I love changing the names of characters in games. I know it can lead to confusion when you're looking things up online or discussing the game with other people, but I can't help it. The good news is, Final Fantasy I doesn't name your characters for you at all!
My party is:
a warrior - Smash
a thief - Bobert
a white mage - Blume
a black mage - S. Hat
Last night I played for roughly an hour (and admittedly I played slowly, talking to villagers, exploring the castle, etc.), and here's what happened. The opening video was interesting. Better graphics than I expected for a PS1 game (of course the in game graphics are precisely what I anticipated). It sets up a pretty generic story line of "oh no evil has taken over the world, and you somehow are the only ones who can save it!" Directly after that, it drops you into Cornelia, where the biggest problems seem to be the missing princess, Sarah, and the huge numbers of goblins lurking just outside the city walls.
My husband told me I probably wanted to be at least level 3 before I tried to save the princess, so I wandered through the woods, practicing using the fight engine. I openly admit to playing on "easy" instead of the original difficulty. This is supposed to be an exercise in discovering fun and exploring new worlds, not dying every other fight. That said, when I did fight Garland (at level 3), it was almost laughably easy.
It's both interesting and frustrating how little direction you're given in this game. It's up to you to accidentally bump into the old men in the inn who tell you about armor and magic, etc. When Blume died, I bumped around for quite a while (and wasted a bit of money) trying to figure out how to revive her. However, so far nothing has been terribly difficult to figure out, and the feeling of accomplishment when you do get something is pretty nice. My biggest complaint to date is that MP is very limited and doesn't regenerate without resting. What use are mages if they run out of magic all the time?
I'm curious and excited to play further. I wonder if the plot will continue to be a chain of isolated missions, or if it will take on a more universal feel. Next time, northward, across the new bridge!
Even back in the day, Final Fantasy's story was a parody of genre tropes. That's why it starts out on such a cliched note. I'm not sure if you know where the story goes after you beat Garland, but it gets much darker, which is surprising for an NES game.
ReplyDeleteUntil recently, FF did a great job of keeping pace with the "best practices" of game design. That lack of direction? That's the wild west that was the NES, where you were expected to sit with the manual, an issue of Nintendo Power, and some graph paper, or else it wasn't-a-game-God-dammit.
This looks like an exciting project, Sasha.
Thanks, Kole! I'm glad to have your insight into the history of this, as I am clearly woefully ignorant. I haven't whipped out the graph paper yet, but I distinctly remember doing so playing "Adventure" on the Apple II. I don't know the story of this one since David hasn't played it, so I'm really excited to discover more! Darker is good...what would German lit be without dark?
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