(Wii VC Review) Because of it's superior remakes it's hard to look back at this old Fantasy where it began but anyone...
Game Title: Final Fantasy
Platform: NES (Wii Virtual Console)
Developer: Square Enix
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Fantasy Role Playing Game
Age Rating: 3+ PEGI
Release Date: NES JP December 17 1987, NA July 12 1990, Virtual Console JP May 26 2009, NA October 5 2009, PAL May 7 2010
Download Price: 500 Nintendo Points (600 Nintendo Points for European Players)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Game Score: 5.5/10
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Summery:
Because of it's superior remakes it's hard to look back at this old Fantasy where it began but anyone who's old school enough to take on it's hardcore difficulty and heavy amount of grinding will find a challenge fans won't forget.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rewinding the clock all the way to 1987 when a little known game company called Square when they had a line of unsuccessful titles. They had one more shot at redemption and then created Final Fantasy for the Famicom. (Japanese NES) It made a release in North America in 1990 but it's unfortunate it never came to Europe but because of it's future remakes on the PlayStation, GBA and PSP helped the release the original version on the Wii Virtual Console as an import to the UK for the first time. Needless to say that unless you have any of it's remakes then you should consider the NES version a History Lesson of where the franchise began.
When you start the game you'll get a choice of creating your party of 6 different Class types such as Fighter, Thief, Black Belt, Red Mage, White Mage, and Black Mage and each of these classes have their own strengths and weaknesses. If you get very far into the game you'll be able to upgrade these classes into far more powerful classes and have more abilities to use. There are many different possibilities in creating different party combinations but you'll have to chose your party carefully if you want to succeed.
All that needs to be mentioned about the plot is that the World is in peril and it's up to 4 Warriors of Light to make the 4 Crystals of the Elements shine again. Each Town you visit will have different problems to face such as Princess being kidnapped, Pirates in Town, a Sleeping Prince and so forth and mostly it's primary source is the Dungeon with a boss to deal with. For 1987 this was epic for it's time but unfortunately there's no plot or any character development to be noted.
First off you'll start out on the World Map fighting monsters, go into a dungeon to find some Tresure hidden inside Chests and take on a big boss at the end and then recovering inside a friendly town. In towns you can heal up at an Inn but Inn's don't remove Status Effects like Poison, Equipment stores to give you better gear as well as Items in order to survive. Inn's and also are your only way of Saving your Progress unlike in the remakes where you can Save anywhere, also for Equipment you'll buy there's no way of telling what Equipment is Stronger or Weaker unless you Equip it and keep going into the Characters Status screen every time to see the difference which becomes tedious especially for new Weapons that you'll find in Treasure Chests. Most Dungeons are straight forward but occasionally you'll find different pathways and open doors which can lead to useful Treasure. Unlike in the remakes you'll won't find any side-quests or any of the unlocking side dungeons for beating the 4 fiends, but for 500 Nintendo Points at it's length it takes over 60+ Hours for the lengthy grinding, traveling and doing very challenging Battles that you'll be doing in the game.
Most of the time in Final Fantasy will be taken place inside turn based encounters where both your party and up to 9 different Enemy Type Monsters take turns to attack each other. The battles in the game remain as impressive and challenging if not for it's flaws. Your Mage characters use Magic spells which can only purchased from Magic Shops and your Mages can only hold up 3 different spells per level so you have to chose carefully, also to take note that Red Mages can use both Black and White Magic but they can't use every one of those spells so be careful when using them. Just like with Equipment it's difficult to find out what Magic spells does what unless you've played the remakes before. The battles can be extremely difficult meaning that soon you'll be needing to grind just that you'll survive. More problems you'll have is that Magic used charges before MP came in later sequels and only resting restores charges. Also is that there's in effective attacks, whenever one ally kills a monster before a another ally takes a shot at him your attack or even worse magical charges would be wasted. Again this was okay for 1987 but the Gameplay has shown it's age meaning that the remakes are far superior.
Final Fantasy is emulated quite well on the Virtual Console, everything you might or might not remember from 1987 from 8-Bit character design and animations which where some of the most advanced graphics that gamers had ever experienced before since it was the first RPG that showed the heroes on side of the screen opposite their opponents on the left allowing gamers to see who was attacking who. The soundtrack was impressive and in 8-Bit it still sounds great to this day as well as Sound Effects, everything that was well looking and sounded many years ago.
If you have either Origins on the PlayStation, Dawn of Souls on the GBA or the 20th Anniversary Edition on the PSP the all I can say is that there's no need to download this for Wii Virtual even for it's 500 Nintendo Points Download Price (600 Nintendo Points to Europeans) but to anyone else who's looking thirsty for a challenge you'll find it with this History Lesson. Because of it's superior remakes it's hard to look back at this old Fantasy where it began but anyone who's old school enough to take on it's hardcore difficulty and heavy amount of grinding will find a challenge fans won't forget.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Pros:
1. Plenty of different Classes and different Party Combinations which change different Game-play styles
2. A lengthy Quest that takes hours to go through as well as challenging Battles
The Bads:
1. Annoying ineffective attacks which makes the Battle system really dated
2. No Optional Side Dungeons since this is the NES version
3. Extremely difficult in battles and sorting out Equipment for your characters becomes Tedious
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (BlaZer91)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------