Total Time to Complete: 22 hours
There were two things that stood out to me when playing Final Fantasy again. The first is that it was harder than I remember it being. As I said in an earlier post, I probably played it on easy mode the first time around, which would certain explain it. The second is that it is remarkably different from any other title in the series. This will be explored in further detail below. Bear in mind that I have not played every game in the series, and many of them I haven't played in a many years, so my memory will be refreshed as the challenge goes on.
Since I'm more interested in reviewing the mechanics, I'm going to split this review and later reviews into discrete sections. Some sections might get added on as the games get more complex, but for this iteration I think the main things to focus on are: exploration, the battle system, characters and abilities, difficulty curve, and story integration.
Exploration
Final Fantasy I is an odd duck compared to the rest of the series. While it seems like it encourages random exploration more than other FF games, when you step back you find that this is not the case at all. In fact, it is incredibly linear up until the halfway point, and even then you only have one optional quest of any importance. The feeling of needing to explore stems entirely from the fact that very little in the way of direction is presented to you. Right from the opening of the game, you are plopped down in the world with no intro or objective. This initial bit of design is clever however, as it places you in front of a town and castle. Obviously your first instinct is going to be seeing what's up with them. It is there that you get your first bit of direction, even though it is hardly needed. The Chaos Temple is literally the only place you can visit at that point anyway.
And the game really doesn't get much better than that when it comes to exploring. Once you complete that first dungeon in the Chaos Temple, you get access to another area, but there's only one path to take. You get to the second town and access to a ship, so now you can cross the sea! But there's only one path to take as the majority of the sea is blocked off until you get the next key item. Once you do that though, the entire sea is open to you! But... you get the idea. Once you get the canoe and airship, your choices do open a little more, but in the sense that you can start doing all the required quests in any order you like. You still don't get the sense of discovering something unexpected when you stumble upon it. With the one exception I already mentioned.
On the other hand, the dungeons are very much the opposite from the world map. The dungeons in this game are designed to be nasty mazes where you will go down dozens of corridors that just lead to dead ends. In this respect, exploration is strong and challenging. Each dungeon really does feel like it is testing you rather than just an obvious path to the boss like those in many other FF games. In a way, they give the impression of something more natural and random than more modern dungeon design. Certainly it is more satisfying to know that any time you take a fork in a dungeon there is something meaningful to discover, but when you explore dungeons where this is not true, it actually feels even better when you finally pick the right path after going down ten wrong turns. As a result, I give the dungeon design in this game a big plus. The world itself could be a little better though.
Battle System and Leveling
The battle system itself is not terribly interesting. In fact, I would say it is probably the most dated aspect of the game, especially in today's world of favoring more real-time battle systems (and yes, this includes ATB-like systems). In Final Fantasy I, you select what each character is going to do at the start of the turn, everyone on the battle field gets placed in an action queue based on agility and some randomization, then the actions just go in order. Not a whole lot more to it than that. The only real tactics that come into play are: who should attack what to minimize turns, and reacting to damage. There is a little more when it comes to bosses since you will likely involve a few more buffs to your party, maybe actually use some decent magic to damage with, but that's all.
Other aspects are very typical as well. Damage and some status effects stick around after battle, so you can take care of those between battles when it's safer to do so. The leveling system is also linear, in the direction sense, not the actual EXP required to advance (those tend to be S curves). Characters only have the single type of experience to gain, which is to raise character level. Each level gives a predefined increase in stats for each character based on their class. And that's really all there is to it. Overall, nothing exciting, but gets the job done.
Characters and Abilities
Not really a whole lot to say about the characters themselves, they are completely devoid of personality. Typical silent heroes. So obviously the more interesting thing to talk about is the class system. One of the things that is still unique to the first game is the idea of choosing four classes of characters that you want before the game starts. And since there are six different classes, you have to weigh the pros and cons of each one and how they will work together. This system also allows for some interesting challenges that have been thought up over the years. Want to try to beat the game with just four warriors? You can do that. Probably won't be much fun, but you can certainly try.
Aside from that aspect though, the classes themselves and the abilities you can get, which only amounts to white and black magic, are incredibly generic by today's standards. Of course this game is three decades old at this point, so it is not surprising that the tropes of old have become old hat. This isn't trying to knock the game since what the game does give you tends to be pretty useful as far as magic goes, it's just nothing special. And since part of the point of these reviews is to determine what aspects of these games are still valid, I have to put it out there that the abilities are just serviceable. Outside of boss battles, the various cure spells are the only ones that really get used if you have strong enough attackers (which I did).
One thing I do think is worth mentioning though is how MP is done in this game. Unlike most of the other FF games, characters do not get a general MP pool and each spell costs a certain amount of that pool. Each level of spells gets its own number of casts, which makes it so that powerful spells still get restricted on use. You can not sacrifice casting weaker spells in favor of stronger ones. I think this is a great way of adding more strategy to tackling dungeons, especially since the game doesn't provide any ether-like items to replenish spell casts. Once you run out of magic you have to leave the dungeon to sleep. This way of limiting casts per level or per spell has been revisited by other FF games, but not nearly often enough. I think it is something that should be done more often.
Difficulty Curve
RAGE!!!!
This game is definitely front loaded on difficulty with a couple random spikes in the middle and at the end. Specifically, the first dungeon you enter in the game, the Marsh Cave, is absolutely brutal for early characters. Mainly because there are so many enemies that poison, and the only way to deal with it is with antidotes. Once you get past that barrier, the dungeons are more reasonable until you get to the mid point and the Ice Cavern. That dungeon is loaded with bullshit enemies that are stupid powerful and will wipe out your party without warning. That was the only point in the game where I had to struggle to get any progress (and I abused the hell out of the memo save function to get through it).
After the Ice Cavern though, and you get access to the quest to upgrade your characters, the difficulty enters into a nice curve where your party is keeping up or even slightly ahead of the enemies. That is up until the last dungeon where it spikes up again, but that is an understandable one as it is the last dungeon. It should be tougher than everything that came before it. Otherwise it wouldn't be as satisfying.
On the whole, I actually think the difficulty curve of this game is excellent with the two exceptions of the Marsh Cave and Ice Cavern. The entire game I had to do multiple attempts on each dungeon, minus a couple that were doable in one go, but it wasn't frustrating to have to leave a dungeon early to heal up and re-coop. It just meant that the dungeon was pushing me to my limits and each time I went back in a little stronger and wiser. As I said earlier, I think the dungeon design of this game is brilliant, and part of that is the way it pushes you just the right amount. Most of the time. F that Ice Cavern.
Story Integration
Since I think it is pointless to talk about the quality of the stories in these games (it is too subjective to be worthwhile), I think a more interesting discussion to have is in regards to the way it integrates into the world and systems. That being said, I don't think there's much to talk about here in regards to the original game. The story is sparse and does little to speak about the setting or the characters. You have "four valiant youths" who came from... somewhere, four fiends who have awakened at various points in the 1000 year timeline that encompasses the full ark of the story, and... that's about it. There is a bit of a nice twist when you discover that the very first boss you faced and took out easily is actually the ultimate baddie (spoilers!), but again, that's more story than integration.
The integration itself is about on the same level as the world exploration aspect. That is to say, it entirely relies on you actively going to talk to people yourself, and everything you get is in snippets and vague hints. This is very much in the days before cutscenes and story-driven scenes. So, I honestly don't have much to comment on here for this game. The world and story are about a generic as fantasy gets. You get the feeling that the focus here was on good dungeon design and gameplay, and story was an afterthought to keep players moving forward.
Conclusion
I wasn't really looking forward to playing this game again because I remembered it as being really generic and uninspiring. However, in the end, I find that I enjoyed the dungeon diving a lot. And if there was one thing I would take away from this game, it would be that aspect of it. Dungeons that are complex to navigate and provide a strategic challenge to get through. Too many dungeons these days are really just there to provide different scenery as you travel through the world. This game gets more at the heart of what dungeons were originally designed to be, a test to see if players are strong enough and smart enough to get in, take the loot, and get back out.
Guess I should play more rougelikes.
Current Ranking
Final Fantasy I (duh)