Final Fantasy I-III: A Satirical Troll Retrospective

I love the Final Fantasy series. Ever since I was a kid, these games have fascinated me, entertained me, and enthralled me with great stories, characters and amazing settings. I genuinely don’t think that there is a series that has had more profound impact on my gaming tastes as Final Fantasy has. You’re talking about a guy who hasn’t changed the Tifa theme background on their PS4 for about 6 years now. This is a franchise that shattered new ground, showed the heights of the genre, and was the gold standard for decades, but I don’t think I have ever reviewed a Final Fantasy game besides the 7 Remake. I figured it was time to finally talk about one of my favorite franchises in depth. Starting where it all began.

Final Fantasy:

In 1987 a small Japanese developer named Squaresoft was struggling to stay afloat. With what they thought would be their final game before closing, they released Final Fantasy to the Famicom in Japan. 2 years later, it was brought to America. This game was such a massive hit that it saved the company and the rest is history (and an endless stream of hyper original “Final Fantasy is on its 17th game?” jokes.) Final Fantasy I is an interesting game. For a piece of media made in the absolute fucking stone age of gaming, it, like Dragon Quest I, holds up because of its simplicity. You start off the game like you’re playing a DnD campaign where you forced your friend’s bored older brother to be the DM. You get 200 gold to buy your gear, then its off to save the princess from the cave or whatever. After your standard tutorial dungeon, a bridge is built to the rest of the continent and as you cross, you experience the single most important cutscene in RPG history. I’m not joking either, when the iconic Final Fantasy theme plays as your characters cross the bridge, it signaled a moment that would change the course of Japanese Role Playing Games and video games in general. From here, you’re free to explore most of the world. I always loved these types of old school games because there’s something quaint about them. Sure, it’s not like Breath of the Wild where you have a gigantic world dense with stuff to find with in depth detail, but they manage to make the world feel expansive and daunting nonetheless. You might run into an enemy 50 levels too high that one shots you but that’s the risk you take adventuring.

One of my favorite things about the original Final Fantasy game is that you’re allowed to customize your party how you see fit. For my latest replay, I did a standard Fighter/White Mage/Red Mage/Thief build, but I’ve done runs before with different parties. Sometimes its fun to see the combinations people can beat the game with since you can do several of the same class, and it gives the game a ton of replayability. Gameplay-wise, it’s a bog standard traditional turn based game, however, believe it or not with how trivial it seems, the idea of actually seeing your party and all the members in 3rd person instead of first person with little to no animations was actually groundbreaking at the time. The jobs are simple and not very in depth in terms of customization, but again, it’s fun to experiment with different parties, and you can explore and find ways to “upgrade” your job so that your character can become the strongest version of their class.

Where the game really lacks, and is unfortunately a massive fatal flaw in all older JRPGs, is the story. Not necessarily that the story is awful or doesn’t make sense. I mean, yes it is barebones and even this one has stupid Final Fantasy time travel alternate reality fuckery, but it’s more so that it lacks story context and story pacing. There’s no characters, almost all the events that happen do so because the video game has to happen, not because there is actual story conviction or characters. I know it was the NES and asking it to have a real story is a lot, but as will be a theme with all the old school Final Fantasy games, the lack of proper story telling and story pacing really hurts the experience going back to it with a modern scope in mind. There are like 3 named NPC’s including the final boss of the game and while the game gets along fine pacing wise with its barely there story, a lack of world-building and lack of characters to attach to harms the overall enjoyability for people that are playing with more modern expectations in mind.

The music from this game is absolutely iconic, and so many of the series staple tracks are from the very first entry, however it is held back by being on an NES sound chip so the opening credit music font sounds like listening to a Dizzy Gillespie live record on a broken speaker from halfway across the room. Keep in mind however, that I am reviewing the version of each game I think is actually the best. The pixel remaster did an absolutely amazing job remastering the music and the graphics. The sprite work, especially on the enemies is fantastic looking. The upgraded soundtrack is also brilliant, remastering these iconic tracks while keeping the spirit of the NES soundscapes authentic.

I don’t have much else to say. The game is pretty well paced in terms of gameplay in the newer versions. I only had to stop to grind at the very beginning and very end for a couple bosses but that’s it. There’s a lot to find and a pretty shockingly big world to explore for a game made back when most games were about moving left and right. In terms of gameplay, it’s honestly surprising how well the gameplay holds up for a game from the 80’s. This is of course talking about the pixel remaster or the PSP remake, not the original because the combat in the original doesn’t work. Like this isn’t a bit. Half the spells do nothing in the original release. The Luck stat does nothing making the one defining trait of the thief completely useless. For this (and many other age related reasons) I cannot suggest you play the NES original release unless you also need to burn your arm with cigarettes just to feel something in the parking lot before work. Play the pixel Remaster. It’s the most available version.

Final Fantasy I is a lot like another classic NES game, Super Mario Bros. Is the OG Super Mario Bros the best game in the series? No, it’s pretty archaic and barebones compared to say Mario Sunshine or even Super Mario Bros 3, but it is still fun to go back and play a newer port of it and just enjoy where it all started. For me, absolutely as the gameplay is pretty damn timeless. In a world where every game has to have 4K graphics and have an open world with 75 hours of content and 40 mechanical tutorials, just going back to basics is a great palate cleanser. If you’re not a huge fan of old school games, I would probably just skip Final Fantasy I, but if you’re willing to look past the age related quirks, you’ll find a fun game that kickstarted an entire genre.

Final Fantasy II:

It seems like every franchise that started on the NES has a pattern, and that pattern is that for some reason, every groundbreaking new game has to be followed by an utterly baffling sequel that completely changes the formula for no discernable reason and was rushed to release. Whether it’s Zelda II just being a side scroller randomly, or Castlevania II Simon’s Quest being the weird black sheep that nobody really likes, it seems the NES just had a wild west approach to sequels. Final Fantasy II fits this template to a tee and it’s why it was always seen as the red headed step child of the franchise.

I will not mince words, I don not think Final Fantasy II is “good but not what I want from the franchise” or “Different but still alright.” Final Fantasy II is a bad video game and there’s a reason that it is treated like Harry Potter before he gets to Hogwarts in the first book by fans. Don’t get me wrong, it does some impressive things and the few things it does hit on became series staples, but overall it is a frustrating, poorly designed mess that is rightfully slated as the outright worst game in the franchise. The setup for the game is actually pretty great. Your party of “chosen heroes” just… Dies at the start. Ok, well they don’t die but they’re left for dead and recovered by the rebel army. This is a stark contrast to the usual story setup in most old school JRPGs. The game is full of towns that look war ravaged with very few people in them. To give credit where it’s due, for the time, there’s a lot of impressive story stuff and visual story telling in Final Fantasy II. Compared to most NES games, the story here is actually decent, there’s named NPC’s and characters and an actual story arc with a villain who has a arc. None of it is good, but at least they actually tried this time, it is to be commended.

Another cool thing that Final Fantasy II did was the keyword system where you can talk to NPCs and hear keywords that you can then ask other NPCs and this can progress the game, lead to secrets or just bits of world building. This is obviously an early take on the types of dialog tree systems that define complex RPGs in the modern era. As impressive as it is, that also means that 99% of the story progression is locked behind this system and so in practice, you end up bumbling around looking for the one NPC with a keyword that can progress the plot like you got roofied at a party full of people you don’t know and you’re stumbling about asking where the front door is.

This game was the progenitor of a ton of the iconic staples in the series. Chocobos, Cid, the Ultimacia spell. A lot of stuff here would become engrained into the series roots and Final Fantasy II deserves respect for this. What it does not earn my respect for is the combat and dungeon design. Where do I even start with the combat? The most efficient way of leveling up is to just hit yourself on the head over and over like a mental asylum resident who isn’t allowed outside the padded room without an entire team of orderlies. I wish I was joking by the way, it literally is in the official fucking strategy guide the proposed way to level up the fastest. This system is endemic of Final Fantasy II as a whole; it does something amazingly forward thinking like having a pseudo job system as characters level up based on what they most use, not as a broad character level up, but this system not only makes the game absurdly easy to abuse, but it also makes it stupidly grindy. Final Fantasy II is horridly paced and not just because of the need to grind in battle. It’s awful because of the absolute worst dungeon design in any game in the series or maybe period in an old JRPG. Seriously, the game designer must have been madly in love with the only girl on the coding team that could code trick rooms and he just wanted an excuse to keep seeing her because why the fuck does every dungeon have about 7 rooms where absolutely nothing happens but an insanely heightened encounter rate that wastes your time? It’s the worst dungeon design in any old JRPG short of trash like Hydlide. It is frustrating and annoying because it ruins a basic aspect of an RPG which is exploring the dungeons for treasure. Even the music in Final Fantasy II isn’t up to series standards honestly. Yeah, it has a lot of series staple tracks, and stuff like the Wild Roses theme is amazing, but the chocobo theme that is now iconic? It’s a 5 second loop that sounds like the chosen sound font was “the last gasp of a canary dying from gas being in the mine.”

I don’t have much to say about Final Fantasy II. Playing it is like being Sisyphus rolling the rock up the mountain but the rock is shaped like a rhombus and never gets rolling. It’s all pain and no gain. For every step forward Final Fantasy II takes, it stumbles backward 7 steps like the town drunkard. It has a lot of big ideas but no plan to execute them well. The ultimania behind the scenes interview with the devs sums it up best “We didn’t have time to really flesh out the ideas we had.” Really, because I couldn’t tell. It’s not like half the spells in the game don’t work. Again. I wouldn’t suggest you play this game except for completionism sake, or if your parents are making you go to a therapist who insists this is a better outlet for psychotic energy than letting you torture the neighborhood pets for fun.

Final Fantasy III:

Final Fantasy III, the final game released on the NES is one that brings a lot of confusion for the western audience. You see, Final Fantasy III was released in Japan a month and a half before the release of the Super Famicom. Because of this, Squaresoft was reluctant to spend money translating it, as they had a new title coming out made exclusively for the SNES the next year. That title was Final Fantasy IV. But, they then also decided that westerners were too stupid to play RPGs, so they just didn’t bring IV or V over until the Final Fantasy Origins Anthology collection on the PS1. Younger fans have no idea of this, but older lovers of the series will remember when Final Fantasy VI was called Final Fantasy III because again, Americans are dumbo brained and can’t be trusted to count. Long, pointless affectation about the origins of the name aside, the real Final Fantasy III is easily the most approachable classic game in the series. Not just because of the excellent recent pixel remaster, but because it has a fantastic and readily available 3D remake as well. For this review I’ll be reviewing the 3D Remake of the game, but I’ll talk about the original where applicable.

Final Fantasy III starts with a boy falling into an under ground cave and being chosen by a crystal of the elements to be a destined hero. This is basically like if Tony Stark said “Jarvis, write me a generic RPG plot.” but again, just having any story context is a triumph for an NES JRPG. Small steps. The boy returns to his village where he sets out with his childhood friends to fulfill his destiny. The story here even in the remake is nothing to write home about, it just about gets the job done, but having actual story events that play out and progress the plot at regular intervals is actually a revelation. The 3D remake adds some character stuff and some much needed personality into the onion kids (that’s their official title.) The remake is generally lighthearted. It almost takes after Dragon Quest in this sense. A lot of episodic adventures with separate goals that lead up into the overarching story. It’s a huge step up from the other two games thus far, although I am comparing them to a remake.

The gameplay is where Final Fantasy III shines. This job system is bare bones compared to something like Bravely Default or Final Fantasy XII’s Zodiac system, but it’s still a damn fun and intuitive system. You’ve got your standard fantasy classes, Warrior/Thief/White mage/Black mage/Red Mage. But now you also have access to new classes like Dragoons, Summoners and Dark Knights among others. These all became series staple classes and make the game hugely fun to play and replay. The only issue with the class system is that there are some parts of the game that railroad you into certain builds, and that’s kind of obnoxious. For example there’s an entire section of the game where you are shrunk down in size, and because of this your physical attacks do next to nothing. So the entire party has to be magic users. I am very traditionalist when it comes to job systems, I just want to use the jobs I want to use and not have to switch, so this was a bit of a weak point for me. I appreciate the idea of adding a variety of challenges, but I’m stubborn about this stuff and prefer just being able to use the classes I want the whole game.

On top of this though, Final Fantasy III is ridiculously well paced game for a classic RPG. I barely had to do any grinding in the remake, and even including that, it is constantly going from one idea to the next so the game never slows down too much. FF III has way more side content than previous games in the series. Between getting all the summons, collecting the different air ships, treasure from optional dungeons, ultimate weapons, character side quests etc, this is a meaty game to sink your teeth into, especially when you add in all the post game content added in the remake. The game is pretty short and sweet for a JRPG, probably about 20-25 hours for most people, but completionists will hardly feel hung out to dry with all the added content.

The art style of the remake is pretty divisive. I love games with this art style like the Bravely series and a whole swath of early to mid-2000’s Nippon Ichi-soft RPGs, and I really don’t mind it here. It’s simple and appealing though I will say, I’m a sucker for good pixel art and the Pixel Remaster honestly looks spectacular, maybe even better than the remake. The songs from this soundtrack won’t find themselves in anybody’s upper echelon of Final Fantasy tracks, but the soundtrack as whole (specifically the reorchestrated OST in the remake) is incredibly pleasant. The remake also adds in full voice acting which helps lend some more personality to the cast and is a welcome upgrade over the older versions of the game.

Final Fantasy III is just a damn good traditional JRPG. I don’t have the same emotional attachment to it that I do with later games in the series, so I just don’t have a ton to write, but I feel very confident in recommending this one whereas the other NES games maybe not so much. It evokes the same spirit of a game I personally love, Dragon Quest III. It’s a lighthearted adventure where the world just seems bigger than it is. A world where just over the next continent can be unfound treasures, monsters and jobs to find. It’s the kind of game where the simplicity in the systems leads to a title that is more than the sum of its parts. Final Fantasy III isn’t just the best Final Fantasy game on the NES, I would say it’s probably along with the first couple DQ games, the best JRPG on the entire system and definitely in the upper third of Final Fantasy games. It’s hard to say a remake “holds up well” but this game at its core is still fun, and I think that makes a game made before I was born stand the test of time really well. Final Fantasy III is also a phenomenally paced game which makes it so much more accessible than other classic RPGs to players that aren’t going to be into the quirks of the retro JRPG experience. Well, except for the Crystal Tower which is like trying to thread the eye of a needle while you’re currently recovering from a botched corneal transplant if you hate JRPG tedium. The 3D remake is absolutely amazing, but if you want something more close to the classic retro experience, play the Pixel Remaster.