The original Final Fantasy shouldn’t be modernized

Final Fantasy It started for me as a fantasy. In 1991, no one I knew had the game on the NES, and there was no internet to talk about in my house. Instead of owning the game, all he had was a Nintendo Power Final Fantasy strategy guide packed with over 100 pages of Western maps, tactics, and paintings of heroes, monsters, and missions.

Over the years, he would get a chance to not only play the original game, but enough remakes to shake up a Warmech. Everyone wants to visit an old classic from time to time, but what happens when the new versions, while more accessible to modern players, lose some of the vibrancy and vigor of the original? There is a fine line between fun and frustration.

Back then, I made a friend who had every video game system known to man and more (he was the only guy with an Atari Jaguar on his Christmas list that would actually get one!). In the back of his huge stash of games, he dug up Final Fantasy on the NES to borrow. The half mile walk back home has never been so quick!

Booting up the game on the NES in my room, hooked up via a wobbly coaxial splitter to the little mono RCA TV, I was taken to a land of elves, pirates, and ogres. Each turn-based battle required a lot of focus to win. If I tried to stack all my party members against an enemy who died in a flash, most of my attacks were wasted on my party members attacking an empty space where the enemy used to be. Instead, I had to make real tactical decisions, estimating which party members did the right amounts of damage to make sure my every move counted.

different to Dragon warrior, the first role-playing game I ever played, Final Fantasy required magic users to purchase spells from a store. To make matters worse for magic, he was stuck with a limited number of spells that he could cast unless he slept in an inn or portable home. Each spell felt like a valuable token to use only in emergencies against tough enemies or bosses. At first this pissed me off; He was more used to earning spells by gaining experience levels and using a group of magic points to cast them (not just Dragon warrior use this system, but the Final Fantasy series would adopt it starting with Final fantasy iv). Once I got used to the limited spellcasting per day, I quite enjoyed it. He couldn’t spam spells that much because they were of such a limited number. Like Indiana Jones examining the possible holy grails to drink from, I had to “choose wisely.”

About a decade later, I bought Final Fantasy origins on the PS1. Released more than two years after the launch of the PS2 in the US, Final Fantasy origins featured remakes of the first 2 Famicom Final Fantasy games with SNES-style sprites. While the real draw for most fans was the debut of an official English translation of Final fantasy ii in the US, I was more interested in reproducing the remake of the original Final Fantasy. To the constant annoyance of my college roommate, I would get up early before class and sit on the rickety dorm stool to spend hours working until the time-traveling Edgelord Chaos was defeated.

Despite having fun, something was missing. Characters leveled up a bit too fast. When i first played Final Fantasy On the NES, the ogres outside of Elfheim were a real challenge, taking down the party’s members in one fell swoop. In this origins version, they fell to my sword with ease. Talk about ogre doing it!

Almost two decades after playing Final Fantasy origins, Buy the (a little expensive) Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster game pack on Steam. Only the first three games were available at launch, so I dived into Final Fantasy I. If I thought Final Fantasy origins It was so easy, the Pixel Remaster version threw me through a nasty loop.

After playing through the menus (Yoshitaka Amano’s concept art image gallery was fantastic to watch and see how close and / or far the pixelated versions hit or miss), I jumped into the game itself.

A new prologue opens the story. The world is in tatters. The new sparkling water effects show a rough sea, and the exterior of the various dungeons appears threatening. It’s not much, but it sets the stage better than leaving you in the outside world like the original did.

After completing the initial quest to rescue Princess Sarah from the bastard knight Garland, something felt wrong. The auto battle feature, while avoiding tedium, makes the main part of the game trivial. As much as fans may not want to admit it, most of their time in these early Final Fantasy games is spent polishing their characters until they become buff bois who can fight the next boss.

While auto battle is optional, it’s hard to resist its large button staring you in the face, subtly calling out to you in every fight with its fast-forward iconography. Making battles automatic and super fast takes away a lot of agency from the player. I have fond memories as a child of spending hours polishing all the fantastic bestiary while listening to the epic Uetmatsu soundtrack or listening to a favorite audio cassette in the background. I am concerned that the way battles keep throwing the automated icon in your face is overly encouraging players to enjoy the game without the difficulty or depth, missing out on some features that make the game so special, even if they are not so easy.

Weapons and items are cheap too, unlike the original where everything was expensive and buying a new piece of gear seemed like you really had to earn it. Limited spell uses are offset by including the Ether element introduced in later games, which allows players to reset the number of times spells can be cast. A somewhat annoying change is being able to turbo-speed around towns and cities, when part of the fun of the game is stopping to smell the pixelated roses or listen to the inspired rearrangements of Nobuo Uematsu’s legendary melodies.

Final Fantasy I Pixel Remaster it is an often frustrating experience. The modified sprites are tastefully done, so they scale very well on modern monitors, and their take on the classical score is amazing. I really appreciate how it allows new players to revisit a classic from not just the Final Fantasy series, but the console RPG genre itself.

The inconsistent coat of paint Square Enix applied to the Final Fantasy games this time (se does it have better graphics and sound, but no having the previous GBA bonus dungeons and mobile ports) muddies the water. Depending on the age of the player, their first Final Fantasy might not have been the original version at all; therefore the Pixel Remasters do not represent the Final Fantasy version them grew up in. Modern gamers can find the picaresque plot of the original Final Fantasy boring and replay-inducing random battles, but that’s the point of retro 8-bit JRPGs. Coming home to an old favorite doesn’t mean you have to take the easy street shortcut.

As retro releases become more and more common with each generation of consoles (like Castlevania Collection or Rare Replay), I hope we don’t stray too far from the heart of the originals. Many of the features of a video game may seem outdated, but they are part of the core experience of the game. It is important to show respect for the source material, even if it can be difficult at times. The thrill of victory is extinguished if it is handed to them on a silver platter. These Pixel Remasters are many things, but being totally faithful isn’t one of them.