tommy_lop's Full Review: Final Fantasy Origins for PlayStation 1
While I didn’t get into Final Fantasy back in the day of the NES, mainly because I wouldn’t have enjoyed it, I thought Super Mario Bros was an incredibly deep game at the time. But now that I have gotten into the Final Fantasy on the play station when I heard last year that Square Enix was releasing 2 originals on the PS1 I bought right when it came out. Of course being lazy it has taken over a year to get a review up but this is defiantly a great game if you want to know how old school Final Fantasy really is.
Graphics.
The graphics in the whole collection have been updated to look more like what they would if this was a GBA game (and it is being ported to the GBA). The graphics to look better then even if they where on a 16 bit collection. The backgrounds are well drawn and the colors are great. But you can’t help that it was an originally an 8-bit game because of the small sprites and a lack of overall detail in the characters.
Also each game starts with an awesome CGI scene. The original with a light warrior fighting a dragon, and the 2nd one being a pretty awesome one has it shows the main characters escaping the city has monsters attack.
Final Fantasy.
Back in the late 80’s a small company called Square was getting there butt’s kicked in the market and was going under. Deciding to put all there chips in one game by pretty much copying another company then called Enix (the two are now one company hence Square Enix) hit game Dragon Warrior. They of course expanded the gameplay and let you play has 4 rather then just one character and have different classes. It was a hit and with a little help from Nintendo they where able to release it in America on the NES. Hence they where able to stay in business and several years later them deciding to become a PS1 only game designer put the once mighty Nintendo’s console in 2nd place.
Story.
The story line in Final Fantasy is rather thin and mimics Nintendo’s Zelda in a lot of way. Basically the 4 forces of nature are in chaos and natural disasters are plaguing the world. There is a legend when this happens that 4 light warriors appear. And after journeying far 4 warriors appear in the kingdom of Cornelia.
Basically you go around the world and go through caves and dungeons each mimicking one of the 4 forces of nature (earth, fire, wind, and water). When you beat a boss you then can collect a tri, or um crystal that basically says you completed the dungeon and then are off to the next dungeon to the same.
Gameplay.
The gameplay is rather simple in this one. No summons, nor materia, no long sub quests, no chocobo’s, and no Cid. It’s pretty much level up and equip the best equipment whenever your going into a new area in order to survive. But don’t think that the game is boring they have thrown a twist in it. You get to choose 4 characters from 6 available classes, and there is no rule saying that you can’t have more then one class in your party. This greatly improves the appeal of the game and the replay (try going through the game has just one class and it can get pretty challenging). The game also provides promotions for your characters, making them bigger and allowing use of different magic and weapons that they can’t get it in there original forms.
Classes.
Fighter.
The typical hero character in Final Fantasy games are model after this character. He has great attack and defense, but is weak against magic attacks. Is main weapons happen to be a sword. Definitely a great character but you better bring some support characters for him whenever he get’s hurt. When he get’s promoted he can use white magic.
Thief
Not to be confused with the class that later appears in Final Fantasy games that could steal useful items in later final fantasy. The thief is basically a weaker version of the fighter. When promoted he can get use some weak black magic. The thief is worthless character so don’t pick him.
Monk.
The monk is an interesting character who never uses magic even after promotion, and armor and weapons actually weaken him. Despite this the monk is a great offensive character, even hitting more then the fighter. But he is weak on defense so again bring a support character.
Red Mage.
Being best of both world’s when it comes to support character. A mix between black and white mages the red mage can use both kinds of magic. But he can’t use the strongest magic of both kinds of mages.
White Mage.
Weak in attack and defense, the white mage is mainly an all out support character. She can heal and boost stats with her magic. Being promoted will allow her to use more powerful white magic spells. This one is a must to have.
Black Mage.
This one uses black magic attacks that can be used to attack all the opponents with an elemental attack. He also has a few stat raising spells like haste and steel. Promoting him will let him use the strongest black magic spells there is.
Magic can be used by buying the little orbs and then equipping them to a character. Each orb is put on one of 8 levels, each with there own point value. Cure 1 and fire 1 are on level 1, while fire 2 and cure 2 will be on level 3. This level system is actually kind of weird because you can run out of cure 1’s before you run out of cure 2. The more your characters level up the more points they get on each row.
Battle scenes.
If your coming from modern day FF the thing you notice is that this is entirely turn based system, you select what attacks and magic your going to use and then watch the action happen. And after everybody has a chance to attack you get to choose an attack for each character and watch it play out. Easy to understand.
Changes.
Not having played the original I am surprised at how many people complained about the changes. The most obvious one is that if 2 characters attack an enemy character, and the first one kills it the 2nd one misses. In this one it redirects the attack to a random character. While a lot of people think that Square put this in the original one because they where gaming gods and wanted to make the game has challenging has possible, I don’t think this is the case. Remember this was there final fantasy so I am betting they weren’t willing to make sure the game was probably debugged and polished back then when they thought they where going out of business. Now that they brought the once mighty Nintendo down they went back and fixed this bugg, and even though you can toggle it back and forth I am glad they fixed it. There are other complaints that I laugh at like being able to buy more then one potions at once has been rasied by many classic gamers. But my advice to them is that there are plenty of other bugs I am sure that the other game had that Square enix didn’t put in that the NES had. Like the game freezing in middle of play, the flashing screen of death, and my favorite of any NES game that had a save feature the spontaneous erase of data have all been fixed. (all though the last one can still be accomplished by using an interact memory card)
In the end though this is a great game and while I haven’t played the original I still say it’s a great and simple RPG to get into.
Final Fantasy 2.
The 2nd Final Fantasy game should not be confused with the 4th one. Since Square had trouble getting Nintendo to release there games on a timely matter, the FF2 for the SNES is actually FF4. The 2nd one is definitely not has good a game, in fact some say that it’s worse then even FF8. After playing it I would say it isn’t that bad because even if the battle system has some major quirks, unlike 8 it’s actually easy to understand and use.
Story
In a fantasy land far far away Square rips off has much has they can of a famous George Lucas trilogy. Has 3 youths fight in a rebellion against an evil impearl emperor. Who is aided by a former friend the dark knight who is a big time rip off of Darth Vader. Despite being a rip off of Star Wars this game actually a pretty thick plot for the NES game. While it’s lean compared to most modern RPG, it’s important to remember at the time the thickest plot mainly went along with rescuing the princess.
The game battle system is just plain weird, but it is also the precursor to the materia system in FF7. Like FF7 your free to select what magic and skills you give your characters. Magic is equipped by buying scrolls and then giving it to them. There is no rules to who can use what magic and if you can buy more then one of a magic you can then equip 2 characters with a spell. So more then one character can use cure, or whatever magic you equip.
The battle system get’s wonky because there is no experience or leveling up, rather a stat goes up the more you use something. More of a type of weapon you use the higher your rate for it will go up. More of a spell the more effective you’ll become. The more you hit the higher your HP. The problem it takes forever for your stats to go up and become useful. This encourages major cheating for instance the best way to increase your stats is to find the weakest enemy you can and then have your characters beat the crap out of each other. The magic stealing osmoses is useful for increasing your own magic stats by using it to steal each others magic points. Still all in all it’s a pretty fun game and figuring out the wonky system is actually half the fun.
Final Recommendations.
FF origins is a return to old school with rather simple game play and stories. People who have played these back in the day will probably want to buy them if they haven’t all ready. New generation gamers should probably only think about renting it because it’s so simple in gameplay that it might go above there heads.
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