This game is generally pretty fun and for the most part it's what you'd expect but the last few sections with the space station and the time traveling storyline shoot it up to legendary status.
I kinda love how despite being so early in the genre and the medium's life this game manages to convey a specific themeing of people coming together to fight against a higher power, which feels appropriate for a game where you control four characters at once - as the ending sequence says "the Four became One".
But it's not just the Four, it's everyone.
A lot of this game's story revolves around the player characters gaining favor with the people of the world and said people coming together to help them in return.
The game begins with the King of Corneria ordering the building of a bridge that the Light Warriors can use to continue on their journey, I don't think it's a coincidence that this monument to the cause built by the people the Light Warriors had just saved marks the game's opening text crawl and title sequence, as it's sort of emblematic of what the whole game is about.
Even at the end, when everyone has forgotten the deeds of the heroes, the legend lives on in the tales people pass among each other even when unsure of where it originated from, the propagation and survival of this story relies entirely on a community that's willing to share among themselves.
I dunno, it's kinda fun that the story here, despite being quite primitive and limited by the technology, still manages to have some cohesion and connective tissue - or at least as much of that as you're willing to get out of it I guess.

This final fantasy hasn't aged gracefully across the franchise, but its core mechanics and visuals still hold up decently. While not a standout, its customizable party and memorable soundtrack offer some replay value and nostalgia.

Oh great, I’m reviewing Final Fantasy. A game that has been talked about for decades. While I do sometimes talk about popular games, it’s stuff like this I’m inexperienced with that makes me feel I shouldn’t really be one talking about the subject. I want to someday talk about a lot of the entries in this series. Besides the spinoff Seiken Densetsu, I’ve never beaten a Final Fantasy game. After all of these years I’ve finally done it and here is my story…

It all started with that blue screen that gives a small amount of story with a nice song to accompany it. I guess to start weirdly would be the music as I wanna get upfront and say the OST as a whole is amazing for the Famicom. It was composed by Nobuo Uematsu and it’s some amazing stuff, probably some of the best of the 1987 catalog of the Famicom. Once you start a new save I got to pick my party. If you’re wondering who I chose and will probably determine if you’ll keep reading or not. I picked a Fighter, Red Mage, White Mage, and Black Mage. Really wish the letter limit wasn’t four letters so I just ended up using the closest canon names they had. So began the journey of Zest, Puff, Floe, and Teol!

Surprisingly it starts off pretty basic, saving a Princess from a guy named Garland. First I had to get ready and it can feel pretty daunting for me as I’m not really told what’s helpful for my team. Even weirder is you have to buy magic and not get it from level ups so it’s off to grind. Battles seem pretty simple but wow you can fight a lot of them at once, it feels like it can be daunting at times but with enough skill, It’s not too bad. The one nice thing about having mages is I can rely on both offensive and defensive magic. Though this weird spell charges mechanic is something I’m not a fan of and I’ll go over why later.

The first dungeon is short and you can’t even get every treasure in here at first and even the first boss Garland is a joke. So I beat him and save the Princess but obviously that’s just the beginning. A new bridge is constructed and when you cross it, one of the best things happens in the game. You’re given a bit of text as the title of the game and credits are shown, really giving me the feeling of “Yes, I feel so ready to save the day!”

Now I’m off doing things following the plot, going into dungeons, and even getting multiple vehicles to ride in. You get one pretty early which is the ship which is pretty cool. The world isn’t too big but it still feels like a big world especially once you get more into it. Then I eventually found what would be the first main dungeon that wasn’t a floor only dungeon and wow I wasn’t having the most fun. I kept having to leave the place to heal and I began to realize having spell charges really limits what I can do in fights. Though later on you’ll learn Cottages can heal spell charges which is nice. Since I wanted to preserve spells for bosses, I ended up just running away most of the time which isn’t the most fun thing to do in an RPG. It also doesn’t help that the Black and White mages are as frail as a piece of glass. It can be a bit frustrating at times.

Still going through the world, there’s some cool things here and there and beating bosses with relative ease, even ones like the Kraken. I gotta praise the design of monsters too, they really look nice and there’s a nice variety of them and while there are recolors, it’s understandable. The art for stuff like the box is also legendarily great as well and they are unforgettable. Even the player sprites are good looking too. The world also looks pretty nice too and I like how some parts like the Town of Melmond show the decay of the Earth thanks to one of the Chaos Four. I got a little sidetrack there, my bad.

The more I went through the game, I did start to really appreciate all of the magic I could use and even grinding wasn’t too awful as I didn’t do too much of it even for getting Gil. There’s also a cool airship you can ride late into the game and it’s so fast and fun but landing with it can suck sometimes. You even get to upgrade your characters with brand new sprites and abilities and it feels so good to see this happen! There are still some issues that pissed me off. The worst thing in the game has to be the poison status. It’s not even poison being annoying but it screws with your team placement, I hate rearranging it every single time! This is also one of those early RPGs where you can miss if you direct a character to hit an enemy that dies to someone else which can lead to strategy and thought but can be annoying when you feel it’s too RNG at times who dies at what. I wish it was easier to view stats for weapons and armor as it ends up being easier to use a guide for comparisons. I also struggled with inventory management and ended up throwing a lot of weapons and armor away. The game is also known for being buggy but I didn’t really have any issue with this regard.

By the time I got to the end of the game, I was ready but nervous. I was at level 34 and ended at 35. This dungeon isn’t too long but enemies can be dangerous so more running but you have to rematch all of the Chaos 4 again and they’re harder. Oh that reminds me, some might wonder did I fight the Warmech? No, I didn’t. Sorry. Oh yeah I forgot that place also took place in space? That’s really cool. This final place also takes place 2,000 years in the past which is something I would have never expected to see in a FF game. Finally I got to the final boss and wow it’s actually that easy first boss from the beginning but now he’s Chaos. This fight is rough and worse of all he can heal all of his health. I thankfully had a lot of buffs on so I was eventually able to defeat him and the game ends with the world saved. It was weird to see the game end on the characters getting amnesia? Like should I not feel happy it didn’t all end well? Maybe I didn’t read it right, oh well the world is saved!

I feel on and off about this game. I want to think I enjoyed it, regardless of the issues. I could have talked about more moments and I know this feels a little too small of a review but I just don’t want to bore people. In the end, I think it’s a good game. I find it such an interesting game for 1987 especially since it could have failed had Dragon Quest III not receive a delay. FF would become one of Square’s biggest IPs. Two sequels would get made on the Famicom and I’ll play through II sometime this year. FFI also got some remakes which first started on the WonderSwan Color. It also has a MSX2 version with a fan translation. Though I’m sure nowadays the Pixel Remaster is the go-to version for people looking to play the game. It was a good start but I’m wondering how the sequel will fare. Guess I’ll have to wait and see. Thanks for reading!

(Played Chaos Rush translation with bug fixes)

You know, I think that missing attacks if you target a dead enemy is a good thing. Not generally, obviously, but in this specific game it adds some nuance to an otherwise stale combat experience. At least in the first half of the game, I felt motivated to strategize in order to finish the battles in as few turns as possible. This made level-ups really rewarding, like when my weak mages could finally take out enemies with one hit, which made large encounters more bearable. Of course, this fizzles out when you get strong spells later on, but combat isn’t all there is to this game.

In fact, I think what really makes this one stand out is how charming it is. The biggest contributor is probably its soundtrack, which is no surprise, but I also found its world interesting to think about. Not because it’s unique, but more because I think it does a good job at selling you on the high stakes. You see all corners of the world and meet different communities/tribes that are all being affected by the evil force you’re prepping to face, despite having little contact with each other. For such a text-limited game, I think it presents its world really well and it kept me wanting to see the next area (airship was a great moment because of this!).

Still, charming as it is, it can be a slog at times. Those early dungeons had me concerned about the amount of grinding I’d be doing, but it eventually became no problem. Some obtuse level design choices and a few simply evil fake treasure rooms kept things mildly annoying throughout. Overall? I didn’t have a great time, but definitely not a bad one either. Its charm keeps it above water for me.

The original Final Fantasy from 1987 is a nice little quaint adventure that served as a revolutionary stepping stone for what would become one of the largest JRPG franchises of all time. Given the history of this franchise and it’s current stature in worldwide culture, it is quite humbling returning to its core roots with the original title. It obviously has quirks that you can associate with older games from this era--an exorbitant amount of random encounters, a story that leaves out detail, a simplistic combat system, and mechanics that literally are so bugged they don’t even work. Even taking all of those things into account, Final Fantasy is still a blast. There is a kind of special magic that really works. Final Fantasy is a quaint, fun, simple adventure that impresses more with how much they accomplished with so little resources than it disappoints. It’s not an adventure I will want to return to anytime soon, but it is one I will remember.

In many ways the first Final Fantasy game was a culmination of many different RPG efforts to date. The influence from Dragon Quest is obvious, which itself was influenced by Ultima and Wizardry. Final Fantasy was the next child in this illustrious lineage, and easily my favorite.

Where Final Fantasy excels is that it manages to offer a mostly frustration free experience to newcomers of RPGs as well as veteran dungeon crawlers. It provides you with some customization options by letting you pick your party, and your spells should you choose to add mages to your party, but the rest of the game proceeds through a linear series of fetch quests and regulated upgrades. A reasonable encounter rate and leveling system keeps pretty good pace with the story and gives you a sense of growing more powerful as you work your way through the various dungeons.

I also prefer the battle screen layout here to that of the first person views in games like Dragon Quest. Seeing your characters move to attack the enemy sprites even with simplistic animations always felt more impactful than staring at an enemy sprite as it glows different colors in response to your menu selections. That said, the visuals are very similar to Dragon Quest, though I do prefer the sprite work in Final Fantasy. There are also some well documented bugs and stats issues that could cause frustration, but I personally never found any of them to be detrimental enough to cause significant grievances.

The story is generally straightforward, and while the setting is mostly a mishmosh of medieval themes and characters, it does lay the groundwork for some of the staple elements of the franchise that would span countless games after this one. Speaking of timeless elements, the game's soundtrack is fantastic and relentlessly humable. Easily some of the best music ever produced for a video game at the time of its release.

All in all, Final Fantasy was a wonderful addition to the burgeoning RPG genre and set the stage for sequels that would go on to become some of the best games ever made.