Retro games are a hot commodity. With the Xbox Live Arcade and Wii's Virtual Console, it's quickly becoming a prolific segment of the industry. Blogcritics is going to start looking at gaming's generally under-appreciated past in a different way.
Teaming up with classic gaming database Digital Press, Blogcritics will be presenting some lost or under-appreciated classics in short reviews. Extras may include odd facts, the title's impact on the industry, some personal retrospective, different ports the game may have received, and how well they hold up on today's market. Our hope would be to introduce a new generation of gamers, or even those who recently purchased a game console for the first time to those games they missed and the legacy they left behind.
The Game
The United States wasn’t really a very friendly place to put out RPGs in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Meanwhile, gaming developer Square was running out of time, money, and resources. In a spectacular display which solved both problems, Final Fantasy was released for the NES, and the rest is history.
Considering the highly developed and carefully thought out storylines of RPGs today, the scant one provided for FFI seems almost laughable. You play as a group of four young’uns traveling for no particular reason into the city of Coneria. As it is often in RPGs, the group just happens to be the legendary group of Light Warriors destined to save the world from the evil Chaos that is plaguing the world. (Literally and figuratively, of course. The end boss is actually named Chaos. Heh.)
One of the main draws for this is the ability to mix and match the various light warrior models in your team, making for some decent customization. You can even name them, as long as your names don’t include more than four letters. God forbid if you want to name your Red Mage “Rumplestiltskin.” Then again, with only four letters available most people just automatically go for the dirty words, so no problem there.
The customization of team can even change the way you play the game. Enjoy exploding things? Go with a team of four Black Mages. Enjoy swords? Four Fighters is the way to go. Enjoy getting your team slaughtered mercilessly and barely making it one step away from a city without getting beaten by a bunny rabbit? Four Black Belts for you, thank you very much.
The game, being one of the first real games of its type, did have its fair share of flaws. Apparently the Light Warriors aren’t the smartest bunch, as you often find yourself attacking the empty spaces where enemies once stood. The rate at which random encounters occur is often overwhelming, and the speed of the game is at a slug's pace, something which may claw at your patience after a long session of game play. The inability to buy items in groups is also a bit of a nerve-wracker. Buying 99 potions one at a time may eventually make you want to claw your eyes out with a spork on the fourth time doing so.
Article comments
1 - platomaker
hey, some of that isn't true, the game could go at a much faster pace if you set your response rate higher, keeping it one is unbearable so its best to keep hitting the right button until its at 8 for faster play.
a team of black belts is awesome; once you hit level 10 you can unequip them for much more damage (more hits)
i was just playing that same old game just now(the one i got when i was 7 too) and there are still things im discovering (how most monsters can inflict one hit kills without doing damage)to keep you on your toes. no aspect of the game is useless.
they seem to want the player to focus more on preventing damage from occurring rather than healing, eventually everything balances out. (that could be biased because i have a team of two fighters, a white and a black mage.
2 - Chris "UZ" White
My main problem with the Black Belt team isn't the damage. You'll deal damage, obviously.
But you can do the same thing with a team of 4 fighters, and still have decent defense, health and eventually some white magic. You get none of those with the BB team.
3 - Chris "UZ" White
Good to hear the robots are reading my articles.
4 - platomaker
thats a low blow UZ.