Final Fantasy I

A Small But Mighty Foundation

The first stop on my epic quest to complete every Final Fantasy game is the game that started it all. Released in 1987 originally on the Nintendo Entertainment System. When it came to figuring out how I was going to tackle this game I had nothing if not a plethora of options. Final Fantasy is one of those games that has been released on every system including Android and iOS. There is certainly some debate about which version you should or shouldn’t play and let me tell you I definitely did some digging on this one.

I opted to purchase every final fantasy I could on steam so I could play the various versions either on my PC or steam deck depending on what I had going on and I certainly think I made the right choice. For I-VI I purchased the pixel remasters which were released in 2021/2022 depending on the game. While some fans think that you probably should play the original versions for the first time the pixel remasters added a few options that just seemed enticing to me. From what I can tell the biggest differences are the more refined pixel graphics (I’ll touch on this later), refreshed soundtrack, and the ability to save on the world map.

So with all that out of the way let’s start from the beginning.

Spoilers ahead!!!

FF1 has a pretty basic story, four warriors of light searching out to power crystals. It all feels like the final fantasy I expect from my limited knowledge. Which isn’t to say it’s bad by any means, it’s got a simplistic charm that you can see right from the jump. There was a weird time travel twist at that end that, considering my deep appreciation for kingdom hearts just feels right.

Another thing that I wasn’t expecting from the start is how much control the game gives you. You have complete control over every member of your part from name to class. I opted for the more traditional class approach that the game places as the default (Fighter, Theif, Black Mage, White Mage) but I could see this opening the game up for multiple playthroughs just to see how it changes my experience with the game.

The classes themselves are kind of what you’d expect them to be. In my party my fighter dealt the damage with the thief being a secondary damage dealer. My black mage early on felt like he was putting out good damage but later tailed off towards the back half of the game while my white mage fell into the healer role that could occasionally one-shot a party of undead creatures. Which I guess brings my to my first big point.

Magic

The magic system in FFI is… interesting. Each level your characters that can learn spells unlock spell slots similar to a D&D style system. Each spell level has 4 options but your characters can learn 3 of those 4. I believe one of the things added in more recent versions was the ability to unlearn spells which I could see being useful but never really came up for me. Each spell is purchase through a vendor for a certain amount of Gil depending on what level the spell is which makes perfect sense. What did really confuse me tho I guess ties into my next point

The Weird Difficulty Curve

Okay, I hear you, yes this is an old school RPG and this is kind of the thing those games are known for. However I’d be remiss to not talk about this at least slightly. When the game started my melee classes felt like they were going to stay the strongest parts of my party and for the most part they were. With only my Thief/Ninja petering off in damage levels towards the end. I feel like there was probably a way around this that I missed but somewhere around halfway through the game my thief started feeling incredibly underwhelming. The magic classes were another weird one on this scale. Early on it felt like my black mage was doing some incredible damage spikes and the multi hit spells were taking out entire parties. Again around halfway it felt like that changed but in a different way. Bosses started having large amounts of elemental resistance that made my caster feel incredibly useless. I started prioritizing spells like temper and haste to make him more support focused than heavy damage. My white mage somehow found herself being incredibly important as the later dungeons were filled with vampires/zombies/undead and the early level holy spells often could one shot most of those parties.

The good thing about all this is that I never truly felt like I had screwed up my party composition. Even when I was forced to adapt nothing really felt like I was truly out of the game.

Gameplay Loop

Most of FFI’s gameplay was exactly as expected. Go to a new city level up characters, explore the dungeons. It was a basics formula that I found myself just getting lost in the loop of. That said this game definitely feels of its time at points. I’m mainly thinking of a section of the game where you happen to find an oasis city in a large sand area. I randomly stumbled upon this while trying to grind out some levels and I’m sure if I hadn’t I probably would have spent hours trying to figure out where to go.

I dont really think this is a bad thing especially if you temper your expectations with the idea that this game is almost 40 years old. Games like the original Legend of Zelda also had this same problem for me when I first played them and I think it’s just part of their charm.

Music

Speaking of charm I’d be doing this game a disservice not talking about the soundtrack. I’m sure as I go on through this series I’ll keep bringing up just how incredible Nobuo Uematsu‘s soundtracks are. FFI certainly was no exception. The pixel remasters let you switch between the original compositions and their updated forms. I’m pretty sure there’s no real wrong answer here although I did play with the upgraded soundtrack and some really nice over the ear headphones which was a stellar experience.

Bosses/Dungeons

For the first entry in the series it felt like FFI had a lot of notable boss battles. Each one felt unique enough that they never really felt stale. Their respective dungeons were also fine enough with the later ones having some relatively annoying travel mechanics (god I hate the floor is lava and ice spikes).

The last boss however I do kind of have some gripes about. I mentioned earlier that towards the end the game felt like every boss was getting greater elemental resistance and I was having trouble landing hits with spells that would stop or paralyze enemies. This weirdly turned the final boss fight into a very stale loop that kind of felt like I was cheesing the game. I would hit with my warrior and use my mage to buff him with haste that would increase his hit speed, my ninja would cast temper on him and then my white mage would play the “can I keep the party alive” mini game. Eventually it would turn into hit with warrior, temper with both black mage and ninja and heal spells with white mage. Temper stacks so getting big damage off on the final boss with one hit allowed me to basically roll through the end after a few failed attempts prior. I’m glad I found a system that worked but it felt incredibly cheesy at the end of the game.

Overall Thoughts

Final Fantasy is a great foundation of a game that while it has its quirks and is sort of dated is incredibly solid. My steam timer has this sitting at 14 hours of play through and I’ve 100% completed the game. I could see myself coming back because it’s relatively short and a fun little ride. I don’t think this games time period really holds it back although I’m curious to see where this ranks overall as I venture farther into the series.

If you haven’t played FFI it’s worth checking out. If you have let me know your thoughts in the comments below!