2002 SquareSoft - Square - PSX
Square, in their timeless quest to hoard Gil (make money), have released another compilation of old games. But guess what! THEY GOT IT RIGHT THIS TIME!
Final Fantasy Origins is a one-disc(!) combination of the very first two Final Fantasy games (the second of which was never released in the US), and it's only $30. Square went all-out for these, there were lots of changes.
First, the graphics and sound have been updated to a slightly above-SNES level of quality. There are also a couple FMVs, one at the beginning of each game. FF2 was given a proper translation, and FF1's translation was fixed; you don't cast "Fir2" or "Hast" anymore, you cast "Fire 2" and "Haste"!
Also, the games have options that make them play a bit more like the newer FFs. In the original games, if you told two characters to attack an enemy, and the first one killed the enemy, the second one would just waste his attack. Now, you can set it so that the attack gets redirected. You can dash on the map by holding O, and you can turn on "easy mode" which makes enemies weaker, characters stronger, and shops cheaper. It's all optional, though. There's also a "save anywhere" feature, which stores the save in the RAM, so that you lose the save when you turn the system off (but you can die or do a soft reset and load the RAM save).
Whew. Now on to the actual games.
The original Final Fantasy starts with you choosing your four characters. You choose any combination of the six classes you want, including repeats. The classes are:
- Fighter: Can equip the strongest weapons and the heaviest armor. Gets the most HP, and can use low-level white magic later in the game. Every party (except a gimmick party) should contain one or two Fighters.
- Thief: Fast as hell. Decent attack and HP, and can use black magic and lots of equipment later in the game.
- Monk: Unarmed fighter. Once you get to level 10 or so, you start doing more damage and getting better defense without weapons or armor. The Monk has the strongest attack power in the game (but not until later in the game, when you're starting out he sucks) and very good HP, but has pretty low defense.
- Red Mage: Can use both White Magic (curative/support) and Black Magic (offensive). Can also get some decent equipment and has OK attack power. All the FF1 junkies I talk to say that this class is the best in the game.
- Black Mage: Can use offensive magic. Abysmal HP, terrible defense and physical attack power. Very useful for fighting bosses.
- White Mage: The healer. Better HP than the Black Mage, and you damn well better have either one of these or a Red Mage; you NEED healing and reviving spells.
So, you take whatever team you choose on the quest to save the Princess, the Crystals and subsequently the world.
FF1 is probably the hardest FF. There are no save points, Gil (money) is pretty tough to come by (and you have to buy EVERYTHING in this game, even spells), and the dungeons are long and really wear you out (although the bosses are very easy).
Final Fantasy 2 is drastically different. It's a more story-based game. The characters have names, and there's a plot involving an evil Empire and rebel forces and such. It's not terribly in-depth or revolutionary, but it's pretty much the opposite of FF1.
The level system is the big appeal in FF2. There are no experience points, no levels. The programmers at Square thought "hey, why would a White Mage get better at healing people just by watching the Monk punch Garland in the nose?" and changed the powerup system around completely.
Now, your characters gain in their skills and abilites by using them. You get more HP and Defense from taking a beating. You get more Strength and skill with a weapon from attacking. You get more MP and magic power from casting more spells. There are things in the system for you to exploit, like attacking your own characters to get more HP, but that's intentional--it's very hard to raise stats from regular fighting, and Square was merciful. Amen.
Your characters in FF2 can equip any weapon or armor, learn any spell, and basically be anything you want them to be. There are some tradeoffs, though--some stats don't go well together. Strength and Magic power are opposites, for example. Square did this to prevent FF6 syndrome, where you can have each and every character be a walking tank that can turn into a nuclear stealth bomber and back again in one turn. So bulking up your physical attack power will make your spells weak, and vice versa. Also, wearing heavy armor makes your characters physically stronger, so your mages will get stronger (and thereby lose magic power) if you equip them with Six Foot Thick Steel Plate of Virtue™. Your characters can also equip two weapons, so a fighter can use two swords, or a sword and a staff (which is awesome if you get some special staves dropped by enemies early enough) or anything else you want (though there are two-handed weapons like the Bow).
The main annoyance with FF2 is that money is VERY hard to get, and you still have to buy everything.
There are also a few things that set these games apart from later FFs.
First, your characters can get multiple hits per attack. So each hit might only do 100 HP damage, but you get 8 hits. So that's 800 HP, not counting any criticals you might get (yes, each hit has a chance of being a critical).
Second, there's no Defend command. This is very annoying. You're stuck either wasting MP (which is hard to get back, especially in FF1), or doing nothing worthwhile.
Third (as I think I mentioned), there are no save points. The RAM save makes up for this, though it would be nice if I didn't have to go though a long-ass dungeon all in one sitting.
Overall, both these games are very fun, and the package is only $30. So that's two old, really fun games for the price of 1/2 a new one! Hooray for everything.
Overall, I give Final Fantasy Origins a 9/10.
//James
