Final Fantasy I: the original classic! Final Fantasy II: only one of it's kind, and maybe that's for the best...
The first game, the original Final Fantasy (I) is the foundation of every final fantasy game to ever come since. The story of Final Fantasy may not be novel today, but in 1987 it helped define video game storytelling and has become a classic premise: A band of heroes take on an ultimate evil from destroying the world. Players choose four classes for their four heroes and begin their journey. You'll travel lands, encounter monsters you must defeat to level up, and take on powerful bosses. To help survive, you'll purchase items including equipment allowing you to fight better, magic to cast powerful offensive and defensive spells, and other amenities to aid you on your quest. The gameplay is perfectly linear and as long as you pay attention to conversations will have no problem progressing through this game rather quickly. Also, the game has updated graphics, and four extra dungeons for you to explore ending with several familiar bosses from other Final Fantasy titles. It's the 1987 original so this game is not as in depth as many of the titles that have evolved from it, but Final Fantasy is still very fun, very addicting, and a classic that every fan of the series should play, if not own!
Now onto the second game included with Dawn of Souls, Final Fantasy II. 2003 marked the introduction of this title to North America, even though it was released in Japan in 1988. Lovers of the first Final Fantasy (and all the other games too) will notice the introduction of a different leveling system. Each character's traits grow based upon the actions you take in battles. The same is true with magic. Each character has the availability to learn 16 magic spells of any type (black or white), and they grow based on their usage too. Final Fantasy II is the only entry in all the years of the franchise to use this growth system. Clever, but this system did have some problems early on. However, in the end the system was different, fun to experiment with, and your character builds really became specific. Although for some players, this may not leave your heroes as versatile or adaptable as they may like. What I consider to be the big problem with Final Fantasy II is the lack of barriers in the overworld in contrast to story and level progression. What I mean by this is when traveling, if you happen to stray away from the designers desired path, you will probably encounter monsters that will wipe out your entire party in no time flat. This is particularly evil early on in your game. Overall, the story is standard for Final Fantasy and it was a fun play once you really got your game going. It certainly wasn't the best of the Final Fantasies; it felt like an experimentation that just didn't work out as well as it looked on paper, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't fun.
The inclusion of the Bestiaries with each title is a fun add-on for completionists (like myself). While there are a couple of rare beasts that you could spend hours wandering a single dungeon floor for, most you easily encounter on your journey, and once defeated for the first time gets an entry logged in your database offering all the information you need to know the next time you encounter it.
So in the end if I could give both games included in Dawn of Souls a separate score I would. Final Fantasy I, a perfect 10, but Final Fantasy II perhaps a 7.0.