FINAL FANTASY Reviews

I love RPGs and I am so glad i got to try this 1987 remaster. Such a fantastic game. They truly struck gold with this simple but elegant classic. The gameplay is enhanced with auto features, meaning after a battle starts, if i find a good rhythm I can select auto battle and just whip out the same moves until my foes are conquered. I recommend this to anyone who wants a short fast paced RPG.

This version of FF1 picks and chooses different features from different versions in a haphazard way that is neither true to any particular version nor cherry-picks them well enough to create the definitive FF1 experience. I enjoyed this game but have had quite a frustrating experience as well that warrants the negative review. That's in particular regards to the final boss, which I'll elaborate on below. But here's some short and simple criticisms first; QoL features: - Inventory system has one section for the 12ish key items and another for the 50ish everything else in the game. Awful when looking for replenishing items - Local map can be zoomed in and out, but the overworld map cannot Balancing: - Alright, here's that frustrating experience. Basically on my first run I had two fighters to maximise damage which was extremely effective throughout the run - Until the final boss. I didn't have a white mage, so no AoE heals. Healing my party one-by-one was unfeasible, so I took the L and started a new run with a white mage. This time I'm more challenged on my way to Chaos but expect it to pay off. I'm also quite fatigued from playing so much of a repetitive game. But that's because it's true to the original, rough edges and all, right? I tolerate it. But I get to Chaos, and now I can't do enough damage to keep up with his healing spell. But my new party composition *is* feasible! So why is that? Basically, his health is *disproportionately* higher than everything before him. It's based off of a different port of the game than the rest of the enemies. So it's just a balancing issue. In short, I don't feel I can recommend this version over any other particular version. Consider what features matter to you between them all and if the pricetag on this one dissuades you, let it dissuade you. Another version can serve you just as well

I decided to play all the FF games because the 15th one looked interesting and one sale I was like... let me just buy all of them. I went into this one blind and I was pleasantly surprised by the gameplay and puzzles. I had a lot of fun just finding new items to use elsewhere and surprisingly I only had to look up one thing. Overall a impressive start to the series.

Wow! Just wow! I was not expecting the original Final Fantasy to be so good! Sure this may be a remake of it, but, as far as I'e heard, there were minimal changes outside of a lot of quality of life things. The game itself though was amazing! The story was fun, the difficulty was pretty well balanced. It was sometimes a bit confusing on where to go, but not too bad, and all the JRPG mechanics were very fun! However, I have to rant about one thing, the stupid Warmech! SCREW whoever decided that this thing should have a stupid low encounter rate! I spent over 3 hours just walking back and forth, back and forth, just to encounter this "SuperBoss" only to kill it in two turns when I FINALLY encountered it and completed the Beastiary and 100% the game. SCREW that thing. Otherwise, absolutely phenomenal game and a HIGH recommendation from me!

[h1] In general [/h1] This is a fantastic experience, especially in its remastered form. However, there are a few frustrating aspects the biggest being how unreliable most guides and forum posts are when it comes to strategies for the final boss. A lot of them are outright misleading. One thing that stands out across the older Final Fantasy titles is how easy the game is... until the final dungeon that is. Then the difficulty spikes out of nowhere, and the final boss feels like it belongs in a completely different game massively overtuned compared to everything else. Another downside is how obscure some mechanics and items are. Figuring things out on my own without external help ended up consuming almost half my total playtime. I later found out the original version came with a manual that offered some crucial tips, which would’ve made a big difference. [h2]The Good:[/h2] >The music. Oh my god, the music. The remaster absolutely nailed it — beautiful and immersive from start to finish. >The class system. Pretty basic, but it works. Nothing groundbreaking, but it's functional and satisfying enough for what it is. [h2]The Bad:[/h2] >The story. Very bare-bones. It’s simple to the point of being underwhelming, and somehow it still manages to have plot holes. >Dungeon design. Mostly empty rooms, dead ends, and the occasional chest full of gil. Not very engaging. >Boss fights (except the last one). They don’t require any real strategy, grinding, or special items. You just brute-force your way through, and your regular progress is usually enough to handle them. >The final boss. A pure stat wall. It resists most magic, hits your party with unpredictable patterns like: >>Repeated AoE magic spam; >>Haste into one-shotting your mages; >>Or casting Quake, which can instantly wipe the whole party and always hits someone, just to make sure it’s never a clean fight. (hur dur just invis stack bro!! [spoiler]it doesn't work and he usually kills you before you stack it, dumb strat, just stack Haste+Temper on your physical damage dealer and keep on healing[/spoiler]) It is still worth playing especially for fans of retro JRPGs, but don’t go in expecting a fair final challenge or helpful community advice nor whatever made you fall in love with Final Fantasy in the first place. Go in prepared for a crude experience.

Never played any Final Fantasy game before, bought it and loved it 100% It's in like 10 hours. 10/10 great game. On to 2 now. P.S. If you plan to 100% this game, good luck finding Warmech

I played this on NES as a kid. It was actually fun playing again, all these years later, with this remaster.

Where the dream began. Even today, I am still amazed when I play it. Although the story is clichéd, or perhaps even absent, it introduced many classic elements of the franchise that paved the foundation for the Final Fantasy series world settings. The guidance of narrative is extremely sketched, end up with a lot of chaotic and cryptic. But the brilliance of the level design and the overall system remains astonishing. The game features purely turn-based combat, the straightforward ATK + DEF + ESP + magic battle setup is both simple and delicate, especially compared to the increasingly complex battle systems introduced in later titles. This results in a minimal learning curve and a stress-free game experience. The magic system, with limited usage for each level, seems like a pioneer to the spell ring concept in Baldur’s Gate. Everything makes sense as to why this legendary work gave SE a well-deserved revival. The remastered version includes a brand new map system and many thoughtful quality-of-life improvements that greatly enhance the gameplay experience, giving this classic game a fresh vitality and a modern interactive user experience. Features like chest and monster collection tracking and the option to turn off random battle encounters are extremely convenient. BTW, the never-ending, rambling, repetitive ending is truly frustrating and utterly exhausting. It completely ruined the aftertaste. 梦想开始的地方，至今玩来依就惊为天人。尽管剧情老套（或者说没有剧情？）还有略显混乱和谜语人的引导机制，但是这代奠定了最终幻想系列诸多经典元素。不过一代的关卡设计与整体系统的精巧程度，还是仍让人赞叹不已。虽然是纯回合制战斗，但是简单明了的攻防跑+魔法战斗模式，相比后代各种做加法的复杂战斗系统，基本没有学习曲线，并且玩起来没完全没有现代游戏的那种压力。尤其是远早于博德之门的法环的魔法使用次数限制设计，可见此传奇之作能为SE续命并非偶然。重置版设计了新的地图系统与各种贴心的小功能呢，极大提升了游戏的可玩性，让这款“上古”游戏焕发新生，例如宝箱和敌人收藏进度提示，可随时开关随机战斗真的好贴心。不得不吐槽的是结尾又臭又长颠三倒四翻来覆去的文案我也是醉了。

I finally sat down and played the first final fantasy. It was cute, very classic zelda-esque, but with turn-based combat. You talk with everyone in town and follow the sometimes obvious, sometimes vague, clues. You dive into dungeons/caves/ruins and find one item that lets you proceed to the next step. Also, I learned an entire language in 30 seconds, the original warriors of light were made of better stuff. As with older final fantasy titles, some of the bosses may seem impossible at first or terribly unfair, but it's probably just that you need to grind up your level a bit. The skills are similar to the later titles with some interesting skills that you will probably not use. Additionally, you equip and use spells similar to Dungeons & Dragons, which is very cute to see. The story is minimal and very straight forward, but as a compromise, with the help of the remaster's encounter skipping and auto-battle, you can beat it under 10 hours easily. Edit: I forgot to mention, this isn't really what I would recommend as a solo investment based on curiosity in the series. It is very basic and I only played it to have "played it." I advise that you wait for it to go on sale or buy it in a bundle.

Final Fantasy I Pixel remaster feels like the correct way to play the final fantasy game that started it all in modern times. My first final fantasy game was V during the SNES era, so after playing games like VI, Tactics, X, XII, XIII, XV, Dissidia, Stranger of Paradise, XVI and many more throughout the years there was always a moment between those games where I tried playing the NES version of the first game but it always felt unbearably outdated. Poorly translated texts, extremely slow combat even for a turn based rpg, poor sense of direction (dialogue was poorly translated so it was difficult to know where to go next, very low character limitation due to japanese kanjis counting as one character so the translated texts not only felt but WERE incomplete, along with the fact that the physical version of the game used to come with a manual with maps for the dungeons, so it wasn't included in the game) and all around things which made it a chore to try to play it so many years later honestly. I tried the PSP version but the graphics were too different to the original, and there wasn't an option to play with the original soundtrack, same thing with the GBA version. I wanted to play a version that was the closest to the original as possible, but didn't feel so outdated to play like the original. I feel really happy to say that this version removes all these problems and makes it extremely enjoyable and i was finally able to play the very first final fantasy from start to finish without any problems (and even getting all achievements!). The game now plays like it should, very similarly to final fantasy VI which was the peak of the core gameplay that the first game was trying to achieve at its time. Fundamentally it is the same gameplay but SO many quality of life improvements have been added to make it a seamless experience that doesn't feel like a chore to play and is actually very fun. Graphically the game has had an overhaul which makes it look a lot like final fantasy VI but in a way that feels natural, keeping the essence of the original graphics at the time, something that always turned out to be my problem with the PSP, GBA and PS1 remakes of these games, which graphically didn't really FEEL like a final fantasy game and more like an RPGmaker game. There is also an option to disable random encounters which i didn't use but it's there if that's something that annoys you or if you need to make a runback to somewhere to grab a chest that you missed or something, although be warned that if you overuse it the final boss will kick your ass, period. Without getting into any spoilers, the final boss actually feels like a final boss. One of my pet peeves usually with these games is that there are lots of side missions to complete that overpower your character to unprecedented levels. If you've played JRPGs in the past you know that these side bosses are what's called "superbosses". They are 10 times stronger than the final boss (or more), so if you got the strength to beat them you will breeze through the final boss in no time, completely trivializing what's supposed to feel like the battle to end all battles. In this game, there aren't lots of side things to do and there is one common enemy that feels like a superboss, but it's definitely way easier than the final boss. So the final boss really FEELS like the most powerful being in all of the world. There are two options for the soundtrack, you can play with the original soundtrack from the NES soundchip or you can play with the orchestra arrangement. This is the only version from all of the remakes and remasters that this game has had that allows you to play with the original soundtrack, and is something that i really needed to actually experience the game like it was supposed to back then. I played with the original soundtrack but i switched to the orchestra version at times (you can change it at any time in the options) and i have to say, they blew it out the park with this one. The arrangements are incredible, and make it breathe new life into the sountrack, helping you see what was the original intended vision when making it at first, since this arrangement was supervised by the original composer Nobuo Uematsu. I plan to replay it entirely with the arranged soundtrack sometime in the future, since there's also some added tracks, like boss battles which used the common battle theme in the original version. A small little detail that also i wanted to mention is that the game's lore is amazing for a 1987 game (the NPCs dialogues will give you most of the lore) but it feels SO much more incredible after playing Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin since they're both connected so if you feel like giving that game a chance as well it would definitely improve you experience with this game, as it definitely did for me. I'm seriously very impressed by this version of FFI and i will say the following: if you want to play the closest thing to the NES version, the original version with no additional content and just want to know how it must have felt for people in 1987 to play the original version of the game, look no further, this is the one. I will never stop recommending this version to whoever wants to experience Final Fantasy I for the first time, as i feel it's the definitive edition, the version to end all versions. Just buy it.