scamander
Tektite
- Pronouns
- he/him
So, fami, I have a confession to make: Not once in my entire existence I’ve played (or even started) a mainline Final Fantasy game- until a few weeks ago that is. In fact, the only game I’ve known up until that point is the spin-off title “Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles” for the Gamecube, which I played solo. An ill-advised decision on my part, if I dare say so. No wonder I didn’t touch another entry in the series for about 20 years.
Though, to be honest, I had planned to get to know the series for a long time now, but there was always something in the way. At first, when I was younger, I wasn’t really interested in playing the classics, even when those were the only ones, I had access to as someone that didn’t own a Playstation console. As a European, I only learned about the franchise from magazines, when it already manifested itself as a Playstation exclusive. And what impressed me so much were the cool graphics above all (as presented in screenshots most often taken from CGI cut scenes, of course). So naturally I wasn’t interested at all in playing some “inferior” pixel-art versions instead. Later, there was a phase, where life just got in the way. I wasn’t really into video games for some time and was pre-occupied with other hobbies and getting to know myself instead- growing-up, basically. And then the Switch happened and suddenly I had access to more and more classic Final Fantasy games without even having to leave my beloved Nintendo ecosystem. Only… there are so many great games on the system, that I’m constantly distracted by something else when adult-me actually gets to sit down and play a game.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when Square Enix finally put the Pixel Remasters on sale for the first time (on Switch). There really was no excuse anymore, so I decided to get my hands on them and to rectify my greatest blind spot as a fan of JRPGs by playing all the mainline Final Fantasy games that are available on Switch in chronological order.
So, ladies, gents and nonbinary folks as well, buckle up and get ready, because I just finished Final Fantasy II and I have some thoughts about both it and its predecessor.
Final Fantasy I – A Legend is Born
A king asks the four Warriors of Light, bearer of the four darkened crystals, to rescue his beloved daughter, who got kidnapped by the treasonous knight Garland. Upon retrieving her, they learn about the rotting of the earth and start their adventure against the four elemental fiends to restore the light to their crystals and rescue the world.
As you would expect of any game from 1987, the original Final Fantasy is short and sweet and pretty basic- though that’s not a bad thing, at all. After starting the game, you choose four characters (or rather “classes”) to form your party. Depending on what classes you choose, you have access to different weapons, armour and spells and can make the game harder or easier for yourself. I imagine this adds to the games replayability, though on the other hand it prevents the game from having real characters with a background and personality as protagonists. Since the story itself is more like a synopsis of an old legend and the game doesn’t focus on strong (for the time, of course) characters in general, it’s not a problem. It’s just the means to send you on your adventure and huge parts of it are actually told within the opening and ending text scenes.
I started my game with a black mage, white mage, red mage and a warrior, which deemed to be a pretty balanced group. Right from the start, it’s apparent they did a great job with the rebalancing to make the game accessible to a modern audience. There is no need for grinding anymore, but who wants more of a challenge can still have it by reducing the amount of experience you gain from a fight. All in all, I like the customisation options they gave like being able to run automatically or toggling automatic battles on and off, easily. There were just times, especially while traversing parts of the overworld with underpowered enemies, where I didn’t want to be interrupted every few steps with an unnecessary fight. With the Pixel Remaster I just need to click the right stick and can go my way in peace. Nice and easy!
While playing the game I realise, Final Fantasy I still works pretty well as an introductory to JRPGs in general. There are not a lot of overwhelming options, when it comes to spells (especially in the beginning), armour or items. In fact, for some characters (the mages) there are only few protective items (or weapons) they can wear at all and those few are only introduced at the end of the game. As this is my first real Final Fantasy, I don’t mind the simplicity of it. What’s interesting is, that the magic system works differently than in most games. Instead of having a shared pool of mana you can allocate to all your spells, your spells are categorised by level and next to the level is shown how often you can use all the spells of that level. The numbers get higher when you level up your character, but the usage of higher-level spells will always be more limited, of course. The system also doesn’t let you make room for better spells by getting rid of the weak ones. Per level, you have three spots for spells of that level and that’s it. I can see, why they changed it later, though I have to say I like how it makes you more conscious about your spell usage. Your powerful spells are always extremely limited, and you can’t just spam them on your enemies, just because of a huge general mana pool. It works extremely well, especially considering that was the team’s first RPG.
And even though it’s the first Final Fantasy, the fantasy setting of the world itself is already well established. There are many different races like dragons, mermaids, dwarves as well as the ancient civilisation of Lafeinish people, among ordinary men, all spread over three continents. Thanks to your faster means of traversal, like ships or air ships, the world seems to be huge for its time. In fact, everything, from the world building and lore, to the gameplay systems and even the story, makes it so much grander or more evolved than you would have expected from their first attempt.
This is confirmed once more at the end of the game, when (even though the story as a whole IS pretty basic) there is a nice plot twist that connects the first boss enemy narratively to the elemental fiends you are fighting after that. I expected there to be an overarching final boss that’s in control of everything, but instead you learn that by defeating Garland at the beginning of the game, there was a time loop created in which his soul was transported back in time to become chaos itself and send the elemental fiends to the future to darken the four crystals and destroy the world. So, by defeating Garland in their time, the four warriors of light are directly responsible for the downfall of whole civilisations in the past and ultimately doomed their world. It surprised me, when I didn’t expect to get surprised by the story.
Before I come to my conclusion, I need to point out how great the presentation of the Pixel Remaster is, specifically. The graphics are fantastic, and the sprites are a nice evolution of the NES sprites, without losing their charm by being too detailed (like the ones from the PSP remake, which look like clip arts in my book). Getting in and out of fights is snappy and the battles themselves are also superfast, especially when using the auto battle feature. The added QoL features are great and the new retro font, while still not the most amazing font ever, gets the job done nicely (other than the original modern font, which is indeed butt-ugly and hard to read).
The best achievement of this whole release must be the new orchestral rendition of the music, though. As I’m writing this, I’m listening to the Soundtrack again, and it feels like hearing the songs in the way they were meant to be heard. The original NES versions are great, these new renditions are magnificent. Even if I hadn’t enjoyed the gameplay of Final Fantasy very much, playing the game would have been worth it for the music alone. It happened more than once I got actual goosebumps from it- my favourite piece is Chaos Shrine.
So, what’s my verdict then? Short answer: I really liked it. As expected from any RPG of this age there is not much to do except going from plot point to plot point and dungeon to dungeon. The towns and their inhabitants are not particularly interesting and much of the story is only touched on so much for you to fill in the blanks. Still, the presented world itself, its different races and the immersive music inspired my imagination enough to happily oblige! The legend was becoming alive in my head. The gameplay and dungeon design retain a simplistic charm and due to the game’s short length and the added QoL features of the Pixel Remaster I was not once bored or tired of it. When the ending scene played it left a bittersweet taste in my mouth. The world was saved, and the heroes forgotten as the destruction of the time loop changed history itself. It felt almost like I left this world too soon, so I immediately started to play Final Fantasy II.
…to be continued
(Disclaimer: Even though I consume a considerable amount of media in English, I don’t really speak it actively and suck at picking up on language rules. Tenses specifically are my archnemesis! So, sorry for any mistakes I made!)
Though, to be honest, I had planned to get to know the series for a long time now, but there was always something in the way. At first, when I was younger, I wasn’t really interested in playing the classics, even when those were the only ones, I had access to as someone that didn’t own a Playstation console. As a European, I only learned about the franchise from magazines, when it already manifested itself as a Playstation exclusive. And what impressed me so much were the cool graphics above all (as presented in screenshots most often taken from CGI cut scenes, of course). So naturally I wasn’t interested at all in playing some “inferior” pixel-art versions instead. Later, there was a phase, where life just got in the way. I wasn’t really into video games for some time and was pre-occupied with other hobbies and getting to know myself instead- growing-up, basically. And then the Switch happened and suddenly I had access to more and more classic Final Fantasy games without even having to leave my beloved Nintendo ecosystem. Only… there are so many great games on the system, that I’m constantly distracted by something else when adult-me actually gets to sit down and play a game.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when Square Enix finally put the Pixel Remasters on sale for the first time (on Switch). There really was no excuse anymore, so I decided to get my hands on them and to rectify my greatest blind spot as a fan of JRPGs by playing all the mainline Final Fantasy games that are available on Switch in chronological order.
So, ladies, gents and nonbinary folks as well, buckle up and get ready, because I just finished Final Fantasy II and I have some thoughts about both it and its predecessor.
Final Fantasy I – A Legend is Born
A king asks the four Warriors of Light, bearer of the four darkened crystals, to rescue his beloved daughter, who got kidnapped by the treasonous knight Garland. Upon retrieving her, they learn about the rotting of the earth and start their adventure against the four elemental fiends to restore the light to their crystals and rescue the world.
As you would expect of any game from 1987, the original Final Fantasy is short and sweet and pretty basic- though that’s not a bad thing, at all. After starting the game, you choose four characters (or rather “classes”) to form your party. Depending on what classes you choose, you have access to different weapons, armour and spells and can make the game harder or easier for yourself. I imagine this adds to the games replayability, though on the other hand it prevents the game from having real characters with a background and personality as protagonists. Since the story itself is more like a synopsis of an old legend and the game doesn’t focus on strong (for the time, of course) characters in general, it’s not a problem. It’s just the means to send you on your adventure and huge parts of it are actually told within the opening and ending text scenes.
I started my game with a black mage, white mage, red mage and a warrior, which deemed to be a pretty balanced group. Right from the start, it’s apparent they did a great job with the rebalancing to make the game accessible to a modern audience. There is no need for grinding anymore, but who wants more of a challenge can still have it by reducing the amount of experience you gain from a fight. All in all, I like the customisation options they gave like being able to run automatically or toggling automatic battles on and off, easily. There were just times, especially while traversing parts of the overworld with underpowered enemies, where I didn’t want to be interrupted every few steps with an unnecessary fight. With the Pixel Remaster I just need to click the right stick and can go my way in peace. Nice and easy!
While playing the game I realise, Final Fantasy I still works pretty well as an introductory to JRPGs in general. There are not a lot of overwhelming options, when it comes to spells (especially in the beginning), armour or items. In fact, for some characters (the mages) there are only few protective items (or weapons) they can wear at all and those few are only introduced at the end of the game. As this is my first real Final Fantasy, I don’t mind the simplicity of it. What’s interesting is, that the magic system works differently than in most games. Instead of having a shared pool of mana you can allocate to all your spells, your spells are categorised by level and next to the level is shown how often you can use all the spells of that level. The numbers get higher when you level up your character, but the usage of higher-level spells will always be more limited, of course. The system also doesn’t let you make room for better spells by getting rid of the weak ones. Per level, you have three spots for spells of that level and that’s it. I can see, why they changed it later, though I have to say I like how it makes you more conscious about your spell usage. Your powerful spells are always extremely limited, and you can’t just spam them on your enemies, just because of a huge general mana pool. It works extremely well, especially considering that was the team’s first RPG.
And even though it’s the first Final Fantasy, the fantasy setting of the world itself is already well established. There are many different races like dragons, mermaids, dwarves as well as the ancient civilisation of Lafeinish people, among ordinary men, all spread over three continents. Thanks to your faster means of traversal, like ships or air ships, the world seems to be huge for its time. In fact, everything, from the world building and lore, to the gameplay systems and even the story, makes it so much grander or more evolved than you would have expected from their first attempt.
This is confirmed once more at the end of the game, when (even though the story as a whole IS pretty basic) there is a nice plot twist that connects the first boss enemy narratively to the elemental fiends you are fighting after that. I expected there to be an overarching final boss that’s in control of everything, but instead you learn that by defeating Garland at the beginning of the game, there was a time loop created in which his soul was transported back in time to become chaos itself and send the elemental fiends to the future to darken the four crystals and destroy the world. So, by defeating Garland in their time, the four warriors of light are directly responsible for the downfall of whole civilisations in the past and ultimately doomed their world. It surprised me, when I didn’t expect to get surprised by the story.
Before I come to my conclusion, I need to point out how great the presentation of the Pixel Remaster is, specifically. The graphics are fantastic, and the sprites are a nice evolution of the NES sprites, without losing their charm by being too detailed (like the ones from the PSP remake, which look like clip arts in my book). Getting in and out of fights is snappy and the battles themselves are also superfast, especially when using the auto battle feature. The added QoL features are great and the new retro font, while still not the most amazing font ever, gets the job done nicely (other than the original modern font, which is indeed butt-ugly and hard to read).
The best achievement of this whole release must be the new orchestral rendition of the music, though. As I’m writing this, I’m listening to the Soundtrack again, and it feels like hearing the songs in the way they were meant to be heard. The original NES versions are great, these new renditions are magnificent. Even if I hadn’t enjoyed the gameplay of Final Fantasy very much, playing the game would have been worth it for the music alone. It happened more than once I got actual goosebumps from it- my favourite piece is Chaos Shrine.
So, what’s my verdict then? Short answer: I really liked it. As expected from any RPG of this age there is not much to do except going from plot point to plot point and dungeon to dungeon. The towns and their inhabitants are not particularly interesting and much of the story is only touched on so much for you to fill in the blanks. Still, the presented world itself, its different races and the immersive music inspired my imagination enough to happily oblige! The legend was becoming alive in my head. The gameplay and dungeon design retain a simplistic charm and due to the game’s short length and the added QoL features of the Pixel Remaster I was not once bored or tired of it. When the ending scene played it left a bittersweet taste in my mouth. The world was saved, and the heroes forgotten as the destruction of the time loop changed history itself. It felt almost like I left this world too soon, so I immediately started to play Final Fantasy II.
…to be continued
(Disclaimer: Even though I consume a considerable amount of media in English, I don’t really speak it actively and suck at picking up on language rules. Tenses specifically are my archnemesis! So, sorry for any mistakes I made!)
