Once revolutionary,this game hasn't aged well and if it wasn't for the extra challenges, it would be quite boring.
Final Fantasy I has none of these.
In its defense, it was the first of the series and all these things were added in later games, this first game is FF role playing at its most basic. It's quite arcade-y in a sense, you could pick it up, pick your team from White, Black and Red Mages and be at the final dungeon slashing at Chaos with Excalibur and Masamune within a few hours.
That's because this game is mind-numbingly easy, it's pretty to look at, but tapping X every time you get into a battle is usually enough to defeat most common enemies. Status effects never affected my characters, and I hardly ever needed to heal from the point where my characters changed to their advanced classes.
If it wasn't for the dungeons from the GBA games and a new, PSP exclsuive one then I'd say don't bother with this game unless you really want to see Final Fantasy roots, there isn't much resembling the games you've come to know and love. Because these dungeons are quite challenging, in a good way it's worth picking up if you're an FF or RPG fan, the dungeons are a nostalgia tour of the first six games and some of the random floors will force you to think and work things out. Unfortunately you have to play through the 'story' first to open them up and be strong enough to challenge them.
That's not all the PSP version has that makes it the best version available. Graphically it looks amazing, very high quality hand-drawn graphics and a remastered soundtrack. It's the best looking version of the game and makes the game look very modern, the same can be said for the CGI opening from the PlayStation version, it holds up suprisingly well. The soundtrack has been remastered, though it lacks much emotion, because the story doesn't call for it, although there are some tracks with catchy hooks.
Final Fantasy was a groundbreaking RPG on first release, having multiple enemies in one battle AND your party on screen at the same time. Nowadays, it serves as a pretty game which you can power through several hours and a nostalgic challenge beyond that. The game is still deserving of a remake though, because if it wasn't for this, Square's "Final" Fantasy then my favourite series (and one of the most successful) would never have existed.
GRAPHICS: High Quality. Hand-drawn. Widescreen (8)
SOUND: Can be catchy but a bit shallow mostly (6)
GAMEPLAY:Barely the right side of mind-numbing (4)
OVERALL: The extras far outweigh the main quest 6.5/10