Final Fantasy Origins

As anyone who knows me can attest, I've been a huge fan of Final Fantasy since before the first game came out. I first saw it at the Nintendo World Championships, Philadelphia division, in 1989. I got it for my birthday, which was about two weeks after its official release. And the rest, as they say, is history.

So, as you'd imagine, I eagerly awaited Final Fantasy Origins, not only for the first appearance of Final Fantasy 2 on these shores, but also to once again play Square's take on Dungeons and Dragons, which started a paradigm shift in my gaming habits. Instead, what I have is a memorial to my childhood.

Final Fantasy

As always you have to start at the beginning. This game, originally planned as the producer's last project for Square (and thus why the word "Final" is in the series), it revolves around four faceless heroes, who are out to restore balance to the world after four Fiends have taken control of the powers of Earth, Fire, Water, and Wind. And, of course, the evil that ties them together.

Most people make the mistake that this plot is as simplistic as the other role-playing games of the day, such as Ultima: Exodus or the first several Dragon Warrior games. Admittedly, for most of the game, that appears so, as you are the only ones brave enough to stand against the decay of the world. But once the Fiends are defeated, and the game still hasn't ended, you get to deal with betrayal upon betrayal, and the potential collapse of the universe in perhaps one of the hardest endings to understand.

But yet, that's what makes it one of the greatest endings ever. It doesn't come easy, and it's not easy to understand, but once you hash it out, it makes a beautifully sad amount of sense. In the past, the game play was only part of the reason I'd run through the game repeatedly. I played it to see that ending again, because I understood it, and maybe identified with it a bit.

One problem the game does have, though, is that there is no character development among the heroes. You start off by picking their classes, which are improved halfway through the game, and you have to assign names, they have no dialogue whatsoever, nothing. I guess I'm used to it, having started off on games like this, but at the same time, I must recognize that the lack of personalities is a drawback for the game.

The battle system, though, is where I find the most drawbacks. Basically, it has been radically altered. It used to be that it was turn based, and you had to select your target in battle carefully - you would always perform an action on that target, even if they had already been killed. You did have to have some strategy to it - otherwise, your characters would waste turns attacking dead air, and you'd end up slaughtered. And heaven help you if you did - you couldn't revive a fallen member in battle.

This has all changed now. Battle commands now default to not being sticky - if you’re old target has perished, then you automatically shift to a new target. Not only that, but revivification is possible in battles. While it is a saving grace that you can turn off both options (and you can pinpoint the old-school Final Fantasy players because they do turn off both options), that the game has to be dumbed down for new players frustrates me.

Along similar lines, the reorganization of equipment drives me batty. I know that assigning four weapons and four pieces of armor to a character, and not allowing them access to a shared bag beyond curing potions and antidotes, is behind the times. If you want to revisit past times, you should stick with what they had then. Now that anyone can access the collective bag, anyone could use an item with a secondary effect, like the Light Axe, at any time. This is especially absurd with the Knight Gloves, formerly the Power Gauntlets. They have the special ability to boost your attack in battle. Before, only one person could get away with doing this in battle. Now, in the matter of four turns, your entire party can beef up their attack with no magic expenditure. This game seriously did not need to be made easier.

Perhaps that is to compensate for the fact that the bosses are much more beefy. Most enemies in the game have not really been touched. A couple, like the Ogre Mages and the Werewolves, have some small regeneration now. But for the most part, the normal enemies are as they were originally. But the Fiends and the final boss, Chaos, have all gotten more hit points - as much as twice as much as before. In addition, the scourge of the Sky Palace, and the nightmare of 8-bit gamers everywhere, the WarMech, has not only gotten double the old hit points, but now regenerates 100 hit points a round. I really wish that, if they wanted to beef everything up, they had just presented a hard mode. I mean, yeah, I would have played it, of course.

They did, however, include an Easy Mode. This mode, in which you level up quickly and get more magic, is a good intro to the game for new players. Of course, I wish they had left the new features, which I complained about above, in this version only. Normal Mode should be what we all had to go through normally in the past. It really should be called Update Mode.

Also, just one last side note for newcomers. As I said, this game was just an adaptation of Dungeons and Dragons. Thus, instead of magic points as you are used to, spells fall under division by levels, and you can only use so many of each level per day. Yes, this does lead to goofy things such as running out of Level 1 spells and still being able to cast Level 5 spells (my White Wizard has pulled that feat off multiple times). While I'm glad that they kept that constant, there is a good reason that every single other installment, except the third, abandoned this idea.

Of course, given that we can't just have 8 bit graphics on a Playstation game, the whole game has gotten a makeover. This is perhaps where the update fares the best. To begin, everything is recognizable from its old incarnation. The difference is, though, that the level of detail makes you see exactly what the characters were supposed to be. I always wondered what the Creeps of the first game were. But when I saw the Abyss Worms of this game, I finally understood what they were supposed to be. Easily the best retouch job I've ever seen on a re-release.

The sound has also improved, although not quite as much as the graphics. Nobuo Uematsu did his best updating the sound, but some of it just seems slightly off. Not that I'm not going to buy the soundtrack, but I really think that they could have done better. One nice touch, though, is that the game finally has boss music. Before, there was only one type of battle music, but now bosses get their own theme. A nice and classy touch.

Oh, are you still wondering about the Abyss Worms I mentioned before? Well, as you can guess, they've seriously overhauled the translation. The monster names received the most improvement. Abyss Worm sounds much better than Creep, Piscodemon makes much more sense than Wizard since they don't use spells, and since Square doesn't fear TSR's copyright lawyers anymore, Marilith doesn't have to pretend she's Kary, the Fiend of Fire anymore. (But yeah, I'm still always going to call her Kary.)

However, outside of battle, the names just sound stupid. Sarda actually sounds like a sage. Sadda, as he is now, sounds like someone's kid brother. Coneria sounds like a magnificent country. Cornelia sounds like a backwater farming town. I won't even get into my thoughts on Lukahn versus Lukin. Or Onrac versus Onlak. Or Nerrick versus Nelic. Basically, I think that, for outside of the battle, the translator should have compared his notes to the old notes. His just weren't as good.

Perhaps the most indicative sign that this game isn't quite what it once was appears in the optional minigame, the sliding tiles. You know those sliding tile games, where you have the tiles numbered 1-15 in a 4 by 4 grid, and you have to put them in order? It's there in the game, and you used to get a small prize of 100 gold for it. Now, you can potentially earn 10,100 gil, in addition to one of each type of potion. Why did this suddenly have to become a get-rich-quick scheme? It worked best as a simple game with a small reward, but now it's simply a mockery of what I used to fiddle around with when I wanted to distract myself for a minute or two.

Finally, I have to mention what I enjoyed the most - the galleries. It's neat that the game has in-game galleries of treasure and monsters fought - the original came with charts you could follow for the same reason. Having it in-game was a nice touch. But the better touch was having a gallery of Amano's concept art for everything. Easily one of Japan's best artists in recent years, the galleries of his original really make me appreciate everything that they tried to do with this game way back in the day.

Final Fantasy 2

Not, not the SNES game released under that name - that was the fourth in the series, and if you didn't pick it up when it came out as Final Fantasy Chronicles, then you must buy me a t-shirt from Gameskins.com as penance. OK, so I just want a t-shirt, but off that tangent, this is the second game of the series, appearing here for the first time without requiring a mod chip and a knowledge of fantasy anime Japanese.

First, I have to note that this game begins in my favorite fashion. It starts with your characters being cornered by some incredibly powerful enemies and getting slaughtered, absolutely pasted. It sounds perverse that I like it so much, but I feel that it throws you into the plot right away - no getting comfortable; you are hunted and need to be destroyed. Paranoid yet? You will be.

The plot of this game starts out much more strongly. The Emperor of Palamecia has opened a gate to the dark realms, using its power to take over the world. You start by guiding four orphans from Fynn, which the Emperor's men have just sacked. Three, Firion, Maria, and Gus, manage to be brought to Altair, where the remnants of Fynn gather for rebellion against the empire. But meanwhile, Maria's brother Leon is still missing, and the Emperor's plans are not yet complete. Firion and his friends gather together to help stand against the Emperor.

In terms of plot, this game is much more straightforward than the previous game, although the game does have some minor surprises and questions of loyalty through it all. What is more interesting, though, is the character development between the various personages. Perhaps it comes to no astonishment that this, Square's first attempt at character development, has a weaker plot, but that is made up by watching Firion mature into a leader, Maria's search for her brother, and Gus' attempts to keep innocent in the midst of a global war. In addition, the side characters are worth watching as well. Square would later be able to develop both in Final Fantasy 3, and finally perfect the process in Final Fantasy 4, so it's interesting to watch this game as they come along.

Of course, doing that presumes you don't get frustrated by the battle system first. Final Fantasy 2 is often cited by people who have played all of them as the worst in the series (though I'm still stubborn and stick by my belief that the seventh was the worst). This game does not run on experience points in any way, eschewing the advancement system used by nearly every other role-playing game ever made. It was Square's grand experiment, and by its absence in every other game, it backfired.

To put it basically, what you do in battle determines how your stats go up. Use weapons enough, your skill with weapons and strength go up. Use magic, and your skill with that spell and magic in general will go up. Take enough damage, and your hit points will go up, and so forth. You basically have experience values for everything, but unfortunately, only the values showing weapon skill and skill in individual spells are shown. You can guess, by what you do in battle, what will increase next, but it still is nigh-impossible to divine how your character will level. The only other role-playing game even remotely similar to this leveling system is, oddly enough, the Pokemon games, and even they couple this system with a standard experience system.

One nice thing, though, is that they took out the "instant power" cheat. I won't detail it, but it used to be possible to strengthen your characters to absurd levels of skill right off the bat, which is thankfully now impossible. Yes, it was even possible without cheat devices. You'll just have to bang your head in frustration along with the rest of us honest folks.

Another problem with the game is the battle system itself. When you deal with more than two ranks of enemies, you can only attack the front two ranks, except by spell usage. If you decide to go with the classic setup, where again you cannot switch your target if it died, then you will spend quite a few battles attacking air as you can't attack certain rows. The only saving grace of this setup is that, with the exception of a couple of abilities, the enemies also cannot attack you. I'd still take the potential lumps for the right to do more in battle.

In this whole collection, though, nothing drives me as nuts as the fact that you actually have to unlock Normal Mode for Final Fantasy 2. Yes, you are stuck in Easy Mode until you can prove yourself. Given how many other cases there are of manufacturers dumbing games down for the American market, I'm just upset that they've done it again, that we have to prove we deserve the way it was originally made.

The graphics are, as before, a very nice revision. Now, I don't know how many people can compare the two, but I can, and I must say that they've done just as strong a job here as they did with the first game. This game's graphics are a touch better, which should come as no surprise since the second game would have improved graphics over the first. Most notable is the backgrounds, which are more lush than Final Fantasy's strong visuals.

The sound, though, is not quite as good. While also updated from the original, the simple fact is that Final Fantasy 2 did not have as great of a soundtrack as its predecessor. The only music that is an actual improvement is the battle music. What might be most tragic for fans is that while this game is the first appearance of a Chocobo in the series, the full Chocobo theme (in its classic form, called Chocobo Chocobo) is not present. The game does have the first couple of measures of the theme, but it doesn't come into its own until Final Fantasy 3. Similarly, nor does the rest of the music.

Similar to the previous game, this one also has a mini-game that has been given way too much importance. Basically a game of Memory, you match pictures that are hidden. And just as before, the potential rewards have gone from a pittance to breaking the bank. I suppose this update is partly because they wanted to reward those of us who remember the old days. Though, to me, a more faithful update would have been a better way to remember it.

Finally, as before, Final Fantasy 2 has the same gallery setup, but with naturally different works. I actually like this gallery better, because it has more pictures of characters, like the traitorous Borghen. You can see a greater range of Amano's artwork in this collection, and I regularly check back to it to see if I've earned any additional pieces.

Final Fantasy 3

To my eternal anguish, this game isn't present on this collection, and I want it badly. Yes, I've played it, and it is easily the best of the 8 bit Final Fantasy releases. It introduced many things furthered in later games - the Job system, regeneration, being able to scan your foes for weaknesses in battle, summon spells, Time Magic, character development parallel to plot - as well as the culmination of what it means to be Light Warriors (as you are dubbed in the first three games). Now, as the last Final Fantasy, we can only hope that the update for it is underway as we speak.

Honestly, I know that I've done little but complain about this entire package. I've found fault at nearly every aspect of the two games. Thus, that I'm going to give a high rating may astound some. But here is why I'm doing this.

You have to understand, I grew up with the first game. And I thirsted for a sequel for the longest time, and now I have it. Call me whatever crude terms you want, but these games, in each their own way, are part of my childhood. When they were re-released, I wanted them because I wanted a part of my childhood, bittersweet and terribly short, back. In the end, that's what nostalgia is after all - the desire to relive your past.

And deep down, I knew that it was a fool's dream. Nostalgia is an illusion, where we paint our youth in halcyon colors and even the hurt gets whitewashed and remembered fondly. I'm guilty of that here. Thus, seeing Ogre Mages regenerate hit points was shattering my own illusions. Walking from Cornelia to the Temple of Chaos, instead of Coneria and the Temple of Fiends, was walking over my own facade. It laid bare the life I led, and not the life I wanted to remember. And I became bitter and sarcastic because of that.

The end result is the critic before you. That I found so many flaws with the game does show it isn't perfect. But it's as much an indictment of myself as of Square's current update team. I can't relive the past, and I've come to realize that I don't want to even if I can't disassociate my feelings for this game from that reality. So here are my thoughts. Play this to understand where Final Fantasy, which has done so much for gaming in general, has come from. Play this to appreciate how good things were even back then, even if they aren't really the same. But if you want what you had before, save your cash. Time and gaming has moved on - even if I haven't fully.