Final Fantasy Reviews by nesfan

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nesfan1
Posts: 995
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Final Fantasy Reviews by nesfan

Postby nesfan1 » July 5th, 2011, 12:25 am

I've been playing through a lot of the Final Fantasy games recently. And with all the attention reader reviews have been getting, I've decided to review the Final Fantasy games in the main series. I've beaten the first ten games and I will post the rest of the reviews whenever I type them up. And I'll review XII and XIII whenever I beat them but until then, here's number one.

 

Final Fantasy (NES)/Grade: B-

Upon startup of the game you are greeted with a blue screenthat gradually fills with a wall of text that gives you some story information.Basically, the four elements are going crazy. The seas are wild, the earth isrotting, the air is out of control, and fire is a bit more “fiery” than usual.This is all thanks to four “elemental fiends” that are upsetting the balance ofthe world. After the story introduction, you get to create a team of fourcharacters. You have a choice between six character classes: Fighter, who is astrong attacker and can wield knives and swords. The black belt is a martialartist who attacks with nunchucks and his bare fists. The black mage is a weakattacker but he has the ability to cast powerful attack magic. The white mageis also a poor fighter but has the ability to heal and protect the party. Thered mage can wield swords and cast both black and white magic spells but can’tuse some of the higher level spells that white and black mages have access to.The thief is the sixth character class and is a nimble character who has theability to steal items from enemies. Battles are random. When you walk aroundthe world map or a dungeon, you will randomly be thrown into battle and takento a battle screen. The combat is turn based. At the beginning of each round,you choose actions for your characters to perform and then when their turnscome up, they will do whatever you told them to do. After the battle you areawarded with gold and experience points used to level up (assuming you didn’tdie, of course). The overworld graphics aren’t exactly the best that the NEShas seen but the character sprites during battle are a bit more detailed. Someof the character sprites look down-right awesome. The bosses, Lich and Chaosare particularly snazzy.

My main gripe with the game is that leveling up tends totake up a lot of time and I usually ended up having to grind levels every timeI was about to go to a new area. Another annoyance that regrettably appears inlater Final Fantasy games is the environmental hazards. They are long stretches offloor that you have to run across that cause damage to your entire party. Buttaking the good and the bad, it’s really a great start to one of my alltime favorite game series and it is loads of fun.


Adamant1
Posts: 2088
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Final Fantasy Reviews by nesfan

Postby Adamant1 » July 5th, 2011, 10:50 am

The original Final Fantasy should never require any grinding. What are these particular areas where you felt you needed to? Did you try just continuing playing and see how you did without grinding first? 

Potts

Final Fantasy Reviews by nesfan

Postby Potts » July 5th, 2011, 12:19 pm

My main gripe is how difficult the final dungeon is, then you get to the final boss and he's one of the easiest bosses in the game.

Potts

Final Fantasy Reviews by nesfan

Postby Potts » July 5th, 2011, 1:39 pm

[QUOTE=nesfan]

I've been playing through a lot of the Final Fantasy games recently. And with all the attention reader reviews have been getting, I've decided to review the Final Fantasy games in the main series. I've beaten the first ten games and I will post the rest of the reviews whenever I type them up. And I'll review XII and XIII whenever I beat them but until then, here's number one.

[/QUOTE]


Pretty decent review, I think I can agree with the grade. I'm glad to see someone who's gonna tackle the FF series. I've thought about it, but I think my reviews would probably be too long and wordy. Anyways...expect alot of my comments becuase I'm a huge Final Fantasy fan.

 The game had some flaws for me as well, specifically the inconsistent difficulty with the random battles. You can be in a dungeon, with one random battle being ridiculously easy, then the next random battle nearly killing you.

As far as grinding, I do it just so the dungeons go alot smother, but the only real hard part is the final dungeon where I would get my ass kicked by the regular enemies...especially when they came in large groups. Thats the issue....large groups are so much harder than fighting single enemies for me in this game. There arent enough "strong" attacks that attack all enemies, you have to focus on each enemy individually. Thats annoying.



nesfan1
Posts: 995
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Final Fantasy Reviews by nesfan

Postby nesfan1 » July 5th, 2011, 7:16 pm

[QUOTE=Adamant]The original Final Fantasy should never require any grinding. What are these particular areas where you felt you needed to? Did you try just continuing playing and see how you did without grinding first? [/QUOTE]

Just about any time I moved on to a new area, I had to level up. I tried continuing but barely made it out of some of the tougher battles. Although, later in the game, when you get better curing spells and resurrection spells, levelling up felt a little less necessary. Maybe it was because that was my experience in my first playthrough and I wasn't familiar enough with it to feel comfortable enough to just move on to new areas. I was more used to the later Final Fantasies like VII, VIII, and IX where if you can't win, you level up. I am curious about your claim, though. What is it about the game that makes levelling up unnecessary?


nesfan1
Posts: 995
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Final Fantasy Reviews by nesfan

Postby nesfan1 » July 5th, 2011, 7:25 pm

Whoops. I noticed some spacing issues in my original post. I'll just take of them now.

 

Final Fantasy (NES)/Grade: B-

Upon startup of the game you are greeted with a blue screen that gradually fills with a wall of text that gives you some story information. Basically, the four elements are going crazy. The seas are wild, the earth is rotting, the air is out of control, and fire is a bit more “fiery” than usual. This is all thanks to four “elemental fiends” that are upsetting the balance of the world. After the story introduction, you get to create a team of four characters. You have a choice between six character classes: Fighter, who is a strong attacker and can wield knives and swords. The black belt is a martial artist who attacks with nunchucks and his bare fists. The black mage is a weak attacker but he has the ability to cast powerful attack magic. The white mage is also a poor fighter but has the ability to heal and protect the party. The red mage can wield swords and cast both black and white magic spells but can’t use some of the higher level spells that white and black mages have access to. The thief is the sixth character class and is a nimble character who has the ability to steal items from enemies. Battles are random. When you walk around the world map or a dungeon, you will randomly be thrown into battle and taken to a battle screen. The combat is turn based. At the beginning of each round, you choose actions for your characters to perform and then when their turns come up, they will do whatever you told them to do. After the battle you are awarded with gold and experience points used to level up (assuming you didn’t die, of course). The overworld graphics aren’t exactly the best that the NES has seen but the character sprites during battle are a bit more detailed. Some of the character sprites look down-right awesome. The bosses, Lich and Chaos are particularly snazzy.

My main gripe with the game is that leveling up tends to take up a lot of time and I usually ended up having to grind levels every time I was about to go to a new area. Another annoyance that regrettably appears in later Final Fantasy games is the environmental hazards. They are long stretches of floor that you have to run across that cause damage to your entire party. But taking the good and the bad, it’s really a great start to one of my all time favorite game series and it is loads of fun.


Adamant1
Posts: 2088
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Final Fantasy Reviews by nesfan

Postby Adamant1 » July 6th, 2011, 7:22 am

[QUOTE=nesfan]What is it about the game that makes levelling up unnecessary?[/QUOTE]

The fact that it requires a bit more effort from the player. Know your characters, know their relative strength, and learn how you can deal the most damage to the largest number of monsters per turn, while also knowing what you can't handle, what will inconvenience you too much, and what is worth using magic on if you have any. Running from encounters can often be the correct choice.

If you play smart, you don't have to waste time grinding your characters up, but if you just want to hammer A to win, you'll have to spend some hours boring yourself to death before that becomes an option. That's your punishment for not being willing to put in any effort.


ActRaiser1
Posts: 2726
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Final Fantasy Reviews by nesfan

Postby ActRaiser1 » July 6th, 2011, 2:05 pm

Oh, I had to grind like crazy to make it to the next town.

Of course, I didn't realize you actually had to equip your equipment manually.  Go figure having armor and weapons could help you out.  Hey, when you're 10, you're dumb.  Let's just leave it at that.

nesfan1
Posts: 995
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Final Fantasy Reviews by nesfan

Postby nesfan1 » July 6th, 2011, 5:03 pm

[QUOTE=Adamant]

[QUOTE=nesfan]What is it about the game that makes levelling up unnecessary?[/QUOTE]

The fact that it requires a bit more effort from the player. Know your characters, know their relative strength, and learn how you can deal the most damage to the largest number of monsters per turn, while also knowing what you can't handle

[/QUOTE]

I knew all of this which is precisely why I felt the need to level up. If I can't handle something and have to run away then chances are I will run into whatever enemy I couldn't handle again. I would rather be able to beat it than having to run. So levelling up was necessary for me. That's my smart way of playing. Besides, I didn't like the running mechanic in this game anyway. And grinding isn't that bad. It drags the game down a little bit but I don't hate doing it. And I wasn't mashing A to win. I would find it pretty much impossible to win Final Fantasy by mashing A. It's just not that kind of game.


Adamant1
Posts: 2088
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Final Fantasy Reviews by nesfan

Postby Adamant1 » July 6th, 2011, 6:50 pm

[QUOTE=nesfan]

I knew all of this which is precisely why I felt the need to level up. If I can't handle something and have to run away then chances are I will run into whatever enemy I couldn't handle again. I would rather be able to beat it than having to run. So levelling up was necessary for me. That's my smart way of playing. 

[/QUOTE]

Then why are you complaining about it and listing it as a negative? You're not really making sense here.



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