Sorry that it's been so long since I updated this blog. Is it really just my second entry in September? Well I have a good excuse. I've been busy playing Final Fantasy. This has to be one of the longest games on the whole system. There's no counter on it, but I'm sure I put in a good 20 or 30 hours on it, and this was probably my 3rd or 4th time through. That's really impressive for a game that is about to turn 23.
I have to say that I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed playing through this one again. It seems like it's got some things working against it. You walk very slowly in this game. This gets really annoying in towns, especially when townsfolk block your way. Like most old overhead RPGs there is an over emphasis on level gaining especially in the sections leading up to the first two fiends. Of course a lot of this can be attributed to the game being released in 1987 in Japan. At that time there was only a handful of 8-bit RPGs to use as a template. This game was a pretty bold leap forward when all you had for inspiration was Hydlyde and the first two Dragon Quest games.
So why do I love this game so much? I certainly love how large it is. This game as a very large overworld with with several towns and and dungeons with secrets to be found in all of them. This is a game that really requires you to pay attention because you are going to hear things in towns that you have to remember much later in the game. This really gives the game the feeling of an actual world and not just a bunch of separate quests smashed together. This is a really ambitious game, and I'm really surprised by how well everything in it works.
I've only got a couple of complaints about this one. I hate how long it takes to buy potions. You gotta buy those things one at a time, so buying 99 of them will take a few minutes. There's only one level of heal potion, so when you start to get near the end of the game it could take 20 or so for your character to be completely healed. It would've been nice to have a heal 2 potion so you wouldn't have to buy as many. This was also before the innovation of attacks defaulting to the next available enemy if the enemy selected gets killed. If you select all four of your characters to attack a certain enemy and your first character kills him than the rest are going to be attacking the air. This is a little annoying, but it does require you to actually think about the battles a little bit. I guess I've got mixed feelings about that one.
So I had a lot of fun playing back through this one. It certainly took longer than any of the games on my list so far. I was actually playing through Battle of Olympus before I started this one, but as usual I got bored with it half way through. I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever finish that game. Anyway, if you've never played Final Fantasy than I highly recommend it. It's an excellent first installment of one of the great video game franchises of all time. You might be surprised to see a Final Fantasy game on such an old timey system, especially since it has so much in it that they still use in the series today. I always go with two fighters, a black mage, and a white mage, but I guess that choice is completely up to you.
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