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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.

The only NES game that was ever any good.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: April 25, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I grew up when the Atari was the machine to have, so I largely missed out on the entire beginning of the Nintendo craze till the SNES came out, at which point my mother (who was and still is a total console-game freak) gave me her 8-bit Nintendo and all her old games. She had about 40 games, all the old favorites like Zelda, but none of them caught my attention till I tried Final Fantasy.

It is a rich, multi-layered game that's extremely straightforward. There are few puzzles (I hate them, so that's good), few mazes, and few trials that are overly difficult. It's a straight hack-and-slash game -- go kill things, go through this new level and kill things there, get objects, find the big bad guy and kill him too at the end. Basically, if you're persistent, you'll figure it all out. And there's none of that irritating "ensemble cast" design that the later FFs seem to like. As simple as the game design is, it still manages to tell a rich and involving story that actually, considering this is a Japanese game, makes sense. It took me a month or so to beat the game, and I immediately made another party and set out again at level 1, it's so good.

Since then, my mother's given me her SNES too, and I think some other system that involves CDs, but I still play Final Fantasy almost exclusively and still love it. If you actually manage to find this game, and you're a puzzle-hater like me, then I think you'll like it.

Stunning, here's why:

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: December 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Final Fantasy has over the years becomed a legend.
And here's where it started, I will rate this game:

Story 3.5/5.0
The worlds been shrouded in darkness, all life has been reduced the winds has stopped and the sea's gone and all fauna has faded into darkness. But the legends tells of four warrior legends that will arise to save the world from perish.
Great story, don't ya' think so ? simple but fantastic.

Music 4.5/5.0
Some of the best of all of the early games, it's unique and memorable each and everything has gotten a theme (at least in the PSX version). As I said it's fantastic and memorable, the music has also becomed one of the Final Fantasy trademarks.
Remember the legendary score from Final Fantasy VII? outstanding, no game series has caught my attention as the Final Fantasy series have, bless the composer.

Graphics 3.0/5.0
It's not fair to review the graphics as they're obviously dated, But there has been added some beautiful affects in PSX version, such as the spells and the characters has also been improved by far, good graphics and stunning affects.
But don't dissmiss this game by it's graphics, give it a try.
Remember it's classic and a very rare gem.

Gameplay 5.0/5.0
The best part, you get to choose who you want to make it through with, your choice is: Black Mage, White Mage, Red Mage, Warrior, Monk and Thief. Here's a list of the best combination you could possibly choose, here I go:
Knight/Knight/Black Mage/White Mage.

Strong defense and strong offense, the wariors are strong and has alot of HP and high Evasion rade and when classes changes it evolves into a Knight which can learn low White magic spells. Such as Cure2. And the White Mage stands for the healing and the black male stands for the highly effective black magis spells, make sure to get these: Flare, Haste, Ice3. I also recommend this party: Warrior/ Warrior/ Monk/ Red Mage. This is perhaps the best team you can get.Highly effective.

Final Score 16/20
That's all for now.

Why final fantasy is great

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: October 23, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game is the game that brought final fantasy to were it is today, one of the best RPG series ever. This game is action packed and full of exitment. I would recommened this game to any RPG game player

Going back to roots!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: September 12, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have been a Final Fantasy fan ever since the very first FF on the NES. I was like 8 or 9 when I first played it, and remember liking it a lot. After almost 2 decades, and 9 more final fantasies, (I have played and beat 1,4,5,6,7,8) I decided to dust of the old NES and play Final Fantasy one more time. After all these years, it still holds up. This is the game that started it all, a true classic. Some of the new final fantasies are getting out of touch with the old ones. I am being a traditionalist here, but I didn't like any of the Final Fantasies after 7. I played 8,9,and 10 and didn't like them. The battle systems and skills are getting to be too much. What saddens me is that there are a lot of Final Fantasy fans that have never played anything before 7. With 6 being the best Final Fantasy ever (I think) and 1 being the mother of it all, these people are missing out. Now onto the actual game- There is so much variety because you construct your own party. Though the story line is strictly linear, with no deviations, but it is still fun. Try going through this game with 4 fighters in your party! I just hope the new generation of final fantasy fans will explore this game, just to see where it all started.

What started the most popular RPG series World Wide

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: July 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I'm an old school gamer and actually had my first shot at playing this in the Final Fantasy Origins package. I was pleased with that but I thought it would be much better to play the old original on the NES. I couldn't help it so I set out to find it and surprisingly, someone was willing to let me play their copy.

Let me start off by saying no matter how you look at it whether its on Final Fantasy Origins or on the original NES that prologue is amazing! You start off by being asked to rescue a princess that's been captured by Garland. So you head off to the Temple of Fiends (Temple of Chaos on FFO) and battle Garland the first boss in Final Fantasy history. When you go back and return the princess the King will have the bridge rebuilt to the north. When you finally cross that bridge the words "Final Fantasy" appear on screen. That moment in my entire RPG career (well next to the opera scene in FFVI) will remain to be quite possibly my most memoriable. I've never seen an RPG do a prologue like that eversince. Not even FFIV's was that spectacular.

Now I'm sorry but if you're like some people my age you don't really care for this and you'd much rather have the eye candy and so you're sitting around playing Final Fantasy X (sorry but eye candy sickens me!). But I found it very nice to play the origin of the series and it shows me now why Final Fantasy X isn't the best one in the series.

Again, this is old-school and so the storyline doesn't get off to a great start. But I'd played Dragon Warrior and when I played Final Fantasy I was glad that it wasn't a save the princess deal (as most games on the NES I played were.). It was actually a story about saving the world. Something that in the 80's I never got from gaming. The story paces a little slow but in the 80's when I played Dragon Warrior, that paced slow too.

The storyline is actually one of my favorites in the series. You go around restoring the crystals that restore piece to the land. Then you go back 2000 years into the past and prevent any of the events from every happening. It was one of the greatest in the series. Plus, it was actually FANTASY!

My only gripe with the original NES version was what most people didn't like. The fact that if all your characters targeted an enemy and the enemy died before all the characters attacked it they'd attack an empty space. Luckily in the Final Fantasy Origins package this was remedied. Still, one of the best Final Fantasy games in the series. If you want an example of what the perfect RPG should be this is a great example.

AWESOME!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 9
Date: May 15, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I am the first person to write a review? cool so hi! i like this game dude! it was cool! by: Chris Madden

The First... The Best...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: July 25, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Final Fantasy has an excellent plot, much better than others (seriously). More on this later. The battle scenes are fair, and the gameplay is good. The game's plot consists of FF7's and FF5's. Here are passages of the storyline. "The earth begins to rot" (FF7), "The wind stops" (FF5). This game was one of the first FF's to be made. The first one was FFLegend, which had NO plot, and NO interactivity at all. So THIS game is a pretty good game, should keep you busy for a month or two.

one of the best rpgs ever

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: December 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

i had the pleasure of playing this game since it first came out. yes, me and my father were at toys-r-us in line in 1990 to buy this game fresh out the box. it was the best
it has good character classes (fighter, thief, black belt, black mage, white mage-which i thought was a girl and later found out its actually a guy-, and red mage-this class should be in more ff games-) the story is very simple(as all good things in life are). collect the orbs. save the world. cant ask for anything better then that. it introduced the best fighting system in rpgs in my opinion, the multi character turn-based battle system.(action rpgs are ok but i wish more games had this system now a days). you must play this classic. it is so choice. if you have the means, i highly recomend it!

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