Final Fantasy (1987)

FF1 is a lot of what I love about early JRPGs--a perfect blend of eastern and western influences, creating such a fun and engaging game. My opinion of post-00s JRPGs is mostly negative; they feel overly homogenized, became trope-laden 'shonen in game form' clones. Earlier JRPGs were exploring various themes, wearing a multitude of influences on their sleeves, and thus they tend to be far more interesting and enjoyable.

Great game, difficult but (mostly) fair. A bit cheesy, sure, however you can feel the devs' love for Terry Pratchett and other fantasy greats, as well as games such as Wizardry, Ultima, Dragon Slayer, etc. The late 80s to late 90s is my favorite period of JRPGs, largely due to how unique an identity the scene was forming, watching games such as FF1, Phantasy Star, Lagoon and the likes take all of their various interests and passions and forging them into what would ultimately (and unfortunately) become an overused rubric the genre still struggles to outgrow.

Overall I just really enjoy the simpler FF games, and am looking forward to working my way back through the series after all these years.

Rating : 9.3/10

Setting: Maybe a generic setting but I found it to be very charming as it was done perfectly and to the book in a way that makes it a shining example to the high fantasy genre. It had everything you could want really: elves in an elven forest, mining dwarves in a cave, dragons hiding in caves protecting treasure, crazy wizards and sages, lofty kingdoms surrounded idealistic village peasants, pirates lying fugitive in a port. Even the enemies that had all kinds of mythical creatures from golems of high fantasy and even chimeras of ancient mythology. Only negative to the settings throughout the game was the cheap unusual of sprites but colored though I forgive them of this as they normally had different attacks.

Gameplay: I have never been a fan of turn based games I must admit. But this one did it so well that even a noob to the genre like I am was able to pick it up after a few deaths at the start. The separate classes you get to pick four of to be a part of your team having varying equipment or spells was a very nice touch in my opinion. As this emphasized team play between your characters to progress through the game. However the differences of the units you could pick which was a slight annoyance as I picked a red mage over a dark mage which limited the dark magic I could do. And the monk seems to only be strong at the start and end as there was not much equipment for him but other than that perfectly balanced.

Additionally items were implemented well for their cost to match the normal financials you would expect at different parts of the game which softly guides you to their introductions. Introductions to them were also done cleverly by putting them in chests of areas where they were vital for survival.

Here is where the main negatives of the game lay but these problems were quite common in games at the time as I am a more modern gamer I did find mainly trouble with where to go next. As I was not used to aimlessly exploring until I found the right thing to progress as in parts there were not any obvious clues from the NPCs to guide me. And the only other main negative of the game was the massive spike of strength of the final boss though in retrospect this was probably one of the highlights of the games as it really made you figure out the mechanics of the game though this should have been done earlier and made the ending victory so much sweeter.

Graphics: As I played the pixel remaster it seemed quite modern and clean in its depictions though in parts I think a little more detail could benefit the game but in very rare cases.

Music: Was very fitting to each of its environments and natural emotions of the players would exhibit from such settings it accompanied. Can't think of a single bad bit about the music.

Story As for the story of the game it was perfectly constructed to exhibit all the game's wonders. As each area had a subplot that perfectly illustrated the charm of each, the sub notes typical to the high fantasy genre. All orchestrated by the overarching plot which uses the players wits and sense of explorations to find the next step of the story leading honestly to a generic but actually surprising twist at the end.

Overal It was a beautifully constructed turn based high fantasy jrpg with its newly painted coat of graphics in the remaster leaves little to criticise except mainly the absence of clues in parts of the game making it hard to naturally progress and the huge power spike of the final boss.

Final Fantasy I (Pixel Remaster Version) - Finished 06/24

My previous introduction to FFI was on the PSP.

The Pixel Remaster Version of this game makes it a lot more palatable for the casual or returning player, the map system is an absolute God-send for this game, filled as it is with dead ends and maze-like dungeons.

Humble beginnings for what is one of my top 3 all time favourite series'. It's good, it's very simple as can be expected of course, the dungeons are a bit of a chore with it's dead-ends, especially if like me you didn't pick a red-mage, so often you will find yourself having to walk all the way back out.

All-in-all, it's nice enough, the pixel remaster does a great job of making the game look great (except the horrid font, which is easily fixable with a slight modification) and has some good quality-of-life implementations.

Final Fantasy I:n Pixel Remaster on hyvä remaster melko tylsästä pelistä.

Sinänsä on hyvin ymmärrettävääkin, että näin uskollinen remaster näin muinaisesta pelistä takkuaa jossain määrin nykypäivänä, mutta ei se nautintomääriä nosta. Pixel Remasterien QoL-parannukset, kuten autobattlet, taistelun tasapainotukset ja kartat, tuovat kyllä paljon sulavuutta elämykseen, ja ei FF sinänsä huono peli ole. On siinä hauskat hetkensä, jännittävät fighttinsa ja aivan ensiluokkaiset musiikit. On vain paljon muutakin pelattavaa, josta saa enemmän irti – ihan jo muissa FF Pixel Remaster -peleissä.

Hyvä retrostelijoille ja pelihistoriaintoilijoille. Keskinkertainen muille.

A few weeks back, I played the Pixel Remaster version of Final Fantasy I. It was my first time playing this game, and I am planning to play through the entire series (including games I have played before).

I will start by saying that the Pixel Remaster is a beautiful version with greatly-improved music, using the NES sound but upgrading to a more modern soundfont. The sprites and the world look great. The text font, however... is pretty ugly, and a mod would be great.

The game itself is not a particularly difficult game, after a point (except for the final boss fight, which is the only time I got wiped all game). There was really only one dungeon I had some difficulty with, but I was easily able to run back to town, buy some antidotes, and save myself. It is very easy to get overleveled, and most fights are fairly trivial. You will easily get money and be able to upgrade everything, and frankly the game is trivial.

The story of the game is not particularly strong, but of course, that comes with the hindsight of looking back 30+ years after it, having played many later JRPGs and other games. The gameplay itself is also not particularly difficult, at least not after you figure out how to manage limited magic slots. The hardest part of the game are some of the fetch quests where you need to run around from town to town collecting things and giving them to NPCs... and even that is not that complex, not really.

I can't say I love the game, but I appreciate what it is in the sequence of the FF series and JRPG games. FF1 is a game that feels very dated, and feels very simple. And it is all of that. But it's not a bad game, by any means. Just a simple one. I appreciate everything this game is in the evolution of gaming, but it's definitely not a game I have any desire to revisit.

I actually played the GBA version (not listed on the drop down for Final Fantasy I, as it came out as dawn of souls dual game), which I would put forth as the best version. Clean looking, keeps a pixel look throughout and well ported.

My suggestion to everyone that wants to play this, just do it. I would also suggest using a walkthrough to play it. The game, as it is very old game, explains very little. This time playing through I used this site Strategy Wiki and really enjoyed overthinking my playthrough and character optimization.

For this playthrough I went Warrior, Red Mage, White Mage and Black Mage. It was huge money investments ( to get them all geared and with spells.) So prepare for a grind if you take many magic users or warriors. The game misses true greatness as there are points in the game were it is not clear where to go next.

Such as in Mt. Gulg the game is absolutely time wasting in the fire crystal area. I would not do that without a map of the dungeon, as it already takes huge amounts of time to do this area; even with knowing where you are going. That's on top of the fact that you have to do the sage thing in crescent lake. I don't believe I ever got past that part as a kid. At least not till online guides.

The original Final Fantasy (1987) should be one of the first games that come to mind when old-school RPGs come up. There are of course earlier ones (namely Dragonstomper from 1982 or Bokosuka Wars from 1984) but if anyone is going to play one of the originals, this would be the one. I played it on a SNES emulator because I didn't want to spend money on the Dawn of Souls or iOS version, so I really did play what was closest to the original release. The game begins with a generic storyline in which you control four characters and save a princess. The story goes on from there while you try to reactivate the four orbs your team carries and find out what is causing the evil that plagues the land.

I'll be honest and say that the original Final Fantasy is very hard to enjoy due to its age and many of the features that would come to be fixed in later RPGs. It is incredibly difficult and not worth it to beat - or even progress - in the game without some form of guide. If you don't use one, you find yourself talking to every random character you come across in hopes that they'll give you some vital but seemingly pointless piece of information. You'll find yourself wandering all over the map, finding towns or dungeons that you hope are the correct ones. These dungeons are then convoluted with many dead ends which leads you to an annoying level of random encounters (and I'm not particularly fond of this type of fighting in video games in the first place). There is also little explanation of what spells do, and it takes far too long to figure out if the weapon you just picked up is better than the one you have. I made it about five hours into the game before I gave up on doing it without a guide. It was just too much.

Given that, you must take the game at face value. It was released in 1987, a time when this type of game was revolutionary. Its style and design paved the way for games that came soon after, such as Chrono Trigger and Baldur's Gate, and ones that are more modern, such as The Elder Scrolls and Soulsborne games. They even created a unique world that blended typical fantasy with sci-fi/steampunk style settings (not to the extent of the later games in the series, but it did start here near the endgame).

That being said, the original Final Fantasy was an interesting game to play from a historical perspective, but not entirely enjoyable otherwise. I liked the worldbuilding and the enemy design, but nearly every other aspect of the game was outdated and frustrating. Finally, there was not much story to speak of, but it was at least slightly more original than the more basic RPGs of the time. With that, I'll be giving this game a 1.75/5.00, mostly for the historical aspects of it. I do believe I would have enjoyed the Dawn of Souls version a lot more, so if you do decide to check the game out then I would spend the extra money on that version. If you enjoyed this game (or games of this type), I would also recommend Chrono Trigger and Baldur's Gate.

https://watchreadgame.com/final-fantasy-1987/

I started this game as my first delve into the Final Fantasy series. Having wanted to years to play one of the games, yet never knowing where to start, I made the (possibly silly) decision to start right at the beginning and work my way up by the numbers, despite the fact that the stories don't follow on from each other. (So be aware that any comments I make on Final Fantasy games in the future will be from the viewpoint of someone who has never played any after the one being reviewed.)

So I attained the PS1 Origins version, having being recommended this version, and started my "Final Fantasy Adventure". I found this game an enjoyable welcome to the franchise, and a very nice starting point to traditional JRPGs too.

The Pros:

• I loved the music for the Origins version, particularly the town theme.
• I appreciate the lack of direction, as I liked figuring out the path myself. I never got particularly lost.
• I felt the final dungeon was a welcome and enjoyable challenge.
• Good rising level of challenge, no spikes.
• Looked good, nice sprites.

The Cons:

• Very basic, cliché storyline.
• Quite basic combat.
• Not much available interaction with the world.
• Not particularly memorable NPCs or areas.

Overall a nice start to the series, hooked me into FF, but quite basic in a lot of its aspects (although it is the first so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt).

The elephant in the room, Final Fantasy boasts a legacy far outreaching those who normally play games. This is the one that started it all, though I don't think it was popularized among people my age until 4 came to our shores disguised as 2 on the SNES, or even later than that with the appearance of 7 on the ps1. I'm playing this game some 30 years later after its initial release date in 1987, the year I was born. My family wasn't particularly wealthy but we did have a NES and the adventures I had on the machine fuel my imagination to this day. Final Fantasy was not among the cartridges I had owned when I was younger but I don't think I could have appreciated at game like this, mostly because, well, it is frustrating.

As others have said and I agree, you can't play this game without a guide book. It just isn't possible. The game starts out with you creating your four characters, with a choice of six classes (in the psp version anyway, not playing the original here so I might be fudging some details here and there). You arrive in a castle and they talk of the four heroes of light which will return one day and bring peace, order and balance to the world. So far so good.

The further you play though, you will begin to realize that you will have to do some serious detective work. There will be many instances where you will have to figure out what to do next, and there may be a villager here and there spouting rumors about a jewel here, a key there, a city, a stone slab, yadda yadda. To be perfectly honest, this type of story framework kinda makes your fulfilling of the prophecy less grand. So the prophecy foretold your four dinguses will find a jewel in a cave and bribe a golem with it so he will get out of the way and you can explore that dungeon only for another item so you can explore yet another dungeon?

The dungeons themselves are designed to make you cry. With tons of loops and dead ends, you will find that if you were to explore it the ol' fashion way without a map or without a guide, you'd be overlevelling yourself because you activate a random encounter something like every five steps.

The magic system is unforgiving. You buy magic to equip onto your units. You only have 3 slots per level, there are 8 levels. Some of the spells will be stronger versions of prior spells.

The game is dated, and cumbersome, I'm sure if I was back in 1987 though it would be the epitome of high graphics, and such grand complex choice branching and an epic story. Pretty much everything would be if you compare it to pong or something.

Bottom line though, this game doesn't hold up very well. Games from this era that do? Legend of Kage, Cobra Triangle, Elevator Action, Commando. Though none of those guys are RPGs. You aren't missing out on anything except a dazzling array of obscure 'puzzles' to be solved and then a final battle, which was actually pretty enjoyable, but not worth the effort.

First off, as someone who missed this game when it was originally released - there is no nostalgia to cloud my judgement here. But also, I'm a bit of an optimist when it comes to games, seeing what they did right over what they obviously did wrong. I'm especially lenient depending on the time they were originally released. In my opinion, 20+ year old games deserve a handicap compared to today's releases (or maybe vice versa - I'm looking at you Final Fantasy 13). Anyway, hence the 5 star rating to a game that ABSOLUTELY has flaws.

Story wise, it's nothing special. Save the princess and defeat the bad guy. It does grow beyond that eventually, but not by much (there are just four shiny rocks to save instead of a princess). Even though the game hands you the first major battle on a silver platter so to speak, will it tell you? Of course not. At least, not unless you find the single useful NPC in the whole first town. And that's kind of how it works in Final Fantasy. Make sure you speak with everyone you come into contact with just in case there's one word that's useful later. One example is there are brooms (yes brooms) in a cave that explain to you how to view the world map, albeit backwards and without actually telling you what it does. And boy, let me tell you how nice that would have been to know, since somehow I managed to skip it or not pay any attention. I played this entire game without the use of a world map. Stupid on my part, but that just goes to show you how important it is to speak to everyone.

Gameplay is simple. At least it's setup is. Battles are menu based and your characters are limited to abilities fitting their class, which is decided by the player upon starting the game. This game is by no means a cakewalk though. For one, pick the wrong starting lineup and you're doomed to failure before you even really begin (pick all mages just to see how far you get). You do have benefits and restrictions placed upon your class; but they are pretty standard fare. (i.e. mages are low defense and strength but can use magic and fighters can't use magic but are strong and have high defense). The encounter rate is pretty high (random and otherwise) compared to newer releases. Even if a battle is set to a certain square, they wont be visible so they'll appear random. The only exceptions are bosses. You do get the luxury of seeing those coming. Battles are also turn based so an enemy won't attack out of turn giving you plenty of time to decide your move. There are mechanics that are extremely outdated, but I appreciate them for the most part for keeping the player on their toes. You will not be able to just spam the attack button and succeed. If one or more character has been commanded to attack a certain enemy and that enemy either dies or flees from battle before the hit/s is/are landed, your character's moves are considered void. Which can make a big difference in the end result of the battle. If you weren't paying attention and you commanded all four of your party members to attack the same enemy but the first character kills it, you have essentially lost three turns. Potentially giving your enemy the upper hand. Especially if in those 3 moves an enemy either killed one of your characters or severely weakened them and you now have to use a precious spell you otherwise could have saved. Which brings me to the next thing - mages have limited charges to their magic spells, similar to magic points but with no way to replenish them, save sleeping in an inn or using the "house" item outside of battle. Your charges are are also not a blanket setting for your spells, meaning, each individual spell has it's own number of specific charges. If the upcoming boss is weak against fire, hopefully you either have a "house" to use before battle, or saved your charges for the boss because all those ice charges you have mean nothing. Oh, by the way, those "houses" are also the only way you can save your game so keep plenty on stock (even if they are expensive).

Graphics were astounding for their time, and personally, I enjoy sprite work. But I'll be honest and say the more recent ports are much easier on the eyes. Although there is a reason the Final Fantasy series has it's own rhythm game (who doesn't appreciate Nobuo Uematsu?!), the same goes for the music. I enjoy the original 8-bit sound but the tracks have all benefited from a facelift.

It might seem as though I've been incredibly harsh considering I did give this game 5 stars, but didn't have much praise for it, but that's not true. Even if the story was cliche and bare-boned, I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the difficulty level. I spent close to 50 hours playing the game (although that could be because I had no idea where I was going, and all the landscapes look pretty similar). I feel as though most newer titles don't even come close to that amount of time to complete. When they do, it's mostly due to numerous and lengthy cutscenes. It's a game from a time when RPGs were still using training wheels; and considering this is the beginning of a collection that evolved into one of the biggest, well known (loved?) franchises in gaming history, I have to admit they did a lot of things right. Not to mention having several remakes and re-releases warrants that it is still extremely playable, even by today's standards. Unless you you happen to have a soft spot for retro games and their notorious difficulty spikes though, I probably would recommend playing one of the newer versions. Plus they have the bonus of extra content. Who doesn't love the elusive free extra content in games today? I'm talking to you, DLC.