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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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Years Have Been Kind

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: February 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

It's difficult to recall when, exactly, I became so enamored with the Final Fantasy series. I'm what you'd call a maniacal RPG freak.. not so much in the pencil and paper AD&D sense as the turn-based console sense.. but it wasn't always that way. I think it was my elementary-school buddy Richard who first introduced me to the original Final Fantasy, addicted me to it, and made sure I stayed on the right path when FF IV came to America as the Super NES title "Final Fantasy II."
So, when I sat down this past month to give the old cart another go-around, it was with plenty of fond memories tucked under my arm. A lot had changed in the thirteen years since I first played this classic, but once I'd adjusted to the transition from PS2 to NES, in many ways it was like I was back in 1990 all over again.

It's the premise that launched a million clones; you take control of a party of wanderers, customizing them from the very get-go. Your group can contain any combination of Fighters, Thieves, Black Belts, White, Red or Black Mages. You're given the chance to name each one of them, though in true 8-bit fashion, your writing can't go any longer than four letters per warrior. Each different class its own has unique strengths and limitations, and a good strategist will have no problem balancing things out. It's a simple system, which remains full of possibilities even today.

The graphics for this title aren't as polished as the later titles in the NES collection. The bright blue backdrops of the introductory screen, as well as the status screens, are almost painful to stare at. Likewise, each battle takes place on a flat, boring black field. Your only hint as to the location of the fight comes in the form of a small, panoramic illustration that runs along the upper quarter of the screen. What we're looking at is very dated, no question, but even within the limitations of the old NES, they could still be better.

While this standard gameplay system may have set the table for hundreds of games to follow, there remain dozens of major unresolved problems. This title wasn't completely ironed out by the time it was released, and often steps over the line between being challenging and downright annoying. Whenever any member of your party is the victim of a lasting status effect (poisoning and stoning are the most common), they're immediately moved to the bottom of the assault formation, where they're much less likely to take any additional damage. While this may seem like a helpful feature, its actual implementation is a major burden. If the strongest member of your party is poisoned, the weakest member of the party steps forward to fill his shoes. In effect, it does the last thing you'd ever want it to do, and if you're not paying attention it's very easy to get caught with your pants down.

The musical composition employed by this first double-F is one of the all time classics. It's the stuff of legend, still used in today's newest releases. The dozens of original songs within this title perfectly fit their surroundings, and couldn't have been any more flawlessly assembled. Unfortunately, the actual performance is beyond abysmal. The screeches and roars of that old sound card have never been so irritating. After a couple hours, you'll mute the television and put in a CD, or at least turn the volume way down. My cats are scared of the television set when I'm playing this game, due to the horrible sound it emits.

As with any RPG, if you'd like to get anywhere in Final Fantasy, you'll need to talk to some non-playable characters. They're sprawled generously across every town and castle, though most have nothing of value to tell your party. Almost every individual roams the overhead map with no specific destination in mind. Amusing as this may be, it quickly grows old as they meander their way directly into your path time and time again, blocking the narrow hallways and caves .... It's like they'll go out of their way to get into yours, and then.... slowwwly.... wander..... away. Even the dungeons suffer from this problem, as bats float their way around the rooms with no particular place to go.

If you've heard the term "random encounters," you pretty much know the big story behind Final Fantasy. Everything in the game is built around a simple formula of "wander countryside, meet random enemy, defeat said enemy, repeat." Each 'chapter' of the game brings with it a whole new tier of difficult enemies to strike down. This is not a game for those unprepared to invest hours upon hours of their life to aimless wandering. If you want to survive, you'll have to do a TON of experience gathering, which basically means you'll run around the map killing stuff.

Despite my numerous gripes; the horribly dated graphics, the horrific squeal of the music and the endless level-ups, there's something about this game. Something that drives you to keep coming back, to gain that extra level, to see if maybe this time you can take down that boss. It's a trend I've noticed more and more as I've started to play some of the older classics, something that's missing from the majority of today's polished row of hip titles. Though the visuals and the audibles may be nowhere close to what we can get with today's advanced processors, there's an innocence that's rarely matched. There's a reason Chess and Checkers have been played for centuries without modification, and that same reasoning applies here to Final Fantasy I.

Once you've picked this game up, you won't want to put it down until you're through. If you've forgotten just how appealing the Gamecube's great-grandfather truly was, as I had, you're gonna want to take another look at this one.

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.

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

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