I don't know what has possessed me to give this game shot after shot over the years. I think I was just convinced on some level that I must be playing the game wrong, because so many people I've trusted have told me how this is one of Square's best games, but every time I play it I get frustrated with the combat design and fall off after a couple hours.

This time around I was determined to finally understand Secret of Mana and engage with it completely on its own terms. I read guides, learned every little perfunctory mechanic, grinded to make sure I was on level with the content I was engaging with, and surprise surprise it still sucks. I see the bones here of an action RPG that aspires to play more like a turn based RPG than the other action RPGs of the time (Zelda, Ys, etc.), and I think that is a really phenomenal idea to take the menu driven JRPG systems of Final Fantasy and put them in an action context. In the last couple of decades we've seen the birth of the Kingdom Hearts franchise as well as Final Fantasy VII Remake which both prove that this idea has merit, and when executed on by masters of their craft can make for some of the best video games ever made. Secret of Mana was not executed even a quarter as well as the worst Kingdom Hearts game. I think a huge portion of this comes down to what I originally billed as poor hit detection, but have come to realize is a hit%/dodge% stat built into the game that seems to serve no other purpose than to make the game feel like shit. I see the idea behind carrying over those stats from traditional RPGs into your action system, but in an era of the snappy swordplay of Link to the Past it just comes off as sluggish at best and at worst extremely frustrating. This is without even getting into how the charge system slows the combat down to a crawl or how the game is so extraordinary balanced in favor of magic that at a certain point it feels like one of your party members is just tagging along for the ride.

I truly hope that the unbelievably gorgeous cover art by Hiroo Isono never honeypots me into giving this one another shot. This is one of the few cases where I went against my gut on a game time and time again and I should've just trusted my 7 year old self bouncing off of this.

What an amazing game.
Just finished getting the platinum, and I'm glad most of the side content was fun enough to actually do. Not that much filler, which is rare for open world games.

Great story in a great campaign. This shit surprised me several times and kept me guessing til the very end, even til after the credits. Loved all the characters in this, they made MJ one of my favorite characters in this game, after being the worst in the first game. The villains were fun, even though 1 maybe overstayed their welcome.

The gameplay is as crazy as ever, you get a lot more toys to play with this time, across 2 Spider-Men to boot. None of the combat encounters ever bored me.

Flying/webbing around the city was as fun as ever, with the wing suit and wind tunnels adding a whole layer to traversal.

My one big gripe with this game and why I almost dropped it to a 9 is the amount of bugs I encountered. While some were funny, a couple were soft locks that required either going to the last checkpoint or reset the ps5. I never lost more than a couple of minutes of progress so I choose not to drop it to a 9. Hopefully these are patched out soon. Other than that the performance was great in both 60 and 120fps modes.

Overall this is now my 2023 GOTY. It was worth the wait.

Around 1986-1987, a little company by the name of Squaresoft, or simply just Square, was in deep trouble. They were facing the threat of bankruptcy, and while they had previously made several previous titles that were somewhat noteworthy at the time, such as Rad Racer, King’s Knight, and The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner, none of those games were successful enough to keep the company afloat, coupled with plenty of other factors that would play a part in this. With a single spark of hope still remaining in them, they had decided to give it one last shot, to develop one final game that would decide the fate of their company. If it had succeeded, they would go about business as usual for the foreseeable future, but if it hadn’t, they would close their doors forever and become a forgotten studio of the past. It was quite a gamble, to be sure, but one that they were willing to take. And so, in 1987, Square would go onto release that game for the NES, known simply as Final Fantasy.

I’m sure we all know where the story goes from here: the game was a smash hit, it allowed Square to keep making games, and since then, the series has become the flagship franchise for Square, now Square Enix, and has been going strong all the way up to this day, with the latest title, Final Fantasy XVI, just releasing a few months prior to me typing this. The series has evolved in many ways over the years, both good and bad, and despite the many, MANY hurdles it went through, it is considered by many to be one of the best RPG series of all time, and even one of the greatest video game franchises of all time. But, with all that being said, how does the original Final Fantasy, from all the way back on the NES, hold up after all this time? Well… it is good… but it has definitely aged A TON since 1987. It did introduce a lot of elements that would be a staple in not just this series, but for RPGs in general, and it can be fun to go back and play every so often, but many will agree with me when I say this is definitely not the first title you would go back to when revisiting older Final Fantasy games, and even if you were to go back to this one, it wouldn’t be with this version.

The story is extremely basic for an RPG, about four chosen heroes on a quest to restore their respective crystals involving the four elements, and saving the land from the forces of evil, but I will give it some slack, seeing as it was the story for the first game in the series, the graphics are pretty good for the time, not being too impressive when compared to other titles, but providing that sense of wonder and adventure that visuals like this need to provide, so it works, the music is iconic, with plenty of main staple tracks of the series being introduced here, and many of these tracks are still great to listen to now, even if they have been made better in subsequent remakes, the control is… exactly what you would expect from an RPG, so no need to discuss it any further, and the gameplay is… also exactly what you would expect from an RPG, but it helped evolve it in ways not seen previously, and would help make the genre a mainstay in many players’ eyes.

The game is a classic role-playing-game, where you take control of four player characters that you give unique names to, as well as choose their own class of warrior for out of six choices, you travel around a large world filled with plenty of towns, dungeons, and more, talk to NPCs, buy items and equipment to give you an advantage in battle, gather plenty of other helpful items that will allow you to explore more of the world, and of course, get caught in a series of random battles, where you and your party take on a wide assortment of creatures, using main attacks, magic, items, and your own strategy to take down these monsters, gain gil + experience, and level up. Now, this is all stuff we have all seen in RPGs before, and plenty of other games before this, such as Dragon Quest, also did a lot of the stuff that this game does, but as any RPG fan knows, execution is one of the big factors that defines whether an RPG is good, and the original Final Fantasy has a pretty great execution.

The game does make it feel like you are going on an epic journey across this world, not only due to the many faces you meet and interact with, but also with the opening sequence seen after beating the first dungeon and setting off into the world. It may not seem like much for players nowadays, but I’m sure back in the day, this was more than enough to get a player sucked into what they were about to experience. What also helps is that the game still plays pretty well, having a basic RPG formula that many can understand and get a feel for pretty quickly, and with all the stuff that you can get not just from battles, but exploring more of the world laid out to you, it definitely keeps you wanting to move on and see what more you can find. This is also made better with the fact that, halfway through the game, your entire party is given a substantial upgrade, where you all now look much more badass, and have plenty more skills that you can dish out on monsters, giving a sense of progression that feels extremely satisfying, especially for someone like me who doesn’t typically play traditional RPGs all that much.

In addition to this, while it doesn’t do too much different when compared to other RPGs at the time, what it does change up does make the game feel more enjoyable. Pretty much every other RPG before this always had battles take place in a first-person-view, which was cool and all, but it does leave a lot to be desired in terms of how battles can be shown. In this game though, battles now take place from a side view, where you can not only see your opponents, but also your entire party at once. Again, it may not seem like much, but it does add that little extra bit of flavor to make it more exciting, seeing these characters that you made and helped get more powerful take on these fearsome foes, and feeling satisfied whenever they do gain experience from these fights, while doing their victory dance after every fight. And finally, this game does have plenty of replayability, with the previously mentioned selection of classes that you can give to your four warriors upon starting the game. This makes it so that you can make whatever kind of team you want, whether it be a varied team with four different classes brought together, or maybe even a team full of people of only one class. It is neat seeing what kind of combinations you can make, how they will fair in battle, and also finding the right set of characters that suit your playstyle.

With all that being said though, any fan of both Final Fantasy and RPGs in general can all agree with me when I say this game has issues. While this game did a lot of things to benefit and popularize the RPG genre, nowadays, it is pretty bland in comparison to plenty of other games not just in the genre, but in later sequels. That is to be expected, of course, but it can make going back to the original game more difficult for those curious about the series. In addition, this game can be pretty fucking brutal at times. There will be plenty of instances where you will be bombarded by a whole gang of enemies, even up to 9 of them, and they can easily take you down if you aren’t careful, with there being plenty of times where they can gang up on one party member, and kill them immediately. And speaking of which, whenever a character dies, you can’t just simply revive them with a Phoenix Down like in other titles in this series. The only way you can revive them is by going to churches in the towns of the game. So, basically, if you are deep into a dungeon, and one of your party members happens to die in a battle, you have to go alllllllllll the way back to a town just to revive them. That pretty much means you will be FUCKED, as it is pretty difficult to get back to a town when you are caught in this scenario, let alone get out of the battle you are currently in unscathed if the dead party member just so happens to be your strongest one.

And finally, I must stress this: if you are planning on checking out the original Final Fantasy at any point in the future, don't play the NES version. That’s not to say that the original version is a bad version, as it is still perfectly playable, but anyone who has played it compared to any other version knows that it is pretty busted. For example, a lot of the magic spells and stats just straight up don’t work, such as the case of intelligence doing nothing whatsoever, and some spells do the exactly opposite of what they are supposed to do, which can be bad when you use them on a tough foe. In addition to this, some of the classes in the game are completely useless compared to others, such as the case with the Thief class. Not only does the class not have the ability to steal anything, making the class’s entire existence a fucking joke, but it also has no access to magic in the first half of the game, and while it is supposed to make running from battles easier, OOPS, that doesn’t work either! So yeah, needless to say, if you are going to play the original Final Fantasy, play one of the remakes, preferably the Pixel Remaster, since it is the most accessible. Trust me, you will have a much better time with it.

Overall, despite having plenty of issues that hold it back from true greatness, as well as there being plenty of updated remakes that make this version obsolete, the original Final Fantasy for the NES is still a good time, and I did enjoy my time with it when revisiting it, even if I will never be touching it ever again after this review, and sticking to other versions of it. I would recommend checking it out for hardcore fans of not just Final Fantasy or hardcore fans of the original game, but also for major RPG nuts as well, but for those who are just casual fans of Final Fantasy or RPGs, then there are definitely much better versions out there. But hey, at least we can appreciate the game for saving Square in their time of need and allowing them to still develop not just this series, but plenty of other games all the way up to this day. Let’s just hope they can keep up this level of quality and increase it further with the next game to come after this. I mean, they couldn’t POSSIBLY screw that one up, right?

Game #366

Before hand. I had never heard anything about Dragon Quest IV. Usually when the series is talked about it's either the first trilogy or the later ones in the series, so I had no idea what I was getting into and that'll stand true for this trilogy as a whole.

Graphically, I gotta say this game looks really good. I had been playing the games mostly through the Switch remakes which are based off the mobile versions and use the same graphics engine, so I've been seeing the games look a bit too much like each other. This time I actually get to see a remake done in a different style, and I actually really like the character designs and how the monsters move and animate. While the world design really doesn't look too different than the last games, the dungeons and bosses on the other hand are on a whole new level. I'm actually shocked this game wasn't released on the SNES or GBA, because I feel like it would have fit on either because of it's Golden Sun-like design of the world.

Along with the world is a rather pretty soundtrack. Gone are the same tunes I was hearing in the past games, and here come so rather pretty sounding village music, and dungeons, and the fact each character has their own battle theme is a really great touch.

There's not really much to say about the controls and mechanics. It does most of the same stuff as the past games did on every level as far as movement and combat, save for the ability to rotate the camera while in towns and dungeons, that while not heavily utilized, it was something that created a few new paths and hidden items.

Now to the best part of the game that makes it stand pretty highly to me. I can't think of too many games that take the approach of having the hero not be the main focus right away. the game has other characters that have their own chapters where they go on their own adventures and build their own spot in the story waaay before the hero even gets to do anything. It's refreshing to see all these other people who will join the hero later, get development and agency on their own and not tied to the hero. It almost feels like everyone else grows and becomes a seasoned hero or heroine in their own right, so THEY can help the hero become the hero with their experiences. It's such an amazing way of telling the story and having you root for them while growing into your own. I really wish more games would follow this and hope it's something that the rest of the series learns from.

So with all the praise do I have any issues with the game? Well...

- While graphically it looks great, some of the towns have a weird frame rate drops at times, I dunno if it's the water moving or the towns people sprites, but its distracting when it happens.

- The world map could use some work. Not the world itself, but the map on the other screen is no help at all.

- I've complained about this I swear every game, but while I get the dialogue represents other languages that tend to make it sound broken, it gets waaay too distracting and makes the NPCs hard to understand and takes a little bit of tension out of the story in spots.

- Speaking of story, while I love the character and world building...again the villains especially the main one has VERY little presence to the point it takes to near the end to get ANY feel of real danger and stakes, I feel like this is a common complaint I make as well.

Dragon Quest IV was a really great game and I'm starting to see where Final Fantasy runs parallel with Dragon Quest when it comes to sequel structures, like Final Fantasy IV...Dragon Quest IV started the series with grander stories and more world building that the prior games barely touched. I really liked this game.

I want to get the negatives out of the way immediately, as I enjoyed this game on the whole. The camera is HORRIBLE at times. It’s somehow more annoying than Mario 64’s camera. Big and Amy’s gameplay are not fun and highly underdeveloped. Their de-emphasis on speed would have been tolerable if they were fun to control, but they aren’t. Finally, the cutscenes, dialog, voice acting, and especially the mouth animations are laughably bad. I will, however, give credit to Sonic Team for trying to tell its story through several unique playable characters. This kind of worldbuilding, especially in a platformer, was unheard of at the time.

Ambitious is the best word to describe Sonic Adventure. That can be dangerous, but for the Blue Blur’s first foray into 3D, I was amazed at how much Sonic Team got right. The level design is top-notch for most characters, as they are easy to follow while rewarding curious and skilled players with additional rings, lives, power-ups, and shortcuts through stages. Using Sonic’s spin dash and homing attack never gets old and he is thankfully not the only source of fun to be had here. Tails, Knuckles, and E-102 Gamma recontextualized levels in interesting ways and have fantastic controls.

As Tails, I loved skipping huge chunks of levels by flying though boost rings or dropping to a lower platform. Vertical levels like Speed Highway and Windy Valley really benefit from this playstyle. Knuckles has you hunting emerald shards. A solid idea, though having Tikal point you exactly where to go made a couple levels too easy. E-102 Gamma’s shooting stages under a time limit were conceptually neat, but I never had to worry about running out of time. If you started off with far less time, they would perfectly resemble Mario Galaxy 2’s stressful speedrun levels where you had to keep collecting clocks (or shoot stuff in Gamma’s case) to keep the timer active. This would have worked perfectly for Gamma if you ask me. I also wish these characters had more than five stages to play though each.

Overall, I had a good time with Sonic Adventure. I understand now why fans want more 3D Sonic games to resemble it. It gives you a level of freedom and control that most of the later games lacked. As someone whose first Sonic games were Sonic Riders, Sonic Colors, and the storybook games, I viewed the iconic hedgehog differently growing up. I didn’t even play the Genesis games until last year. However, apart from the subpar storybook games, I really enjoyed all of those 3D titles for various reasons. They each prove that 3D Sonic works and can even support different types of gameplay. The problem is the execution from Sonic Team, which is wildly inconsistent to say the least. As such, it may be difficult to know whether Sonic Adventure is still worth playing. I say it is. It has significant flaws, but a majority of them are a result of it being a product of the early 3D era. The core foundation is still strong.

If you do intend on playing it, buy the PC version and download the SADX Mod Installer. I cannot recommend the installer enough. The setup is very simple and provides a plethora of options that increase the game’s fun factor, the best of which are HD widescreen and a full restoration of the Dreamcast lighting.

I am fully convinced that every single person that touts this game as one of the greatest of all time or an underrated SNES gem is playing an elaborate trick on me, it has to be nostalgia, right? I've been trying to fully play through this game for more than a decade now, and every single time I bounce off it once I remember how bad the whole thing feels.

The visuals might be quaint and charming and the music might be some of the best of the era, but after being stunlocked to death for the fifth time in an hour, or getting softlocked because the AI companion got stuck in a way that made it impossible for me to correct or free them, or after said companions getting insta-killed by an enemy leaves me without the magic I need to spam in order to even stand a chance with this godforsaken combat system, I have to wonder if it's worth suffering through such a fundamentally broken game just to experience some nice music, decent visuals and a mediocre story told through a translation that leaves me not even sure what's going on half the time.

In my case, it is not worth it, not even slightly. I'm glad some people can look past the flaws and enjoy the positive aspects, but for me, this game is one of the most janky, unwieldy experiences I've ever had. I'll probably get gaslit into trying it again a couple months from now.