You may remember in a recent post I reviewed Final Fantasy IV, my first foray into the world of Final Fantasy. I was hooked before I even finished, and began searching out the rest of the games in the series. It's up to 13 titles now, as well as spin-offs, and the games are notoriously long, so I certainly have my work cut out for me. The good news is that the series has some of the most highly-praised games in history, so I'll probably enjoy most of them. Rather than jump into another nostalgic classic however, I decided to go to the game's roots and play the first of the series- Final Fantasy. While the game was revolutionary for its time in 1987, it didn't have many of the trademarks that later installments were known for. The engaging story of FF4 is gone, replaced with a generic "find the crystals" quest, complete with wind water earth and fire crystals. Stop me if you've heard that one before. The combat is much more simplistic too- in Final Fantasy IV I found myself making important decisions and sacrifices mid-battle that kept the combat exciting. In FF1 it came down entirely to determining each character's most powerful move and spamming the hell out of it. So clearly, I didn't enjoy the first Final Fantasy as much as Final Fantasy IV, but that doesn't mean I didn't have fun with it. I was trying to figure out why early on, and I still believe it's because of two main reasons. First, it's way too early for the same old RPG formula to have gotten stale for me- I think this is only the sixth RPG I've ever played. That may seem like a lot, but compare it with the number of platformers and FPS's I've posted in this Blog alone, and it's just not that much. Second, Final Fantasy had something important that IV did not- no grinding! At no point did I really feel like I had to do battles just for the experience. The random battles that I fought in on the way to the next part of the quest were always enough to level me up for the next boss. That kept the game short (12-ish hours) but enjoyable. So yeah, overall I can't say I'm disappointed to jump back to the first game of the series- it's no high point, but it was a short fun play. Next up I'm thinking of going after the most popular one of all- Final Fantasy VII.
We all know I'll someday make a massive Ranks For Nothing post about it, but my incomplete and unofficial grading of the first twelve games is as follows (worst to first):
ReplyDelete11 (never played it, but fuck online)
3 (just really nothing special at all)
2 (very different gameplay that they eventually abandoned)
12 (I just didn't dig the new combat system)
1 (no explanation needed)
5 (still in progress; much like 3 with an actual story and characters)
9 (haven't beaten it yet, but feels a lot like 4)
8 (very solid but a letdown after 7)
4 (you've played this)
10 (will switch places with 4 a dozen times before I decide on one)
7 (perhaps the consensus defining RPG of all time)
6 (better than the consensus defining RPG of all time)
Of course, you could have wholly different reactions to the series on both emotional and entertainment levels. Just know that the best is yet to come. But then, so is the worst.
Interesting. I'll likely also skip over 11 because it just seems like such a departure that it barely counts. 10 and 12 I'm currently unable to play, but I'm gonna hold out hope for them to somehow be released on the PS3. My unofficial goal is to try and get one done each month (which might be asking too much) and after the goodness of 7 I'll probably jump back to one of the earlier ones- 2 or 3.
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