Final Fantasy

The Good
As I start this review this game brings mixed feelings. At the time this game seemed like a brave new world from the break of Megaman and Bonk and Mario. The game takes place in a huge world "for it's time and even now" which is seemingly populated by serveral people and towns.

You get a party of four characters which you can choose from the following classes. Fighter, Monk, Thief, White Mage, Black Mage, Red Mage. You can take a combination of any of them. Mix it up that makes the spice of this game.

The music for the time was well done and very detailed especially for NES hardware. The graphical sprites also pushed anything that Enix did with the Dragon Warrior series "though in all honesty Dragon Warrior games tended to be a bit longer"

The quest itself took at least thirty hours to complete. Though it could be pushed quicker the games enemies themselves are not easy like later final fantasy games and one or two levels could LITERALLY give you the strength points needed to damage the monsters.

The game introduced a very intriguing class changes into the later areas of the game where your characters actually grew up. Very small but very noticeable in a era where your characters always looked the same.

The packaging for the game was superb and the manual itself gave you help for 50% of the game.

The Bad
Gaining gold and leveling up can be very tedious since you get very little in this game in the beginning of it.

Monsters are overtly difficult bad if your a newbie but fun if you love challenge.

If weaned on later Final Fantasy Titles this game is far too difficult with no story to feed you. What you see is what you get.

NES Batteries are starting to go dead so you should replace the game battery before playing it.

The Bottom Line
The game is good for old school veterans or people who want to see the first Final Fantasy. Also if you can handle the difficulty then go for it! I give this game a 8/10 since I grew up with it and have beaten it several times. If I was a have to give a less biased view it gets a 7/10

The Good
Despite its simple concept, Final Fantasy could get quite addicting and even intense at times. Turn-based role-playing games were created before the release of Final Fantasy, so the concept wasn't anything too new. However, Final Fantasy implemented new ideas into this already-classic idea, like the advantages/disadvantages of choosing specific classes for your team, which would affect you throughout the game in either a good way or bad way. The classes ranged from Black Mages (specializing in offensive-based magic) and White Mages (specializing in healing party members), Warriors (who specialized in using weapons to fight, and could equip almost every weapon in the game) and Thieves (who didn't really specialize in fighting, but had luck and agility to make up for it), etc.

Items, equipment, weapons, etc. could also heavily determine the outcome of the battle. This showcased the complexity behind the game, where earning Gil (the currency of the world of Final Fantasy) was made possible by defeating enemies, which would eventually benefit you if your party was in trouble or in need of an upgrade. If your party is low on health, stop at an inn and get some rest to recover it, or if the enemies in the area are starting to get a bit too powerful for your party, stop at an item, weapon, or armor shop to prepare for grueling battles to come.

Not only does the complexity lie in boosting up character stats, but also the layout of the story. One task leads to another, and it eventually leads to the 4 Warriors of Light saving the world from the evil Chaos, who was fought earlier in the game in his first form under the name "Garland". Though you are basically given a blank slate to form your characters with the right armor and weapons until your characters finally evolve into something stronger, the story based around it, like the enemies and the people you meet along your quest, is a strong base for a storyline for what seems like such a simple game.

The Bad
The random encounters are like a necessary form of grinding. Though this was put in the game most likely as an intention to simply challenge the player, it ends up being one of the most frustrating features of the game. For example, you just finished a boss battle that took out every member of your party but one, which happens to be a class not known to specialize much in fighting (white mage, thief, etc.). You begin to walk a few steps to an inn only to be stopped by an enemy jumping at you literally out of nowhere. Your last party member gets slaughtered, and it's a Game Over. Having to fight enemies that come out of nowhere can not only get frustrating, but tedious and repetitive. It's different from other role-playing games, but all in all, in my opinion, it should have been kept out.

Another part of the game not particularly good would be the graphics. Although the enemy and character designs are nice, the game completely lacks when it comes to the environment. Comparing the graphics of Cornelia to the graphics of Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda just makes Final Fantasy look bad.

The Bottom Line
Though it can seem pretty overrated at times, and even a mediocre start to a popular series, give Final Fantasy a chance. Patience will show you what is actually a pretty fun game.

The Good
When a Square Co. worker thought of putting an last effort into his desperate attempts of making video games, it resulted into an masterpiece. Yes, I'm talking about Final Fantasy and its creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. Final Fantasy is the 1st title released in the long line of its series. Released in 1987,FF helped to popularise the RPG among the West. Although, many RPGs were available before it, none had a story that was so involving. Having good graphics,nice music and a great gameplay with a decent story, FF thwarted oversees.

The Bad
The game had nothing that can restrict the player from playing it. However, the most irritable part of the game was its sometime frustrating chain battles (Especially in dungeons) where you have to fight battles without an item to buzz-off the monsters. This can really sometimes make you close the game and continue it later.

The Bottom Line
Best RPG series. However, outdated on the NES, FF can be played on the newer consoles like Game Boy Advance and NDS. It is also available on Android and J2ME (java) enabled cell phones. A must try for RPG genre fans. I will give it a 4 out of 5!