This review contains spoilers
Note: Ignore the platform label here this was played on Nintendo Switch Online.
I really wanted to like this more. I respect the choice to have the player discover the eight melodies largely on their own tuition/exploration skills and the writing is probably the best of the NES/Famicom generation with many clever setups and punchlines for the comedy (there is an excellent bit in the second town I won't spoil) and the use of gameplay to give characterization with Giegue/Gyiyg/Giygas's boss fight is great. In an era of 1-D characters I can appreciate that Llloyd and Teddy are at least 2-D and seem to be foils to one another to an extent but ultimately if you go in expecting SNES AAA JRPG level writing you are going to be disappointed. Itoi was definitely still testing the waters here and his more complex thoughts on the pacifist (perhaps brain over brawn would be a better description), anti-capitalist themes would really fully sit with the game design until later entries. The heavy use of level grinding as a gate on progression,for example, both implicitly (poor combat design basically requiring X amount of levels) and explitly (the level cap on fighting one of the enemies that has one of the melodies and apparently the sing command for the final boss going off some Wikis) when gaining levels is exclusively tied to combat contradicts these ideas as you are rewarded with a progression via mass bloodshed and or brute-forcing battles by just buying the best equipment at the local department store. Said grinding also tends to kill gameplay pacing and actually remove thought as by the time your damage per turn is high enough to win your are likely to just physically attack things to death as non-healing and stat buff PSI is rarley worth it over simply tapping A frivolously. I can count the number of battles I had to actively think about in my entire playthrough on one hand. In fact, I can activley list them all here to prove my point:
1) The sleeping Dragon in Magicant's Crystal Cavern (use PSI Sheild beta and then spam your physical attacks)
2) Cerbreum encounters in Mount Itoi
3) Grey Bears on Mount Itoi's Plateau (use PSI Freeze beta or gamma + physical attack)
4) Using stall tactics (PSI Shield Beta + PSI Lifeup Gamma + Sing) on Gigue during final boss "fight".
four times in a 15-hour game. That is kinda ridiculous even for the time given Final Fantasy has much more complex gameplay and even had some replayability with class compositions despite similar technical hardware limitations at the time.
Sound design and music is good and captures the tone well (Pollyanna is a bop) but I can't say much on that front as music theroy isn't really my forte.
Graphics are charming for the time I dig the peanuts/90s nicktoon look here that'd be the series standard going forward. Everything the game directed towards me to with visuals was usually easy to pick up on.
Overall, if you are someone like me that is looking to understand how the medium's storytelling language developed overtime you might find somthing here to at least appreaciate on a scholary level but I advise casual folks wanting to get a taste of 8-bit RPGs to look elsewhere.
I really wanted to like this more. I respect the choice to have the player discover the eight melodies largely on their own tuition/exploration skills and the writing is probably the best of the NES/Famicom generation with many clever setups and punchlines for the comedy (there is an excellent bit in the second town I won't spoil) and the use of gameplay to give characterization with Giegue/Gyiyg/Giygas's boss fight is great. In an era of 1-D characters I can appreciate that Llloyd and Teddy are at least 2-D and seem to be foils to one another to an extent but ultimately if you go in expecting SNES AAA JRPG level writing you are going to be disappointed. Itoi was definitely still testing the waters here and his more complex thoughts on the pacifist (perhaps brain over brawn would be a better description), anti-capitalist themes would really fully sit with the game design until later entries. The heavy use of level grinding as a gate on progression,for example, both implicitly (poor combat design basically requiring X amount of levels) and explitly (the level cap on fighting one of the enemies that has one of the melodies and apparently the sing command for the final boss going off some Wikis) when gaining levels is exclusively tied to combat contradicts these ideas as you are rewarded with a progression via mass bloodshed and or brute-forcing battles by just buying the best equipment at the local department store. Said grinding also tends to kill gameplay pacing and actually remove thought as by the time your damage per turn is high enough to win your are likely to just physically attack things to death as non-healing and stat buff PSI is rarley worth it over simply tapping A frivolously. I can count the number of battles I had to actively think about in my entire playthrough on one hand. In fact, I can activley list them all here to prove my point:
1) The sleeping Dragon in Magicant's Crystal Cavern (use PSI Sheild beta and then spam your physical attacks)
2) Cerbreum encounters in Mount Itoi
3) Grey Bears on Mount Itoi's Plateau (use PSI Freeze beta or gamma + physical attack)
4) Using stall tactics (PSI Shield Beta + PSI Lifeup Gamma + Sing) on Gigue during final boss "fight".
four times in a 15-hour game. That is kinda ridiculous even for the time given Final Fantasy has much more complex gameplay and even had some replayability with class compositions despite similar technical hardware limitations at the time.
Sound design and music is good and captures the tone well (Pollyanna is a bop) but I can't say much on that front as music theroy isn't really my forte.
Graphics are charming for the time I dig the peanuts/90s nicktoon look here that'd be the series standard going forward. Everything the game directed towards me to with visuals was usually easy to pick up on.
Overall, if you are someone like me that is looking to understand how the medium's storytelling language developed overtime you might find somthing here to at least appreaciate on a scholary level but I advise casual folks wanting to get a taste of 8-bit RPGs to look elsewhere.