Final Fantasy.

Original Release: Nintendo Entertainment System, 1987. Version Reviewed: Dawn of Souls edition, Gameboy Advance, 2004.


THE PLOT:

After rescuing a princess from the evil knight Garland, four young warriors find themselves embarking on a quest. Each of them carrying a darkened crystal, the warriors must battle evil forces to restore the crystals' light. Their journey will carry them across continents, into dark caves, up to castles floating in the sky, and across time itself, as they must ultimately face a familiar foe to unravel a paradox that threatens to engulf their world in darkness!


CHARACTERS:

(Laughs hysterically). Um, OK... (Serious face). You play as these four warriors, who go around doing good things because they are good. You fight enemies, who go around doing evil things because they are evil. There's a hint that Garland wasn't always evil; but this is not particularly expanded on, and is the closest to any level of characterization this game gives to anybody.

The Warriors of Light explore a village.

GAMEPLAY:

Final Fantasy utilizes a highly traditional, turn-based combat system, with your four heroes alternating attacks with enemies. Early battles are quite easy, with the first boss battle - against Garland - an absolute cakewalk. The battles grow more challenging as the game goes on, however, and players may find themselves having to grind through additional dungeons to level up enough to face some of the later bosses.

This is a JRPG, which means leveling is largely based on random encounters. The encounter rate for the first Final Fantasy is infamously high, with spots in which you will do battle every 1 - 2 steps. For this reason, along with it being a very dated game in general, I found it best to play in short intervals - though once you adjust to its style, it becomes more addictive than you'd think!

Yet another random encounter...

THOUGHTS:

"Basic" is the best word to describe the original Final Fantasy. The Atari 2600 was in the very recent past when the original version of this was released, and gamers did not particularly expect story or characters in their games. As such, it's little surprise that the story is thin, largely a clothesline to connect the various settings and subquests, and that characterization is effectively nonexistent.

Despite this, the original Final Fantasy remains a lot of fun. I mostly played in quick bursts: 15 minutes here, 20 minutes there when waiting for water to boil or when taking a break from other tasks. Gradually, I became addicted; by the end, I was sitting down to actively play for as much as an hour at a stretch, just trying to wrap up whatever the current subquest was or hit the shops to stock up on healing potions and upgrade equipment before my next Save.

The Dawn of Souls version gives the NES original a nice graphics update. It looks basic, but it does look good. This version also allows players to save their games anywhere on the map, which makes it easier to play in bits and pieces. There are a handful of bonus dungeons... But since these basically just offer "more of the same" gameplay, with no particular new story content, I only completed the first of these before deciding to ignore the rest.

Very basic, and easily outstripped by most of its successors, Final Fantasy nevertheless remains startlingly enjoyable. I wouldn't describe it as indispensible for modern gamers... But those curious to see how the legendary series began will likely have a good time with it, as long as expectations are tempered to match the era from which it came.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

Next Game: Final Fantasy II



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