Recently, I have decided to complete every Final Fantasy
game in their numerical order. I wanted to gauge story and mechanics against
each other, so I figured beating them in the order they were created would be
the best way to do so. I have only made it through the first four right now,
but I should have the core collection almost complete by the end of the year.
Starting with Final Fantasy I, I decided to take close note
of everything the game had. You are able to create your own party! You got to
choose four characters, which you got to name, from six different classes, each
with their own strengths and weaknesses. At a later point in the game you could
evolve the character’s class in to a stronger version. This stuck me as a
wonderful mechanic, and reminded me a lot of the pen and paper game Dungeons
and Dragons. The story was a standard save the world, but the attraction was
trying to get the most out of my party composition and level up to the best of
my ability. It really surprised me for a video game released in 1987, and it definitely
kept me interested.
The second game in the series (Final Fantasy II) was also an
interesting installment. Though not released in the United States until 2003, I
got a chance to play it in the PlayStation 1 collection that came with the
first Final Fantasy. This game had no levels in the typical sense of, kill
monsters get experience and if you break the experience threshold your stats
increase making what you do better. Instead, the more you used a certain skill,
like attacking with swords, the more your sword skill and strength went up! The
down side is that it was rough to make a well-rounded character, and more often
than not magic overshadowed melee by a long shot. The story felt improved over
the previous installment with having set characters; instead of create your
own, as it followed them from a hostile empire takeover through the rebellion
and salvation of the world.
Final Fantasy III was the first game that Square released
that implemented a new type of customization to the game. Like Final Fantasy
II, the characters were set sprites that fit in to a neat story (which I found
to be very bland for the series). But, more like Final Fantasy I, you were
giving control over the characters job classes. Once you met certain story
milestones you would unlock more job class options that you could have any
character use; you could also easily swap out the current class for another! I
had an issue getting through the DS version of the game, but when I thought
about the mechanics of the game I was still impressed. Another NES(Japan only
at the time) game that managed to do so much with what we would consider so
little in the hardware department.
Final Fantasy IV originally released as Final Fantasy 2 in
the U.S. on the SNES; named so because it was the second one released in the
U.S. at the time. This was my favorite game for a very long time growing up, as
it also was the first entry in to the series that I had played. The game was almost
a step back in the mechanics department. You had a set cast that followed a good
story of yet again saving the world. This time though, each character possessed
one class that you could not change. As the story progressed characters flew in
and out of you party, constantly changing the makeup. Though, it did lend itself to
enhancing the story pretty well.
So far, each installment has developed in different ways,
the story got better (worse with 3rd in my opinion) and the mechanics progressed as well. I cannot wait to compare these older games to the more recent
ones! Check back later and see how I outline the more recent games and compare
them to their predecessors.
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