Hiya - I was studying how to play Final Fantasy 2 as I intend to play that next but my eyes were starting to blur at all the preparations so I said f it I'll throw together a quick FF1 review while it's still frehs on my memory and I remember what my screenshots meant at the time.
I've never played FF1 before so this was fun and I really did enjoy it. It was tedious at times but it gets a pass for the nice sprite graphics, nostalgia for the first entry of my beloved series and the few nice things they added/improved in the recent Steam edition.
I did not even click on the 'class' button so I did not realise that was how you got the Black Belt/Monk and the Red Mage. Oh well! I probably would have gone with Red Mage instead of White Mage purely for the 8-bit Theater party composition but it's fine. Worked out pretty well but in hindsight I probably would have dropped the Thief for Red Mage or Monk as they might have been more interesting and less fragile. I spent half the game thinking 'when am I going to meet the other 2 party members' and 'does Thief learn Steal later?' both wrong.
Loved the graphics. I'm so glad I played this first and not my original plan to play 6, then 5 and backwards to 1 for some reason.
Humble beginnings. The first half of the game was refreshingly difficult.
Garland beat me the first time, thank the gods for auto save. A welcome feature in the PC port!
I visisted the Inn in Cornelia a LOT at the start. 30 gil for some sleep and back to the grind.
Spent 500 gil on a Phoenix Down before discovering the priests who can revive you for cheap. Even though this came first technically I was reminded of Golden Sun where you can get revived by priests for cheap or spend stupid money on Water of Life.
Got him the second time after some levelling.
And your reward is... a bridge! Do we own the bridge? They are valuable!
So the adventure begins again.
I got a ship! First a bridge, then a ship.
I'm kind of glad they kept the battles coming when you're on the ship but at the same time man it was rough for a while at the start of the game. I played it cautiously and was only game over'd three times: versus Garland at the start, some random birds mid-game insta death'd me and versus the Warmech death machine toward the end.
Really enjoyed the spell slots in this. Coming off the back of lots of DND it was nice to keep using Vancian Magic.
Some battles you could just mindlessly auto-battle attack through, but some enemies would appear that hit like freight trains, these guys early on did anyway.
Oh yeah.
Ah yes when I barely escaped the Marsh Cave with 2 party members so just fled most battles or killed what I could. Harrowing experience.
Back to safety in Elfland!
State of the party after 3 hours.
I lol'd.
I kind of enjoyed the non-linear 'oh you need the Mystic Key from the bottom right corner of map to open the door in the top left corner of map' fudgery going on but I had a guide open the whole time as I am not spending days on finding the one NPC you need to talk to at any one time.
Do we own the Panama Canal now too?
Poor mud town. Will have to resolve first Crystal dungeon to fix you. Earth Shrine next!
Loved having a few anti-Undead spells. I didn't grab them all but had the basic one Dia and I think the second most powerful one later, Diaga. Did not go for Diara or Diaja opting for different stuff instead.
He's not the real Earth boss...
He is!
Woohoo! My fave is done first.
There was a lot of exploration coming up... good for levelling though.
A canoe! I know every FF game slowly upgrades your methods of getting around until you can fly/teleport around but I liked the progression in this game.
Using fire and thunder spells on me canoe...
Did not enjoy the hunt for the cave of ice...
I liked the little sprites and the charming little music.
The peninsula of Power. It if FIXED in the Steam version of 2021 and you cannot use it to level up. All my life I read about this place and I finally get here and it's just the same enemies you encounter elsewhere, no bonus powerful enemies.
I did the Airship Levistone detour first before going to the Fire Shrine but opted not to upgrade classes before the Fire Shrine even though I could have - I couldn't figure out how to land airship near the castle with Rat Tail. Turns out I just needed to land a bit further east. Oh well!
Woohoo! No more random encounters while moving. For now...
I did not save enough, thank the gods for autosave. I'd remember to save the old fashioned way every now and then.
I had to, for the achievement. Thanfully I did not have to beat it.
Just a shout out to the maps/mini map in this. Not sure if its exclusive to Steam or was absent in the original versions or not but these were AMAZING and made the game so much easier, exploration anyway and finding all the treasure chests/where to go next.
Enemies starting to use spells. Not good.
Ooh a load of treasure chests...
Ah it's sort of guarded.
Some of the spells I had. Tried to keep a bit of variety for both casters. I mainly healed with White Mage but she would cast the occasional Protera or Invisira especially versus later game bosses. Out of combat stuff like Poisona would come in handy and of course Life.
Woohoo! Upgrade!
Though I already miss the old sprites. Could never get into these guys as much.
White Mage made no longer flips the bird. Sad.
Black Mage was just so good at either eliminating large mobs of enemies or buffing the two melee attackers. Boss fights? Temper-Haste Fighter then Thief. 9 enemies? Blast them.
Boss fights? Invisira and Protera and heal heal heal. Regular battles? Just use the hammer!
Glad I got this now, I hate backtracking.
No more Kraken. None of the boss battles were particularly challenging.
Lol 3 hour gap and no main save. The upgrade!
I just had to use Flare at least once.
The main map. I found it useful for clearing the treasure chest achievements.
I love when they just palette swap sprites but also enjoy new ones coming online. The Air Elementals are just pink versions of the Water Elemental but love 'em.
Shit is on.
I got the Ninja and Fighter as half casters, I would use Temper and Haste via the Ninja quite a bit at the end to free up the Black Mage. He was finally useful!
Fighter was such a tank I never used his spells really, a few out of combat cures maybe but that was all.
TWO battles into the infamous bridge and I got this guy. There is a small chance of him appearing and he's a BEAST toughest monster I fought in the game. Needless to say he killed me the first time, again thanks autosave I was transported a few feet back and tried again. I healed up and tried to get him again but no luck.
I got bored of trying to find Warmech again so detoured to kill Tiamat. Easy peasy.
Went from maybe level 45 ish to level 50 grinding for Warmech. Had to turn off auto battle in case I got aced again.
Lots of random battles but was good for experience. Would have to heal up a lot between every few battles to be ready for him.
Got him again, and a first strike! Needless to say I took full advantage by buffing.
Buffs...
More buffs... Temper was good for sheer damage, but Haste gave access to multiple hits.
God damn. He cast this like 4 times in the battle but with Invisira I only took maybe 200-300 a pop.
Got him. No specific achievement for him but he was my 115th monster of the bestiary killed, of a possible 128.
There is an achievement for Excalibur, so I got that. Also, just good to have!
Time to go back in time...
You have to fight all the bosses again at some point in Chaos Shrine. Nothing too difficult.
This guy is rare apparently, so made sure to collect him. Got all the treasure chests completed in the end but NOT the bestiary, would have to simply play the game after the end credits for that.
15 hours and right before Chaos, this was the party situation.
Garland again???
Oh no it's Chaos.
He was not particularly difficult he just had a lot of HP.
WOO!
Just let these play for ages to get past them...
Sorry I was wrong I did have to get treasure after the end, there were 5 chests in the pre-time travel shrine that I did not get until after.
I had 5 monsters to get, none of them were particularly difficult I just flew around map and got them. Only one was rare to encounter:
There he is! Took a little while but eventually hunted him down and completed the Bestiary and got the Master of I achievement.
Goodbye Final Fantasy I it was a fun weekend!
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So yeah, I really enjoyed the difficulty of the first half of the game it was refreshing having to worry about healing, distance from Inns, spell slots and so on for a while. Everything started to click together after the Fire Shrine-upgrade-Airship.
Really fun to see where it all began and the obvious Dungeons and Dragons influences were really fun for me. It was never difficult to pick up and play every evening this bank holiday weekend but I was never totally blown away either. I definitely rank this above FF13. I got nostalgic for FF9 in fact and 8 bit theater, both of which call backed to FF1 a lot.
So that's it time to move onto FF2! It looks complicated but might be a refreshing change.
