Final Fantasy

THE GOOD:
Variety and randomness of battles ensures you'll never play the same game twice. 100s of possible character combinations. Extremely engaging gameplay.

THE BAD:
Nothing.

SUMMARY:
The first game in the legendary Final Fantasy series certainly broke new ground in the RPG genre when it was released 15 years ago. For starters, instead of only having 1 character at your control, you had 4 chosen from a party if 6-right away that gives you infinite possibilities for making different 4-player parties. You could have a balanced team, a group of all Fighters, or all Mages for added challenges. The gameplay itself almost starts out Holloywood-style: Find the kidnapped princess, save her, then as you cross the bridge to the rest of the world, the opening credits roll indicating you've just completed the Prologue of the story-a nice cinematic touch. Other than that, the graphics are above-average, with some decent animations in battle often...

Final Fantasy for the Nintendo Entertainment System is the game that started the whole craze. It was originally released in Japan, but eventually found its way to the United States. The other two Final Fantasy games released in Japan for the NES weren't so lucky.

It's a bit of a mystery why they never did quite get over here. Final Fantasy 1 sold very well, and it got excellent coverage from the gaming magazine of the day (Nintendo Power). They remained in Japan though.

In Final Fantasy, you assemble a group of four warriors to save the world. You do this by defeating the four elemental fiends (earth, fire, water, air) and releasing the power that they stole and captured in orbs. You'll have a few additional tasks including this main one, but the gameplay is very linear.

The above description is the extent of the story. There's one major twist towards the end of the game, but for the most part, you can pick up all you need from the instruction manual. You can't...

THE GOOD:
Actually a challenge

THE BAD:
Most of it these days

SUMMARY:
I've played every final fantasy game (except 3 and 11) and just about all of them were a walk in the park. Then I though i'd play Final Fantasy 1 and it was actually surprised how challenging it was. This challenge was actually really fun. If games like Final fantasy 10 were this hard i think they would be more enjoyable. Any way the graphics really arn't great at all, the battle systems pretty crap aswell and the story is really original. Another thing that anoyed me is that the light warriors dont talk at all. I mean c'mon! All up this game is pretty short and most of that time will probably be done leveling up because some bits may get you ultra stuck. If you can get past the bad points then this game is worth a try, especially for the old school gamers.