Final Fantasy

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Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy - NES - USA.jpg

NES - USA - 1st edition.

Developer Square
Publisher Square, Nintendo of America
Published 1987-12-18
Platforms BREW, J2ME, MSX2, NES
Genres Role-playing game
Themes Adventure, Fantasy
Series Final Fantasy
Distribution Commercial

Final Fantasy is a fantasy role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the Famicom on 1987-12-18. It was later ported to the MSX2 and then translated to English for a July, 1990 release in the USA. Ports have also been made for the BREW and J2ME. Upgraded versions have been made for several other platforms, but they're different enough to be considered a separate game. This is the first game in the Final Fantasy series.

The game is set in a Medieval fantasy world which has fallen into turmoil and four heroes are destined to defeat the elemental fiends to restore light to four orbs and stop chaos from destroying the world. Final Fantasy uses various RPG game play mechanics that were maturing in the 8-bit era, but added a lot of polish to them. You form a party of adventurers from a pool of available classes, each is equipped with weapons, armor, magical spells, and the like, you walk around maps fighting monsters, and speak with NPCs who task you with quests which usually end with you having to defeat a boss.

Personal

Own?Yes. USA NES CIB, and loose cartridge.
Won?No.

In sixth grade, a friend of mine and I both loved fantasy RPGs. I was playing Ultima: Exodus and he was playing Final Fantasy. We each talked about the games at length in school and eventually swapped them temporarily. I didn't have the game long enough to get very far, but I remember defeating Garland, getting the pirate ship, visiting the elves and dwarves, but then getting annihilated in the marsh cave from poison. I haven't played it much since and never even attempted to beat it, but I did watch friends play through large sections of the game when I was younger, and I once even cheated my way through the entire game it at double speed on an emulator to research it for the VGMPF. I also know most of the plot points from reading magazines and walkthroughs.

Review

Video Game Review Icon - Enjoyment.png Video Game Review Icon - Control.png Video Game Review Icon - Appearance.png Video Game Review Icon - Sound.png Video Game Review Icon - Replayability.png
6 6 8 8 5

Best Version: NES

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

  • For its time, Final Fantasy was a very in-depth and massive RPG. The story has a lot of interesting (if trope-heavy) elements like elemental fiends, a lost technological culture, an airship, etc. The whole thing really feels like you're on an epic adventure.
  • The art and graphics are fantastic. Yoshitaka Amano drew the monsters most expertly and the Japanese box art while Kazuko Shibuya converted his drawings to pixel art and created all the characters, NPCs, backgrounds, and user interface graphics. I also like how the overworld graphics appear far less tiled than other games of the era.
  • Nobuo Uematsu composed an amazing and expansive soundtrack, surprisingly, without the use of the NES's noise channel.
  • The variety of playable character classes accommodates several alternative play styles.
  • I think the game does a really good job of mixing fantasy with small elements of science fiction. Something later games in the series fail at.
  • Combat has a lot of nice quirks like animation that changes based on each character's weapon or spell, injured and fallen graphics, multiple hits, backgrounds which change based on the terrain.
  • It's a minor thing, but I love how your avatar's legs disappears when you walk in the forest.
  • The MSX2 port, though it featured weaker sound and animation, had even better graphics than the original.
  • The US release has such a fantastic manual it doubles as a strategy guide with a detailed walkthrough of the first third the game. This teaches you all the ins-and-outs of the game before releasing you on your own.
  • I like how when you're pushing an NPC, they scurry out of the way faster than their normal walking speed.

Bad

  • Game play is far too slow. Your character moves too slowly around the map, combat drags on and on, dialog boxes are slow to draw, the fades in and out is too slow, etc.
  • Although it's more realistic and strategy-dependent, I don't like the "ineffective" hits in combat which require you to plan your strikes in advance each round. Combat is slow enough already, and this makes it even worse.
  • The game has too many random encounters, the Giant Cave especially where each step is another encounter.
  • Four letters for character and spell names just aren't enough to make anything interesting.
  • I don't like that magic users can only learn three of the four spells in each level. Although this does make an interesting strategy decision, I would prefer it if they could change things up during the game rather than have to start a new game from the beginning to try an alternate strategy.
  • The game palette-swaps enemy graphics a bit too much. I would have liked to see a larger variety of art.
  • With hardly any side-quests and very few hidden events, you pretty much see everything the game has to offer on your first time through. Subsequent play-throughs can be unique with a different party or spell configuration, but that's about it.
  • Several of the enemy names are pretty awful. Creep, badman, bigeye, etc.

Ugly

  • The game requires far too much grinding. More experience and gold should have been awarded to speed the game along.
  • The fact that you have to buy everything for individual characters (potions, weapons, armor, etc.) and then move them between characters one at a time is extremely obnoxious. Thankfully, later games in the series allow you to buy items for the party and use them as needed. Remakes of Final Fantasy wisely adopt this practice.

Media

Cover Art

Documentation

Maps

Graphics

Screenshots

Videos

Review - Port comparison.
Review - Animation.
Longplay, NES.
Longplay, MSX2.

Play Online

Famicom, NES

Representation

Strong female character?FailThe only women are NPCs. White mage is often considered a woman, but the appearance is ambiguous.
Bechdel test?FailWomen never talk to each other.
Strong person of color character?FailDue to the anime style, no human race is clear.
Queer character?FailThere are no queer characters.

Credits

The game contains credits, but all of the names are aliases. Over time, several of those names have been identified.

Role Staff
Original Concept Hironobu Sakaguchi
Programmer Nasir Gebelli
Character Design, Famicom Box Art Yoshitaka Amano
Pixel Graphics (Not credited) Kazuko Shibuya
Scenario Kenji Terada
Music and Sound Nobuo Uematsu
MSX2 Director Masanori Otsu
MSX2 Program Port Yas, Katsumi Ito
MSX2 Graphics Port Tadahiko Watanabe
MSX2 Audio Port Tadahiro Nitta

Titles

Language Native Transliteration Translation
English Final Fantasy
Japanese ファイナルファンタジー Fainaru Fantaji Final Fantasy

Links

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