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A classic, perhaps, but not as good as it's descendents...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 8
Date: December 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Back in ancient times, when gameplay was more important than graphics, Final Fantasy set the RPG standard and went on to become one of the largest franchises in gaming history. It all started here, though now it seems hard to understand exactly why.

The storyline is simple: pick four characters and save the world from the four Fiends. That's it. No intricate backstories for each of the characters; no interaction; no side quests. You have very little control as to how the story progresses. In this category Final Fantasy is no more impressive than The Legend Of Zelda.

Graphics and sound are barely worth commenting on in this day and age, though the music is very good. It's all standard 8-bit Nintendo. You know what to expect, and it works just fine.

Gameplay is generally good, but there are a few flaws. In battle, for example, when you choose which enemy to attack, that character is committed to do so, even if the enemy has died or run away. One could argue this adds a level of strategy to the game, which is true. However, it can also be annoying. Another major drawback, though not in battle, is the merchant system. For many of the dungeons you practically have to fill up on Heal potions. The bad news is that you can only buy one at a time, which means that to buy one hundred Heals, you have to go through the sequence as many times. That comes to almost three hundred button pushes(297, to be exact) to fill up from zero. I can't imagine it would've been very difficult to add an extra menu to give the option of purchasing five or even ten of the same item in one sequence.

Altogether, I'm not nearly as happy with this one as I am with #4 or #6. It just doesn't have the personality or heart of the later entries. Without this, the gameplay is pretty bland. If you're eager to see how one of the greatest series of games began I highly recommend Final Fantasy. To everyone else: be warned; it can get very tedious.

CHEESY! C'MON!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 24
Date: December 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Augh! This game is so cheesy! 3 quarters of those other reviewers are 30-40 years old. Okay, let's face it, this game is kinda classic, but it's soooo not this generation. People who like RPGs should go new, to FF9, or 10. I'm sorry, this game is just...... out-dated.

( : anonymous......

Not Worth Playing

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 7
Date: April 30, 2003
Author: Amazon User

A lot of people think any game with Final Fantasy in the title is a great game, but with this game it's not the case.

First of all let's look at the story...oh wait a minute, they're basically isn't much of a story. There is a story, but it's the simple sort of thing you'd expect from a platformer(not that platformer's are bad, but this is an RPG). Not only are your characters generic adventurers, but they don't even have default names.

There gameplay also isn't very good. You travel from place to place collecting items, but there really isn't much to distinguish the different places. You also don't learn magic by leveling up. You learn it buying it, which takes the fun out of learning new spells. When you're in battle, if someone attack an enemy, but someone else kills it first that attack hits nothing. You also have magic points for each magic attack, but that's not really a bad thing.

The sound is pretty standard NES, but the game has some pretty good songs and some classic ones like the opening song which appeared in other Final Fantasy games.

All in all this game is very outdated and if you want to play a decent NES RPG, I'd suggest Destiny of an Emperor or one of the Dragon Warrior games. I'd also stay clear of the Japanese Final Fantasy 2 & 3. They're about the same as the first one, and it's no wonder they skipped 2 & 3. All other Final Fantasy games are worth playing.

TOO HARD!!!!!!!!!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 17
Date: March 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is way too hard to be fun. Of all the final fantasy games this one is the worst. The PS1 version is a lot better and not has hard as finding this one. Which is long out of print.

It is ok

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 8
Date: May 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

i gave it 3 stars because....the graphics ok pretty good even if it was on nes.the gameplay was very long and quite hard.there are many things you need to do to beat the game.i like to own the first final fanatsy.umm if you are really into final fantasy email me at Macanicore@cs.com and say how much you will bye it for.title it ff bid

The game that started the most popular RPG series ever.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: June 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

It's 1987. Sells aren't going so well for a small company known as Squaresoft...what are they to do?! They decide to release one last game, calling it "Final Fantasy," thus being their final game if it doesn't sell good and appeal to fans. But, this definitiely wasn't the case, and thank goodness it wasn't.

"Final Fantasy" was the start of the most well-known RPG series in the world. It sold really well and was successful enough to span many sequels, spinoffs, and whatnot. Released in 1987 in Japan, it wasn't released in the U.S. until 1990. Fans all over the world loved it.

Well, first off, Final Fantasy is a very challenging game (at least the first time you play through it). You have to choose the classes for your characters at the beginning (Fighter, Thief, White Mage, Black Mage, Red Mage, and Black Belt). These will be the classes you keep throughout the entire game, with the exception of a small upgrade about 3/4th's or so through it. Your characters never talk, so there isn't much character development. What is there, though, is a game that was just simple and downright fun to play. There was no game that could be mistaken for a movie like the newer FF's (although I like every FF in a way). Just a simplistic game. Go to a town, talk to the townspeople, buy equipment, find out your destination, and repeat. At the same time, you will go into random battles. You must constantly watch your HP and make sure not to use up too much of your magic or your items.

This is one of the most challenging FF's out there, but challenge is good. The story goes beyond the "save the world" theme, and was one of the first games to have a more complex story than your average RPG back then. It's really tough to find nowadays, so I would recommend going with "Final Fantasy Origins" for the PS One. You get FF I and II for 30 bucks, plus the graphics are upgraded to 16-bit quality, story makes more sense, there's more character interaction, and the music sounds better. Although some people will prefer the classic more.

The First of Many to Come!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: January 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Not many people probably remember or have even played this one, but it was the 1st of a fabulous series to come. The graphics and music were pretty basic, but the gameplay was pretty fun and it was cool that the characters changed their look after you returned the crystal to the dragon king. It was a slow game to start with, but as you played more, it got more interesting. They possibly could've made it a bit better, but all in all it was a good game.

The start of it all

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 16, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Final Fantasy is a true classic among RPG's. It is simplistic enough for anyone to pick up and enjoy, yet challenging enough to keep you coming back for multiple play-throughs.

The story for Final Fantasy is pretty run of the mill 4 warriors appear out of nowhere and are given the task of saving the world. That is about it. There are many non-playable characters to converse with throughout the and visiting towns is enjoyable.

The gameplay mechanics are a bit archaic but this adds to the challenge. For instance if two of your party memebers are swinging at the same enemy and the first player kills that enemy, the second player will swing at the blank space where the enemy was. This forces the player to really map out their moves.

You have many characters to choose from to fill up your party of four heroes, the combinations are practically limitless, make for some great replay value.

This is a great game that i would recommend to anyone who enjoys old school RPG's

GOSH, THE MEMORIES!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 14 / 15
Date: May 31, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Remember those Jeff Rovin books entitled How to Win at Nintendo Games? I first heard of Final Fantasy in one of those books. Upon being pursuaded I decided to try my hand at a new side of video gaming--RPG's. Unlike the Zelda games, the graphics were SHARP and BRIGHT. Not the stupid pastel-colors in earlier NES games. When you first pop the game in, the blue narrative screen comes up and the Final Fantasy Prelude plays. But where's the title, you ask? I'll explain later. Then you name your four characters, and the best part is that you can choose which TYPES of characters you want EVERY time you start again! Do you want muscle, or magic? Fighter, Thief, Black Belt, White Mage, Red Mage and Black Mage. After this, the fantasy begins . . . .The princess has been kidnapped by the evil knight Garland, who lives far to the north on this tiny island continent. The four warriors beef up and face Garland, whereupon he says, "You impertinent fools! I, Garland, shall knock you all down!" Then the first major battle in the FF series takes place. But the title screen STILL hasn't appeared yet. Back at your home castle, the king and queen are so happy that you saved the princess that they agree to build a bridge spanning over to the other continent. You step onto the bridge . . . and THAT'S when the title screen appears, when the Final Fantasy (anthem, I guess you'd call it) plays. In short, the first hour of the game was just a PROLOGUE--like they have in books. I've played all the way up to FF9, but that title screen still impresses me. I hope you know that I'm writing all this from memory--that's how good this game is. Even now, USED copies of Final Fantasy cost ... I could write on and on and on, but I think I got enough down to encourage people to play this game.

one of my all time favorites

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: June 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

When I first played Final Fantasy for the NES, I had been playing video games for a couple of years. I'm not sure I had yet played Dragon Warrior, but I know that I had never heard of an RPG. I received this game for Christmas one year and just started playing. Even though the gameplay was so different and I only got to tell the characters what to do instead of controlling them, I was absolutely engrossed in the game. I couldn't put it down. I spent time fighting Imps, beating the Pirates in Pravoka, and venturing into the Marsh Cave (but not before level 9). I loved this new game.

Compared to RPGs today, Final Fantasy had an incredibly simple story. The world is in trouble (naturally). Four Fiends of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water have ruined the land. A prophecy states that four warriors of Light would come to save the world. You control these Light Warriors and get to pick the character classes of your party (Fighter, Thief, Black Belt, Red/White/Black Mage). It is your quest to destroy this evil plaguing the land and restore the Crystals which give the land its strength. You fight and level up your characters so that they will be stronger and are able to destroy the more difficult enemies. You buy items to keep your characters strong. You buy weapons and armor so that you characters will be able to fight more effectively and live longer.

I only had two problems with this game when I was first playing it for the NES. One: if one of your characters kills an enemy but another character is still targeting that enemy, your second character will attack the empty space where the enemy used to be. That character wastes his turn. It made me use a lot more strategy when fighting (which may have been the reason), but it didn't make sense. If you were in a fight against a pack of wolves and your friend killed one, would you still fight the dead wolf or retarget against a live one? Yeah, me too. Two: This is a problem with the NES. Since this is a battery backed game in order to save your progress, I had many instances of the save data erasing on me when I was hours and hours deep into the game. That's probably why I can walk through the first portion of the game without and guidance whatsoever and it is only near the end that I have to try to remember what to do.

There are games for the Nintendo that I like better, but Final Fantasy remains one of my all time favorite games and it is perhaps the most influential in my gaming life. Without Final Fantasy, I probably would not play RPGs as much as I do.

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