Fainaru fantajî

Final Fantasy is a household name, as far as video games are concerned. There's hardly anybody on this planet who isn't in some way familiar with this franchise. Many sequels, spin-offs, and movies have come from this franchise and it all started here.

When I first played Final Fantasy, I was amazed at how unremarkable it was. The first game in the series is not a bad one, but it's nothing that special as far as presentation and graphics. The reason why it became so famous is because so few people in America were used to this type of role playing game. Aside from the Dungeons and Dragons fans, very few people were familiar with the strategy and leveling systems of Final Fantasy. This game introduced them to a whole new world and to a unique experience.

This is the only Final Fantasy game in the series where you can choose your characters by class. There are no characters forced on you. While the game is unique, it still doesn't look that great. While I understand that it was a Nintendo game released on an 8 bit system, the graphics were still average at best. The sound was somewhat annoying at times and the game play was sluggish. The spells had very vague descriptions and often weren't very effective. You also weren't able to save your game when you were in dungeons, so it was very annoying if you died after three hours of fighting in a dungeon. The game also did a poor job of explaining what you needed to do next. There's a difference between suspense and downright guesswork.

Even with the negatives, Final Fantasy is still a classic. I definitely recommend playing the Playstation version, released with Final Fantasy II as "Final Fantasy Origins", because of the many nice upgrades to the game. After playing this game and hopefully defeating it, you will definitely appreciate the many improvements Square-Enix has done to the Final Fantasy franchise.

No pun intended as always of course. I never played the game when it was first released, in hindsight and playing it on my console (Playstation), I imagine I would have really loved it. And I would say that I quite enjoyed the game even after all that time - and the ... well not very fine ageing when it comes to the graphics - yes this was not redone, so wash your eyes or whatever you would say.

That all said, the game is about a group of heroes ... heroes who we pick and name. And we also choose their class - it makes sense to pick and choose different characters/abilities to come with that. Since I am new to this game series, I cannot do too many comparisons. I did start playing FF7 that I think was called one of the best in the series? Might have gotten that wrong, but I know the fan base is quite big.

The game is called the same in Japan if my translate search was correct. Which is not always the case - see Resident Evil which was originally called Biohazard in Japan when it was originally released. Also the games, that much I know, are not playing in the same universe. So you get different stories, but also different people every time you play. Not sure if the movies or show portray any crossovers or if they focus on single games. .. or even tell original stories.

One thing is for sure, if you like strategy games that are round based (every character has time to choose their action for the round, if they are not dead or have an effect/spell on them) ... you will love this. I know people who don't like this .... they like it to be real time ... both have their flavor and things you like or don't like. It really is about what you make of it.

With number 7 I saw that they kind of broke that a bit and you could fight whenever. I am sure I can change it back to round based only - but it works so I'll keep it. But however old this is, the game works. And in some respect better than the original part 7 (they have done rebirth and whatnot with it) on Playstation. I could save wherever I want with that - also the map is there for me to know where I am something that seems to be missing with part 7 - at least the version I am playing.

Those who are savvy with role playing games (no pun intended, you know what I mean), may like the fact that you can level up and change the stats of your hero(es). What you may have liked ... to do yourself: do the upgrading yourself. But the game does that for you. At least you can see what is being upgraded.

The foes/enemies spawn whenever and you can level up quite nicely. The story is really nice (go find stuff, equip your troop with the best items and magic where applicable) .. but it has to be your cup of tea. Especially because it is pixelized and all that ... a lot of hours can be put into this too - so time consuming, fair warning of sorts. Final(ly) I played it myself, how about you?

This game was brilliant back then and has only gotten more brilliant with Origins and (hopefully) the new GBA game with it's extra dungeons and new enemies. It's the perfect role-playing game where you actually play out a role and chose your own path. You can go one place or you can go another. You can use these weapons or those, it's just amazing... Although I have to admit there were a few things wrong with the original (and the sequel for the GBA) and with the PS1 port (I know there were other ones but those are the only versions I've played thus far). With the original, the targeting system was atrocious as was the shop system (granted you couldn't have them actually walking around in the shops but it's still annoying none the less). In the PS1 version it was great, fixed all the problems.... but the game came with only 1 FMV. Why not incorporate a new ending movie? That would've been so cool... and make it so that I could actually use the Bestiary! Like it's going to do me any good in a non-battle menu command, and why not make it so you could unlock a special command that restored the original game's sound track. I would've been so much happier with it if I could hear the midi music used on the NES for this. And the GBA one's just going to be too easy. I mean it's not even allowing you to choose which difficulty to play the game under. I hope that I'm wrong on this last point... I really do since I loved the original game play. Regardless though, I loved this game in all it's incarnations and am looking forward to defeating Ultros on my GBA.

This is the beginning of the great Final Fantasy legacy. Some of the cheapest graphics create a wonderful game and what was to be the start of some of the best video games ever produced. But this one has it all: gem-eating titans, time-travelling, witches, elementals and so much more.

This game must have had that something which saved Squaresoft from bankruptcy and made 11 sequels. Today's players may have some difficulties to find out that something, especially from the original NES version.

Story has no clear link, it feels just a pointless wandering from dungeon to dungeon. Game would be much better if some non-story-related quests, like waking elf prince up, had left out so players would been saved from one annoyingly large dungeon. Although all the dungeons are annoyingly large and what more annoying, there are no save points in them. Dialogue is straight-forward, even childish. None of the game's characters has any personalities in them.

Battle system is simple and therefore good but battles are painfully slow and they appear painfully often. Monters are mostly taken either from Greek mythology or AD&D universe. Job system is over simple, it's just picking a character class to four player characters.

Graphics are old but since it's NES who can blame it? Music is mostly pretty OK but there should have been more than one battle music. Now especially the last boss feels really lame by that same tiring track.

To understand the first Final Fantasy's true value people must know something about history. It has more complex story-line than first Dragon Quests. Although I still think that developers of this game should have tried more its nonetheless worth of playing for nostalgics.