FINAL FANTASY
A look back at the game that started it all
All these years later, the very first Final Fantasy – released in 1987 – can seem a little quaint. With paper-thin characters, only the briefest of plots, and dungeons that are often simple block mazes there’s no chance of it shaking you to your core like, say, even Final Fantasy IV. Yet for the time, the exploration, character customisation, and side-on, large-scale battles were exciting and new. Even the late-game timey-wimey-ness in the story was ambitious, if tame compared to some later plots in the series.
After booting the game up, it’s up to you to create your party of four heroes, picking your own names and classes (which would eventually become job staples). You can even have duplicates, like a party consisting only of Black Mages. From there you’re plopped unceremoniously on the overworld map at Level 1, right outside the gates to Cornelia. You can take on low-level fights, but with a broken bridge to the North you’ll need to visit the town sooner rather than later. When you get there the king asks you to go to the Chaos Shrine to save Princess Sara, who’s been kidnapped by the knight Garland (where have we heard that name before?).
With the task done, the bridge is rebuilt, and you’re let off the leash. From there, your progress is mostly gated by means of overworld traversal, and your goal merely hinted at by talking to NPCs. You need to quest for a ship so you can get across the sea, a canoe to travel up rivers, an airship to cross mountains, and so on. It set the pace for evolving world map freedom that would become the norm until Final Fantasy X scrapped open worlds.
SPELL BOUND
Combat could sometimes see you fighting a face-melting nine enemies on screen at once. Inputting all your moves in advance, you’d need to plan ahead and not waste strikes (which wouldn’t retarget should an enemy perish). MP didn’t exist either, with different tiers of spell having use limits that’d recharge at an inn. If any of your party members died, you’d need to make the Dragon Quest move of visiting a church rather than a bed to revive them. Plenty of secrets seemed to await, like the hidden WarMech boss.
Rereleases have smoothed out many dated elements in the game. For example, the 20th anniversary PSP release (the version we replayed for this) retroactively added an MP system, and extra dungeons to tackle with an endgame party. But nothing has really played with the fundamentals (until Stranger Of Paradise, that is). Iconic this may be, but so basic it’s almost not worth going back to unless you’re interested in it as a historical curio.
“FOR ITS TIME THIS GAME WAS EXCITING AND NEW.”