I played the "Restored" romhack released by AstralEsper: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1631
Even in 1987, Final Fantasy distinguishes itself by being pretty and smooth and polished. The hero sprites, enemy sprites, and little strip of background go a long way to making an evocative battle screen. The setting is a fun mishmash of genres, and I like how brief and direct the NPC dialogue is.
I really like that attacks on dead enemies don't automatically retarget. It forced me to become familiar with enemy health pools, and made basic attacking a little more thoughtful. This is a game of resource management, and not wasting your attacks is another resource to manage, alongside health, spell slots, and items.
The pacing was also just about perfect for me. I went as far as I could into a dungeon until I felt I had to turn back, barely made it back to town, then stocked up and made it further the next time. This was a much more satisfying loop to me than grinding. The final dungeon had me use every item and spell slot I had, and I just barely beat Chaos at level 29. I ran out of potions before beating Lich, and had to manage my health with healing item-spells for the rest of the dungeon.
Even so, the post-airship game is a lot easier than the first half, and I was quickly drowning in more equipment and gil than I knew what to do with. Even in this version that fixes a lot of the infamous bugs, half the spells are useless or redundant. This is mostly fine for a game that's more about the endurance of a long dungeon crawl than about the combat itself, but I'm excited to see what the sequels do with this solid foundation.
Even in 1987, Final Fantasy distinguishes itself by being pretty and smooth and polished. The hero sprites, enemy sprites, and little strip of background go a long way to making an evocative battle screen. The setting is a fun mishmash of genres, and I like how brief and direct the NPC dialogue is.
I really like that attacks on dead enemies don't automatically retarget. It forced me to become familiar with enemy health pools, and made basic attacking a little more thoughtful. This is a game of resource management, and not wasting your attacks is another resource to manage, alongside health, spell slots, and items.
The pacing was also just about perfect for me. I went as far as I could into a dungeon until I felt I had to turn back, barely made it back to town, then stocked up and made it further the next time. This was a much more satisfying loop to me than grinding. The final dungeon had me use every item and spell slot I had, and I just barely beat Chaos at level 29. I ran out of potions before beating Lich, and had to manage my health with healing item-spells for the rest of the dungeon.
Even so, the post-airship game is a lot easier than the first half, and I was quickly drowning in more equipment and gil than I knew what to do with. Even in this version that fixes a lot of the infamous bugs, half the spells are useless or redundant. This is mostly fine for a game that's more about the endurance of a long dungeon crawl than about the combat itself, but I'm excited to see what the sequels do with this solid foundation.
2 Comments
just started the same romhack... I pondered long over the decision of which version to play, but think I made the right one
poyfuh
4 months ago
I think the way that encounters are specifically meant to be drains on limited resources like that is an element often gets lost in modern takes on the genre and in discussions of “grind,” and this even bleeds over into versions of This Game; I played the psp remake of this year or two ago and it discards spell slots for a modern MP system and cheaply purchasable ethers and it completely wrecks the whole vibe.
Dope game tho good review