Original Release: Gameboy, 1989. Version Reviewed: Gameboy, 1990.
THE PLOT:
Four heroes learn of a tower fabled to lead directly to Paradise. After completing a series of quests for three kingdoms, the heroes receive totems of armor, sword, and shield, allowing them to unlock the tower. They ascend, discovering a new world on each level, and must navigate a new set of challenges to ascend to the next level of the tower.
Paradise awaits at the top of the tower, along with the Creator. Face-to-face with God, there's only one thing to do...
Kill him with a chainsaw!
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| Very basic graphics, even by Gameboy standards. |
CHARACTERS:
About even with the characterization in the original Final Fantasy, in that you get four characters, and they must be good because they rescue a princess from a cave early in the game, along with a few other good deeds. They even find God... and yes, proceed to kill him with a chainsaw (technically, you don't have to use a chainsaw, but...)
GAMEPLAY:
Quite similar to the original Final Fantasy, in that gameplay revolves around exploration. You proceed to the next objective by locating the correct character or location, then defeating the boss enemy to which that leads. Outside of boss battles, combat is based on random encounters. All combat is turn-based, and your characters have a variety of attacks, some of which become devastatingly effective as your characters level up.
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| Ride around one of the later game worlds on a motorcycle! |
THOUGHTS:
The Final Fantasy Legend is one of four Gameboy JRPGs released to the West with the Final Fantasy label to capitalize on the original game's success. In reality, this is the initial entry in a completely different JRPG series: SaGa! But it features combat that utilizes turn-based random encounters and you can upgrade your equipment and spells, so the resemblance is close enough that you can hardly blame Nintendo for selling it under the more well-known banner.
In many respects, this is a very basic game - almost plain, even by the standards of its day. Graphics are spare and simple, and story content is rudimentary at best. The quest I referenced from early in the game, in which you rescue a princess? I was expecting many more such subquests. Instead, there are only a handful. Once you start climbing the tower, the template is rigid. Each level presents a new World Map, in which you must find a Thingie by defeating a Boss, allowing you to climb to the next level... Where you repeat that all over again.
The game's saving grace is that it is surprisingly fun to play. Both story content and graphics may be basic - But the context so often crosses from merely weird to downright insane, to a point that I wondered exactly which illicit substances fueled its creation. One of your available classes is "Mutant." These characters evolve by eating the "meat" dropped by defeated monsters. Yes, you level up your mutants by eating the flesh of your enemies! One of the later game worlds is dominated by a biker gang - not the sort of thing the fantasy setting leads you to expect.
Plus, this is the only game I know of where the final Boss battle is literally against God. Who is easily defeated by equipping a chainsaw. Why? ...Because!
With a relatively brief playtime, The Final Fantasy Legend doesn't overstay its welcome. The gameplay is more addictive than you would expect, and there's a certain fascination in witnessing each level compete with the ones before for sheer insanity. From a quality perspective, this is easily the worst game with "Final Fantasy" in its title that I've yet reviewed... But I'll be honest and acknowledge that in a certain frame of mind, it also ranks among the most enjoyable.
Overall Rating: 5/10.
Followed by: Final Fantasy Legend II
Previous Release: Final Fantasy II
Next Release: Final Fantasy III
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