Final Fantasy [Part 1] NES-SNES
The JRPG of JRPGs. These series of games are well known globally and iconic. Each game has its own unique story and world. These games are also known for its amazing music composed by Nobuo Uematsu. Since the release of a pc version FFVII on Steam and trailer for FFXV, I've revisit these series of games and will like to write my thoughts on each game. There will be spoilers so please read with caution!Final Fantasy
This game was one of Square's huge hit. It came out on the Nintendo Entertainment System. There are remakes of this game, and is available in a variety of platforms. I'm only familiar with the Final Fantasy Compilation of the game. It is still in the pixel RPG maker style which I think is better than giving it a modern look of games today. This game is basic compare to the rest of the series. The story is about these four nameless warriors traveling together who are the prophesied Warriors of Light who will save the world. Each of them possess a darkened elemental crystal caused by major enemy monsters.
Crystals are a staple in the Final Fantasy series and are sometimes the major plot points. These crystals are powerful, magical, and sometimes the source of the world's elements of fire, wind, water, and earth. In this game you travel to towns around the world and solve issues of missing royals or items which you have to go to dungeons or the like to obtain in to proceed through the story.
The story is short but the random battles is quite relentless. After defeating the arch fiends responsible for darkening the crystals, the crystals are restored. You then go to a time portal into the past to defeat the final boss, Garland who wants to take over the world. You stop his plans by defeating him, and peace is back in the world. I think Garland's time loop plan is a nice twist to a rather basic story this game has. Since in the ending says no one remembers the crisis and chaos but the warriors probably because the warriors defeated the boss in the past thus the crisis won't happen.
Final Fantasy II
This game is much more story focused than the first game. Its the first to give names to the main playable characters: Firion, Maria, and Guy. The story starts off with Firion and his friend's town getting attacked by the Empire. They are saved and brought to their home kingdom. When they recovered they ask their Princess, Hilda, to join her rebel army. The game is pretty much doing varies missions Hilda gives you to help the rebel cause to stop the Emperor from destroying the world.
This game has a unique feature where you learned keywords for your missions which you have to ask npcs in order to get more information to proceed in the game. This game also features the first chocobo, Leviathan, dragoon, friendly flying dragons called Wyverns/Wind Drakes, Ultima, and Cid. This game is quite different from the first, but the random battles are still relentless. There's a nice amount of playable characters that are switched throughout the game. There are remakes of this game, and like the first FF I'm only familiar with the compilation version that also stuck with the pixel rpgmaker style.
Personally, I'm not that into the story or characters of this game. It is rather long compare to the first game. When you beat it there is a bonus short story where you follow the other playable characters. I think the Emperor is an all right villian, but I find that the final dungeon being a capital of Hell that raises out of the surface is awesome.
Final Fantasy III
Like the first FF, this game's four protagonists are unnamed in the original, but the remake gave them names and a new design. Unlike the remake of the first two games, this one has 3D graphics with chibi models. These new designs were not used in Dissidia and look too different from the original that I didn't bother to look at the remake. Moogles and submarines are first introduced in this game.
The gender of the main characters are ambiguous, but its assumed that they are boys. We know that there are practically kids. The elemental crystals are important plot points in the game. The story is pretty classic FF style too. It starts off with the four orphaned kids discovering the Crystal of the Wind in a cave. The crystal gives them some of its power and tells them to restore the balance of the world. Like the first FF game, they go out in the world and help out the towns they visit. The game utilizes the spell Mini which is needed to get in certain areas. The world in FFIII does seem to have a for fantasy feel when visiting different towns of gnomes, dwarves, viking, and the like. Meeting an Elder Tree, and unearthing legendary airships. Its really cool when you learn that you're on a floating continent, and when you acquire an airship you can explore the big world outside of the floating continent. But the world below is in peril because of Xande taking power from the three crystals below the floating continent. They meet a man who lost his memories. They also got shot down by a huge kingdom that is in crisis. The warriors finds the prince and return to the castle only to discover that the king was being controlled. The four warriors go find the crystals and save them. But darkness beats them to it. They eventually go through a portal to a dark world sort of like a parallel world which is neat. They defeat Xande only to find out that Cloud of Darkness is responsible for everything and has been controlling Xande. She defeats the warriors but they are saved by their companions that they've made on their journey. In the dark world, they find that there are counterparts of them, warriors of the dark, and the dark crystals who all give the warriors (of light) power to defeat Cloud of Darkness.
I enjoyed this game and think its quite underrated. The whole kind of mirror world of light and dark is neat.
Final Fantasy IV
First FF game on the Super Nintendo. It also got a remake similar graphics as FFIII's remake, but little changes. I'm not a fan of their updated cutscenes since it is alittle different from the original so I didn't bother with the remake. Much prefer the cutscenes of the original. On the Super Nintendo, the graphics are much better, and some camera angles as the perspective of the world map is tilted a little when using the airships. The random battle intro is starting to get animations. The story is interesting and the characters have more life to them than previous games. Save points and meteor are introduced in this game.
The story starts off with an attack on a nation for their crystal by a brigade of Dark Knights of the most powerful nation, Baron. The main protagonist, Cecil, is the leader of these dark knights called Red Wings. He is loyal to his king, but these recent attacks on innocent people have bothered him. He brings it up with the king who was quick to punish him and his Dragoon Knight friend, Kain, who defended him by stripping his rank and sending them to deliver a ring to a town. This ends up being a trick as the ring sets the town on fire. Cecil saves a little girl and gets separated from Kain. He now strives to go against the king and Baron. This game is mainly to stop the enemy from getting all the crystals. Cecil goes out to warn other nations with crystals. He eventually meets Kain and learns that him and the king were being mind controlled by Golbez. Rosa is also kidnapped. The gang end up getting separated when Leviathan attacked them. Cecil goes to repent for his crimes and renew himself by becoming a paladin. A magician name Tellah also learns the Meteor which is the ultimate spell in order to avenge his dead daughter. Cecil and the gang was told to exchange the last of the crystals for Rosa. They were able to save Rosa and Kain, but Golbez was able to escape even after Meteor was cast. Kain reveals to the gang than there are more crystals that are located in the underworld. The gang created a hole in the mountains that leads them to a hellish lava land where dwarves live. The dwarves aid Cecil, but again they fail to save the dark crystals from Golbez who regained control over Kain and stole the last crystal. A legendary airship vessel is unearthed to aid Cecil to follow Golbez to the second moon. When they reach there they meet an old man who is a race of people (aliens really) called Lunarian. The old man tells Cecil of his origins and of the Lunarians who came to the world as a new home. He also reveals that one of his people, Zemus, wanted to wipe out all life from the planet and is the one controlling Golbez and Kain. The gang goes back to the world to fight off a giant that the crystals revived with the aid of the moon man. The moon man was able to save Golbez and Kain from Zemus' control. It is revealed that Golbez is Cecil's brother. Golbez and the moon man go off to defeat Zemus, but he comes back in another form which Cecil and gang defeats. Golbez decides to stay with the moon man to sleep on the moon, and Cecil and the gang return home.
This game's story is interesting. Even though its similar to FFIII with hunting the crystals and mind control, and FFII with fighting an empire. Also having another world like FFIII but with the world of the moon to add to the mix. Its still good! There is a sequel called The After Years but it doesn't interest me so I'm not going to talk about it.
Final Fantasy V
This game is more humorous and light hearted than previous games. Mostly due to the characters being more playful and outgoing. Graphics is slightly better with better animation in the sprites and background in battles. The sprites now are laughing, spinning, comical shock, etc so its fun. This game was first on Super Famicon then later for playstation and gameboy advance. Now its available as a app game with "updated graphics" but personally it looks worse.
Like FF3 and FF4, the main goal is to get to the crystals or else something bad will happen. The story starts off with 3 strangers (fourth member arrives later) who meet and end up traveling together. Something bad is happening to the crystals so they all must try to stop it. The crystals are the source of the world's natural forces so if the wind crystal shatters there will be no more wind. Bartz is a traveler who has a chocobo name Boko as a companion. Lenna is a princess who wants to find her missing father. Galuf is a old man who crash into the world on a meteorite, and has amnesia. Faris is a pirate who disguises herself as a man at first. She still dresses manly as its whats comfortable for her which is a nice change to the typical female character. She also has a close animal companion that runs her ship name Syldra who is a sea dragon. Lenna saves Hiryu a wind drake that is nearly extinct, and you can fly with it. Through their journey they encounter other meteors that crash like Galuf's but luck was not with them to help Galuf's regain his memory. The graphic for these meteors are creepy to me since there's so many holes. Some of the crystal's are under control in certain towns and they are being amplified by machines made by Cid who realize too late that they're destroying the crystals. Cid meets with his grandson Mid and they trigger a memory of Galuf's granddaughter and was able to regain his memory back. He reveals that he's from another world. Also the reason the crystals are shattering is because a enemy name Exdeath was sealed by his fellow warriors and him years ago in this world and he's trying to escape. While chasing Lenna's father they happen upon an underground area left by the Ancients as well as an ancient airship. They use this place as their base.
They finally find Lenna's father who is possessed with the last crystal. They don't realize the difficult monsters they defeated where the crystal's guardians. Like FF4, the warriors fail to save the crystals. They keep the shards of each crystal though. Galuf's granddaughter, Krile, casts a spell to break Lenna's father from being possessed. Exdeath was then revived and tries to attack the group with the crystal shards. The group was saved by Lenna's father. Galuf and Krile say that since Exdeath has escaped they will have to return to their home world. They forbid Bartz and the others from going with them, but they follow them soon after they create a warp point to their world.
They were soon captured by Exdeath's servants and used as bait, but the Galuf was able to rescue them. The mini boss Gilgamesh is introduced. The group was able to escape, but Exdeath's castle has a barrier now. The group meets moogle which Krile is able to communicate with. The group learns that Galuf is a king, and they also have wind drakes. The light warriors get to meet some the Dawn warriors which were Galuf and his friends. The group meet with a turtle sage who tells them to save the crystals in a forest. They get deceived by Exdeath and Galuf fights against him to his death. His granddaughter takes his place. They go after and defeat Exdeath who was able to shatter the last crystals. The warriors wake up back to the first world and soon learn from the turtle sage that the two worlds are merged. This releases the Void which destroys the world bit by bit. The group must go seeked the Sealed Weapons to enter the interdimentional Rift to fight Exdeath who is trying to obtain the Void's power. When the light warriors reach Exdeath he reveals his true form as a tree powered by evil spirits sealed within him, and wants to bring everything to nothingness. With the help of the spirits of their friends they were able to fight the Void and Exdeath. They save the worlds and were able to revert back to normal. The warriors return to their former lives, but makes time to see each other to visit the Guardian tree for Galuf's death anniversary.
The story is long and has repeated elements from previous games. There are minor characters that are possessed in this game which at this point is looks unoriginal. Also having characters from other worlds. I still enjoyed it. I do like how Galuf was in probably 3/4 of the before he dies. Exdeath wasn't the most greatest final boss although his final form was pretty nasty looking. I really don't understand these powerful beings that just wants to destroy everything. Gilgamesh was an interesting mini boss since he is kind of a pathetic servant of a villain its pretty laughable. During the last battle with him he says how he think he'd be good friends with Bartz which kinda pains my heart a little. At this time it makes me realize what really makes these FF games is not the story, the world, or the monsters, but the characters. Whenever I think of the FF games the characters and their story are what pop up first for me.
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