28/05/2021
Final Fantasy 1 - A modern eye on a classic
December 18 1987, this is the day a company was saved from bankruptcy. A little company called Squaresoft, that would go on to be one of the giants of the RPG video game scene. Squaresoft was a company that struggle to find its place in the industry, going from failed releases to another with games such as The Death Trap to King's Knight, the company was at its death's door. Then one day, a brilliant man had an idea, to have one last swan song and to call it, Final Fantasy. That man was Hironobu Sakaguchi, and together with brilliant minds like the artist Yosh*taka Amano and the now legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu, they set out to create a game that would become a true classic of the gaming history, and a brand that would become a giant. Today we are looking at Final Fantasy 1 on the Nintendo Entertainement System, in a modern eye.
The first thing that has to be said is that Final Fantasy is definitely a product of its time. As the first in the franchise and a pioneer of the genre, it does suffer from certain flaws. The battle system being the biggest flaw, while being its strongest advantage at the same time.
Battles take place in a separate screen from the world map, on a black lifeless background where characters and enemies are displayed as complete sprites on screen. A thing that was quite rare at the time since most games would only show enemies on screen from a first person perspective, completely hiding the player's characters. Each character would get its own turn to play as would the enemy, this defined the turn based system that was used for this game. One thing to note is how challenging every encounters felt, which is where the 'flaw' comes from. It is quite tedious to go through earlier battles( and sometimes even later ones) when most of your attacks are deemed ineffective or flat out miss, however this definitely made every encounters a threat and gave meaning to every decisions the player made when it came to gear, spell usage or item consumption. Not unlike the very popular Dungeons and Dragons. Final Fantasy as its core, is exactly like a Dungeons and Dragons game, which it was inspired from.
This is a great segway to talk about another defining feature of the game, its class system, which was another rare thing to see. Upon creating a save file, players would create 4 characters and get the choice between 6 starting classesÂ, most of which are D&D(Dungeons and Dragons) staples.
You have your classic Warrior, which is the dedicated tank of the group, the Thief who focused on high critical rates and fast attacks, the Monk that was a pure brute force master requiring no weapons to be deadly, the White Mage who focused on being frail but who could easily deal with Undead creatures and support the group through healing, the Black Mage that once again was frail, but designed to be a magic glass canon and finally the Red Mage, the jack of all trades that could equip a medium armor class, wear a shield and support the group with black and white magic, although never being able to reach their highest potential tiers.
This high level of customization was extremely rare at the time and really allowed players to get a personalized experience in this vast game world. Speaking of game world, this game was huge for its time. So huge even that it was easy to lose oneself in it, thanks to the lack of direction. Sure, the story would point you in the general direction, but for the most part, it was up to the player to explore and figure out where to go. Which is definitely different from how games are nowadays. It is very refreshing to go on an adventure where you only have the bare minimum of hand holding and are encouraged to go explore around.
With that said, the story really isn't great. I mean its not bad, but do not expect The Witcher 3 here. It is the bare minimum, not unlike a D&D campain, where the Game Master would provide the basic information and let the players decide of how the story plays out, and I think that this is what they were attempting to mimic here, to an extent. Sure you get told the background of the story, you are heroes that come at the right time, bearing the four legendary crystals that only the chosen heroes would bear, then you are tasked to find and save the kingdom's princess in a very expected manner. But once you do and you leave the first section of the game world, you are effectively left to yourself. Free to explore around, find towns and interact with NPCs,fight creatures to gain experience, gold and potential loot. And in that sense, the game has a great feel that is rarely replicated today. And I think this is where the charm of the very first game resides in. The feeling to make your own story, journey and experience through a basic story that still keeps you going when you finally figure out where to go.
Today, I wouldn't recommend Final Fantasy 1 to everyone, because it did age a lot and many games after it, did everything better from the storytelling to the very game mechanics. However, if you are already a fan of the series, would like a look at a piece of gaming history and see for yourself how this legendary franchise became what it is, and how it saved the company from frailure, then its definitely a classic game to visit at least once. Final Fantasy 1 on the NES definitely deserves its place amongst the greatest games in the industry, and one that should be remember forever.