RPG Diary

Final Fantasy

My initial goal that led to this site was to play all of the mainline Final Fantasy games in order, so the original Final Fantasy was the first game I completed. I've beaten this exact version of the game at least once before, so how did it hold up on replay in 2022?

Title	Final Fantasy
Year	1987 (US 1990 )
System	NES
Developer	Square
Publisher	Square (US Nintendo )

To be honest, I don't think this game has aged particularly well. At the very least, it does not deliver on what I consider to be the most important component of an RPG — the plot. There are no cutscenes of any kind and unless you talk to all the NPCs, you could have no idea what is going on. I still don't understand the ending.

Instead of a plot, the game provides difficulty. Significant grinding is required, particularly in the first half, to advance safely. Status effects and death particularly are hard to deal with early on. The Marsh Cave is an excruciatingly painful dungeon for this reason. Unlike later games, there are no save points either. All things considered, it means that the journey through the dungeon can be more challenging than the boss fight at the end of it.

The game can also be confusing to play without a guide as there are many bugs and some mechanics are not explained in-game. Some of these bugs have significant impact on gameplay and balance. Magic in particular has many problems — intelligence doesn't affect damage and many spells literally have no effect.

On the positive side, the party creation mechanic adds some replay value. That being said, I'm not convinced that party choice makes a huge impact on the game, barring obvious challenges like 4 White Mages.

In the end, pretty much all of my enjoyment of this game comes solely from its legacy as the beginning of the Final Fantasy series. As a standalone title, I may have abandoned the game before completing it.

After completing a game, I add it to my overall enjoyment ranking which orders the games I've completed from those I most enjoyed to those I least enjoyed. Since this is the first game I've completed, it is by default the most enjoyed! (It's also the least enjoyed!)