 |
 |
| Final Fantasy 1 (Rom available) was the supposedly going to be Squaresoft's final game, named Final Fantasy accordingly. Luckily, it was the first truly successful multi-character party rpg (as opposed to Dragon Warrior's single character party). It was a tremendous success that has spawned countless sequels. Although the graphics are dated by today's standards, and the plot is a very shallow, early version of later Final Fantasy games (III and V), it is definitely worth playing to see the beginings of a series that brought such masterpieces as Final Fantasy 7 and 8. Unfortunately, many people don't have the patience to sit through a very long role-playing game on the nes platform. I won't lie to you; having played this game once I don't have any interest in playing it again. I am, however, glad that I played through it once because although it wasn't anywhere near as good as its sequels, there were hints of what the games would become in the future. There is no Cid, no Chocobo, no star simulation at the end of the game. Nevertheless, the familiar tunes are there ("Prelude" and "Prologue"), the legends of the crystals (complete with the elemental enemies and caves) are there, and the epic plot tries hard to be, well, epic. The "secret" sliding puzzle was dull but interesting that it was incorporated into the game. Fighting pirates in town foreshadowed the interesting uses of battles in future games. The airship was, as usual, a fast way to get through the world. There were plenty of optional subquests, one of which was to improve your characters considerably (in appearance as well). Gameplay leaves much to be desired. If you're not pulling you hair out getting lost in those countless labyrinths you are probably banging your head against something from the difficulty. Actually it's not that hard, at least not as hard as some RPGs I've played (7th Saga comes to mind...). The main problem is that the battles go slowly, the music is annoying, and if one character kills a monster that your other characters were supposed to attack, they won't attack anyone else. There are no fun gameplay elements as in the later games; you just choose what character you want, such as a fighter or black/red/white mage (all of which were innovative at the time), and go through the game with them. They have no personalities, they just seem to appear in the beginning of the game holding orbs and are off to save the world. No other explanation is given about these light warriors -- that's just the way it is. Despite a plot that was lacking in characters, gameplay, and story (and sense for that matter), the game was overall an interesting experience considering its age. If you play only one NES Final Fantasy game, definitely play Final Fantasy 3. But, if you play all three Final Fantasy games for the NES, start with this game. It's fun to see how each game became progressively better in graphics, gameplay, and story. Besides, if you start with Final Fantasy 3 (which is really just an entirely improved version of Final Fantasy 1, now with the job system later seen in Final Fantasy 5 and Tactics), you wouldn't want to play this one. Final Fantasy I has also been re-released recently in Japan for the WonderSwan Color system, a handheld game console similar to the Gameboy Advance. Well, thanks to my stubborn devotion to finding every possible rpg rom and emulator I can get my hands on, I finally found a working rom for Final Fantasy 1 for the Wonderswan Color, not to mention an appropriate emulator. Better still, there's a translation that is very well done considering how fast it was made. Having only played it for a few minutes, I am really impressed! The graphics have been updated so well that it rivals even the Super Nintendo titles (well, maybe not FF6). It is definitely worth a look, and although the translation is far from perfect, it gets the job done. The downloads available include the original NES rom, the Wonderswan Color rom, the NES update patch, and the WSC translation patch. The WSC files have not been uploaded yet, but expect them in a few days. |
| Files: FF1 Wonderswan Color ROM FF1 WSC English Translation patch FF1 ROM (nes) Nintendo\WSC Emulator ..... Go to Emulators page. FF1 Enhanced ROM FF1 Enhanced Patch ... Not needed if downloading FF1 Enhanced Rom IPS patch tool ............ Same notation More coming soon |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Email us at: Palmer_795 VirtualDimension Stingwield OPNICKC |
 |
 |
| Left:FF1 original nes; Middle:FF1 nes rom update; Right:FF1 Wonderswan Color |
| The Games: Final Fantasy I Final Fantasy II Final Fantasy III Final Fantasy IV Final Fantasy V Final Fantasy VI Final Fantasy VII Final Fantasy VIII Final Fantasy IX Final Fantasy X Final Fantasy X-2 Final Fantasy Legend 1 Final Fantasy Legend 2 Final Fantasy Legend 3 Final Fantasy Adventure Final Fantasy MQ Final Fantasy Tactics FF like RPGs |