So I’ve been having a lot of fun replaying all the Zelda games recently. But… I didn’t want to play all of them in a row. I felt that there needed to be a little bit of a buffer in between each game. I decided to start yet another beloved RPG franchise that’ll take me years to finish: Final Fantasy!

So, with that said, let’s dive into another amazing series that I have loved for a long long time.

Now, I want to say that I have only played the original Final Fantasy once before. I played the Final Fantasy Origins edition. This is essentially a remastered version of Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy 2 on the Playstation 1. However, for this play through, I played what is commonly considered the best version: the PSP version of Final Fantasy. This actually changes my review heavily. I remember the Origins version being a bit of a slog and not really memorable. But! The PSP version looked gorgeous and kept me coming back. I truly enjoyed this play through of Final Fantasy much more than my first time through.

Really, the main difference that I noticed between the Origins version and the PSP version is something stupid though. The ship that the Warriors of Light travel on changed its rewards for the slide puzzle mini game (Well and the ultima weapon, but that was bonus anyway). Yeah… it’s that stupid. But! Surprisingly, this has a huge impact on how I played the game. You see I LOVE slide puzzles. I have practiced them a ton and am rather good at them.

Anyway, the puzzle gives you HUGE amounts of Gil (the in game currency) in the Origins version, but only gives you helpful items in the PSP version. So in my original play through, I grinded millions of Gil easily through this slide puzzle. But in the PSP version, I just had a ton of gold needles (Which helps your warriors cure stone). Which seems like a bad trade, (in fact I was disappointing that I couldn’t break the game this play through at first) but it strangely made it more enjoyable. I actually had to work for all that Gil. I had to save up to buy spells and the best armor. I couldn’t just grind the slide puzzle and be decked out in the best armor before reaching level ten. I had to try.

But… I didn’t have to try too hard. Even though I had to save up in the beginning, the back half of the game gives Gil out like candy and I quickly found myself with more Gil than I could ever use. But not breaking the early parts of the game really made it much more enjoyable.

As for the difficulty outside of breaking the game, Final Fantasy isn’t that difficult. The game seems to have a really nice leveling system and I never had to grind for levels. It’s balanced to near perfection. You never have to grind, but you certainly can get destroyed if not paying attention. That is, until the final boss. The final boss really can destroy you. Not to mention the fight can take upwards of thirty minutes of slowly chipping away at its health. In fact, when I looked up a strategy after failing the boss, the strategy writer just said “you have to get lucky on this fight.” Because even after chipping away for thirty minutes, the boss can fully heal itself, making you start all over again. It’s sort of a frustrating fight if you don’t know what you’re doing. Luckily, you can also continually buff a single fighter because the buff spells stack. This sort of obliterates the final boss in a couple minutes. But it doesn’t feel the same as breaking the game like I did in my first play through. It feels like you simply outsmarted the boss by abusing your spells. It still feels satisfying to abuse these buffs.

The game only has four dungeons and four bosses really. With a lot of back-tracking in between. Most of the game has you traveling from one place to the next on what are essentially fetch quests. Which isn’t bad, but honestly the majority of this game is highly forgettable. The dungeons are really cool, however, and the bosses are super fun. I also really loved the optional dungeons they added in the PSP version. Some of which contain the best weapons and armor in the game (including the added ultima weapon in a grueling 40 floor dungeon with bosses from other Final Fantasy games!). These dungeons really up the value of the first Final Fantasy, but they aren’t there in the original version of the game. Which makes this review a little weird. The original version of the game probably isn’t worth playing. But the PSP version definitely is for hardcore Final Fantasy fans. But! Even with all the added content, the PSP version is still really short. It took me around 16 hours to do everything. Needless to say that is NOTHING for a Final Fantasy game. Hell, Final Fantasy 13 takes 20 hours before you’re past the tutorial.

As for the actual game play… Well there isn’t much to write here. It’s a turn-based Final Fantasy (my personal favorite) and it’s really basic in terms of that. There are spells you can choose, but other than that you can do a physical attack. That’s it. I guess you can defend, but there is little to no reason to do that during the game. The magic in the PSP version uses a regular MP system. But the original Final Fantasy only lets you use a certain amount of each level of spell. The original system led to some interesting conservation of spells during big fights, but the MP system simply works better.

But that’s it! You’ll end up spamming your x button a lot as you auto-pilot through battle after battle. You really don’t have to worry about strategy anywhere outside of the boss battles. Which leads to a HUGE amount of encounters where you just turn your brain off. I think this is the biggest flaw in the game. Sure there are really fun fights sprinkled throughout, but a lot of the game boils down to spamming attacks and getting the fights over quickly. At least for me.

The Wrapup

Final Fantasy does a lot of things right, but it boils down to something that’s simply forgettable. I hate to say it, but the original Final fantasy isn’t something that anyone outside the Final Fantasy fandom should play. The game is extremely basic even after being updated and remastered multiple times. The story is nothing to write home about (even though it throws a time travel aspect in at the final hour). You can change which classes you play with, which adds some depth to the game, but not much. The leveling system is near perfect and you feel like you’re always right on the line of being not strong enough for your next fight. But, this also leads to a feeling of the game being a little too easy at parts. Then, the game shoves this all down your throat at the end with a fight that requires pure luck if you don’t plan on abusing the buff spells.

I, personally, loved this play through and really enjoyed the game and the lore that comes along with it. But I’m not going to say this is for everyone. In fact, I think this game should only be played if you’re die hard and want to play every final fantasy. There are just so many good Final Fantasy games out there, it’s hard to recommend this one. With that said, the game does an amazing job and what it does well, but offers little else.

Because of this, I give the original Final fantays a 2 out of 4.

I loved it and kept coming back, but I don’t think this is a game I’ll want to revisit for a long long time.