The Game that Started it All: Final Fantasy
7 / 10
This article contains minor spoilers for Final Fantasy 1. If you have not yet played and don’t want the game spoiled for you, please save this read for after you have played.
So I’ve been hooked to the Final Fantasy franchise recently, picking up all of the first five Final Fantasy games in the franchise. While from my experience so far, they are much easier than some of the later instalments, that doesn’t stop them from being just as great. Of course, I had to kick things off with the first game in the franchise, and the game that saved SqareSoft from bankruptcy back when it was released, earning its place as one of the most iconic JRPG franchises alongside the likes of Dragon Quest and Pokemon.
Of course, the first instalment introduced us to some of the most famous monsters in Final Fantasy history, some of them even being used in the latest games including; goblins, sahagins (Which were even one of the beast tribes in Final Fantasy 14), cockatrices and ochus. I know what you’re wondering, ‘What about chocobos?’ Well, while in the original version of Final Fantasy 1, in the pixel remaster they make a cameo whenever somebody uses the black magic spell confuse, which will cause four chocobos to spin around the victim’s head.
When you begin a new game in Final Fantasy, you are given your four characters and are allowed to change each of their classes, as well as their names, to your
liking, so you can have a fully customised party throughout the game. I’d
recommend always having a white mage since their healing magic is unmatched and
can learn far more white magic than any other class. Other than that though,
the other three can be whatever you like! The options are Thief, Red Mage,
White Mage, Black Mage, Warrior and Monk. For my playthrough, I chose to use a
Thief, Warrior, Redmage and White Mage, which gave me plenty of options for
both defence and offence and choosing a Red Mage instead of a Black Mage meant
I had that extra bit of healing power for when situations got just a bit too
dire!
Around halfway through the story, your party’s classes change into jobs. This of
course became a common feature in a handful of Final Fantasy games, including
Final Fantasy 12, and Final Fantasy 14. Thieves will become Ninjas, Red Mages
will become Red Wizards, Black Mages will become Black Wizards, White Mages
will become White Wizards, Warriors will become Knights and Monks will become
Masters. This will give all your characters a major stat boost and also give
them access to new spells from the shops.
As far as the story of the game goes, it’s nothing to write home about compared to other Final Fantasy games like 7, 8, 9, and 10, which was in my opinion the golden
age of Final Fantasy storylines. Despite that though, it isn’t bad by any
means! You’re sent to the world through the power of the crystals and become
the Warriors of Light. Your first quest is to rescue the king’s daughter from
the clutches of Garland in the Chaos Shrine. This shouldn’t take any longer
than 10 to 15 minutes, and once you’re finished you unlock access to the rest
of the map. You must go to each of the crystals around the map and restore
their magic to save the world. When this is done, you must return to the Chaos
Shrine from the beginning of the game which will send you back in time and task
you with killing Chaos! Of course, a lot happens along the way here, but I
don’t want to give too much away!
One last thing I want to mention is achievements! You all know that I’m a huge
achievement hunter, which is why I was thrilled with the fact I could grab all
the achievements in a single 20-hour playthrough, which is great! One
particular feature I enjoyed that helped me do this, is that on the map screen,
it shows you how many chests are in a particular area making it easy to go
through every area collecting all of the chests in the entire game!
If you’re a Final Fantasy fan, I’d say that this game is a must-play purely for the fact it gives you some great insight into how the series began, and how it evolved, which I find interesting! Not only that, it has great replay value with the choice of classes that you use and what spells you’d like to teach them.
