like Final Fantasy Legend at all. Then I won my second fight and the enemy dropped some meat. What could possibly go wrong? Eat up, Jo! Which caused my female mutant to turn into a beast broomer, whatever that is. Beast broomer seems to have 4 talents - kick, scream, resistance to paralyze, and resistance to fire. She kept her character level, health, and maximum mana. And her spell. Intriguing...

I explored the town and found item, weapon, armor, and magic shops. With nothing to indicate what any of this stuff does or if it's better than what I have equipped. I have no idea if my new monster wants gear or not. It doesn't seem like I have an easy way to find out in game since there are no tooltips or explanations. I think I'm going to end up turning to the internet already at level 3 to try to get a handle on what's going on. I will say the game seems interesting so far and I have high hopes...