Thanks to Homer Rabara for the image.
At the moment I only have 2-3 more Christmas gifts to order, thanks to the wonders of online shopping. 
Moving On
On Tuesday, I bought a 8GB iPod Touch for £112.70, and so far I am enjoying it.
"I like Swords." – Fighter, 8-Bit Theater
I know what some of you are going to say already, but really Japanese Role Playing Games aren't that bad. I'm serious some of them are pretty good. I'm not sure I'd classify this particular title as one of those gems however.
I couldn't find a title card so wipe that smirk off your face. I have the artistic talent of an elderly blind hermit with carpal tunnel syndrome. I am however rather proud of my attempt at spiky hair.
Before the feminine looking male leads. Before the hour long cinematic sequences. Before the two hour long dialogue sequences.
Developer: Square (now Square Enix)
Publisher: Nintendo
History: Square was facing some difficult times back in the mid to late eighties. Most of the company's games were not very successful, and they decided that if they were going to go out they would go out with a bang. Following the success of Richard 'Lord British' Garriot's Ultima series another company called Enix released the first Japanese Role Playing game Dragon Warrior, or Dragon Quest if you prefer. With both Ultima and Dragon Warrior selling moderately well Square developed the appropriately named (at the time) Final Fantasy which would go on to be a success, and keep Square afloat for a long time.
Gameplay: The first Final Fantasy is probably one of the only jRPGs that even remotely resembles a western RPG. Like Dragon Warrior though; Final Fantasy was aimed at a more casual audience than the oft frustrating Ultima series which had hardcore features like a hunger system that gave sissies like me headaches. Anyway you started off a game of Final Fantasy by creating a party of up to four adventurers, but character generation was quite simple and came down to simply picking from a narrow selection of cl4sses (excuse the leet), and entering a name (which could only contain up to four characters). There wasn't any stat placement or dice rolling as stats were dependent on cl4ss This also came into effect when your characters leveled up as statistics would automatically increase by a set amount depending on the individual's job.
Final Fantasy featured a completely turn based combat system. By completely turn based I mean that there was no stamina bar that filled up as time progressed like in later titles. When it was one of your character's turns they could either do a standard attack, or cast a single spell if they had any and then either another of your characters, or an enemy would take their turn.
Design: Final Fantasy's design followed that of a typical dungeon crawling RPG. The storyline was very simplistic and just an excuse to go to a set of dungeons, kill enemies, find gold, use said gold on superior equipment and potions, and fight a big bad boss-like enemy before finishing your reason for being in the dungeon. Considering Square's inexperience with such things it is amazing that the game came out as well as it did, but to be perfectly honest the design really was not anything remarkable.
Final Fantasy actually resembled a more traditional high fantasy setting than its modern day sequels; there actually weren't many Asian themes as in modern Final Fantasy games besides the out of place Black Belt character cl4ss.
Nostalgia Factor: I'm going to be honest; I was never a big fan of this game because there wasn't any real substance to it. I will admit that the music brought back some okay memories, but besides that I have no real attachment to this title.
Critical Reception: Alas I was too young in 1987 to pay any attention to reviews, and I couldn't find any archives or scans containing any professional reviews for this game.
How it holds up: The original Final Fantasy hasn't aged well even though it's been remade at least two times. The simplistic approach at the story is forgivable since all games from this era had minimalist plotlines, and most RPGs definitely focused on dungeon crawling. Unfortunately you couldn't really customize your characters beyond their names, and thus there was little reason to replay it as I personally think that the later Final Fantasy titles are much better games.
If you're one of the newer Final Fantasy fans who has yet to play this game, or its remakes than do yourself a favor and give this one a pass. Unless you're really, and I mean really obsessed with owning and playing every Final Fantasy game in existence this one probably won't do much for you. I suppose because of its impact on the Japanese gaming market it does deserve a place in any collector's museum, though.
Legacy: I'm not even sure what to say here. The series is still trucking on with its thirteenth installment coming out in Japan this December, and a fourteenth already in the planning stages. This game is what made the eastern variant of the RPG popular, and this game is also the reason Square is still around today… for better or for worse.
Useless Trivia:
- The name 'Final Fantasy' comes from the fact that this was originally going to be Square's last game until by chance it is what managed to save them from going under.
- In case you're interested (and even if you're not) here are my party members' full names from the top to the bottom of the combat screenshot:
Fighter: Tinky (I couldn't think of a manlier name.)
Black Mage: Codex (Named after the infamous RPG Codex; because I have a sick and twisted sense of humor I thought including character named after these guys in a jRPG would be hilarious. They hate jRPGs with a burning passion... along with everything else really.)
White Mage: 911 (For some bizarre reason I get my jollies out of naming healers after emergency phone numbers.)
Black Belt: Jackie Chan (I couldn't think of a more suitable name for a crazy martial artist who gets injured a lot while trying to save the world.)
Links:
Been playing quite a bit of Forza 3 and it's probalby the best racing game I've played to date. Picture of my sweet ride!
Thank goodness for roll cages!
The YouTube "behind-the-scenes" commentary trailer for the King of Fighters movie.
I always try to reserve judgement before seeing the final product, but after watching that trailer, well...it's like these people were trying to be as wrong as possible.
What I'm really torn about is whether I want to bother renting it when it inevitably comes rocketing to DVD. Good heavens.
The GameSpot UK Podcast has gone weekly in 2009, and we're constantly trying to think of new things we can add to the show. To this end, we'll now be uploading our show notes to the site alongside the podcast itself every Thursday.
As always, let us know what you think and whether you'd like to see anything else on the show! Here are the notes for this week's show.
[From my Feature forum post.]
Had to vote for Pac-Man CE. So many of the great games are "just" straight ports with achievements (SotN), or cleverly improved over their earlier showings on other platforms (AHHD; PQ:CotW) . That's awesome, but it doesn't push XBLA as a platform for growth and opportunity. Pac-Man CE is a truly worthy sequel, and takes the best ideas of competitive individual challenge and makes it an event. With the death of brick and mortar arcades in North America, I don't think P-MCE would've ever been successful or honestly even created without XBLA.
-V-
(Also, Billy Mitchell got owned. )
