Introduction:
Hey guys, this is Lantis. As fans of the RPG Genre, SarahsKnight and I grew up with a lot of them. But mostly it was the Final Fantasy series that made up the foundation for our love of the genre. There have been many entries to the series... so much so, that if we wanted to talk about them all, we would have to make this a four-part article. So that's exactly what we are going to do. How this works is that we will discuss, in order, all the Final Fantasy titles we have both played. We will talk about the pros and cons of each one, and then give a 1 to 10 rating of each. At the end of it all, we will find the average of all those scores to see how the franchise holds as a whole. If you are new to the series are looking to get into it, this might be a good way to get hyped up, but be warned, there are spoilers. This is going to be a long one, so buckle up.




SK: I generally know FF1 by the PSP version only. The game got a nice graphical makeover. Music was good although nothing very memorable.

Lantis: I've only played the NES and PS1 versions. Both of which were brutally difficult.

SK: Yes, that was one difference in our opinions. I found the PSP to be difficult, although not nearly as unbalanced and grindy as you did.

Lantis: That probably makes up for the difference in score. And I bet the HD graphics were nice too. There's not much to say on the gameplay as this was the early days of RPGs in general. But for what it's worth, I don't have any real complaints other than the balancing.

SK: Yes. And unfortunately for modern RPG'ers, the grinding would put them off from wanting to play through the game, although I would assume they would not just criticize FF1 as a terrible game for that. I would say that's about the only major problem. Which is probably very typical for the earliest console RPG's, which I have little experience in.

Lantis: Replayability isn't very high due to the difficulty too. Story was very generic as well, but is to be expected from it being what it is.

SK: In fact, I personally would only play it once or twice in a lifetime, for sheer back-to-the-past feeling only.

Lantis: Personally, any game that is going to be replayable, will have to hit a 6 or higher.

SK: Fair enough. As for story, it too was very basic and generic, but nonetheless sufficient. No ridiculous plot points or inexplicability.

Lantis: Which can't be said for most RPGs these days...

SK: Job system is at its most primitive, I'd say. With only six different classes to choose from. And not many abilities within each. Making battles a fairly tedious - although not particularly annoying - pattern of hack-slash-cast-heal every time. No real variation needed in strategy.

Lantis: Right. And I wasn't too big on the whole being stuck with said job class all game. Like yeah, it leveled up eventually. But the later games made it some much more enjoyable being able to learn multiple job classes, mix and matching skills, and such. But for starting off, it's good enough.

SK: Yes, I would say it is a worthy RPG experience for its time. For the people who grew up in the 70's/80's PC games era and 8-bit era and started on RPG's then, they would find this a memorable-enough experience. More modern gamers would either turn their noses up at it as too burdensome, or play it really only for nostalgia. In any event, FF1 was an influential and solid game more than it was a legendary and well-remembered one in the NES days as one of the all-time greats, and it at least saved Square from going under with its commercial success, as the story goes that this was their final attempt/swan song at an RPG before calling it quits. So without FF1, we'd never see our personal favorites 6 and 7.

Lantis: I completely agree. While it may not have aged very well, it has held up to the test of time well enough that I would recommend at least a playthrough. Though only just.



Final Fantasy I final scores:

SarahsKnight: 6.5 out of 10
Lantis: 5 out of 10


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Lantis: Unfortunately, the only version of Final Fantasy II I've played was the Origins version. Though it's generally just a graphical overhaul. But already the differences are pretty amazing.

SK: Same here. Again I know FF2 ENTIRELY only by the PSP version.

Lantis: In the original FF, the characters had no personality or dialog.

SK: Yes. Battle was generally more fun, however the difficulty arc was still pretty poor.

Lantis: So introducing characters with names, backgrounds, and development was a huge step for the franchise.

SK: Yes. Although in this case I would say it was far more necessary than for FF1. The story is still pretty basic, with the pretty tried-and-true evil empire out to take over the world versus the do-gooding rebel children device, but gives you the feeling of a bit more involvement. More so than in FF1, anyway.

Lantis: Though I will say one addition to the story side of things that I REALLY enjoyed was the addition of learning keywords. They should really bring that back.

SK: It was nice, but not as necessary in my view.

Lantis: It makes for dynamic conversations with NPCs. And involves you knowing what's going on to progress the game.

SK: True. I'm not sure why Square would bother to take it out. It certainly did not impede the gameplay in any way.

Lantis: What DID impede gameplay was the leveling up system. While I respect what they tried to do... it just didn't really work.

SK: Yeah. It was a bad idea that sounded good on paper.

Lantis: It's single-handedly the biggest falling point for the game. I remember spending an hour in a random fight with a super weak enemy just taking my turns hitting myself in hopes of getting a defense or HP level up after the fight. And while it was cool that you could level up spells into the teens, it took FAR too long and they just weren't that useful.

SK: Now, with me, I agree with you that it could be burdensome, however I didn't think it was the weakest point of the game. More rather something that I liked as an idea to play around with for just one game in the franchise, but after that, don't bring it back. It was fun enough just being done ONCE.

Lantis: That's fair enough.

SK: However, what really aggravated me was something more specific, and that was the sudden and ridiculous spike in the difficulty at the end.

Lantis: Absolutely. I remember my first time through the game, I couldn't even beat it even after hours of grinding. The final boss is just impossible without abusing the fact that blood swords work on him. There are only two in the game, and it's the only thing that worked.

SK: Which can be related well enough just by my revealing the change in HP from the next-to-last boss (the emperor's human form) to the final boss (the emperor as a godlike creature). Suddenly we went from 3,000 HP to 15,000. It was ludicrous. The last boss of the game was at least ten times more powerful in every major aspect than the boss just proceeding it, separated by only about two dungeons. I couldn't believe how hard the game had suddenly become at the end. It's very hard to prepare for.

Lantis: It's near impossible if you ask me. For me, I HAD to find the only two blood swords in the game and just abuse the heck out of it.

SK: Yes. I found just one, and I couldn't do it for the life of me. He just kept absorbing back HP at 1 to 2 thousand per shot, which was relatively way too much to shave back off in one turn.

Lantis: But overall, I still think this was a step up from Final Fantasy I. Not a huge leap, mind you, but good never the less. And I would be glad to play this again one day. Specifically on PSP.

SK: Yes. I was pleased too that the story was more involved, and had more events in the quest lineup as well as more places to visit and dungeon-crawl than in FF1. In terms of number of individual major story events, FF1 felt way too short, in which you basically just go from rescuing a princess from a rogue knight, to finding and restoring all the crystals among four major dungeons, to the final battle. But FF2 improved on that. Overall, I put it pretty even with FF1, going by only the PSP versions on each.



Final Fantasy II final scores:

SarahsKnight: 6.75 out of 10
Lantis: 6 out of 10


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SK: Okay, so Lantis will be judging by the NES and DS versions both, whereas I have only played the DS version.

Lantis: Right, I was one of the few who took the time to search out a FF3 english rom and play through the game. And I loved it. It's by far the best NES Final Fantasy title.

SK: I would agree from what I saw of your gameplay.

Lantis: It was also the first in the series to introduce freely changing job classes.

SK: And a pretty good number of them, too.

Lantis: And the DS version was even better. The NES version had generic characters with no personality like in Final Fantasy I. But the DS version named them, gave them personalities, and proper character development. Not to mention that it was a full on remake. New jobs, scenes, all that. And it looked really good to boot.

SK: Yeah, I really loved the character design and graphics of the DS version.

Lantis: The only complaint I can possibly come up with is that the final dungeon and the fights within are far too long and difficult. And no save points. Anywhere. Both on NES and DS.

SK: It was extremely frustrating. No save points at all the whole way, yet another strange difficulty spike right after what you believed to be the final boss, a black mage named Xande. However, he called upon the forces of evil that be to destroy the world since he couldn't have it his own way, and this new enemy, an interesting conceptual entity called the Cloud of Darkness arrived and you had to go to another, new final dungeon to fight it and its four servants, all of whom were at least twice as powerful as Xande, so if you aren't prepared to where you can crush Xande easily, you will be absolutely owned by the Cloud of Darkness. Ridiculous difficulty spike.

Lantis: But aside from that, everything is on par for what I expect from a great FF title. I recommend anyone to play both versions.

SK: I would say so. Story was the best so far, the most involved while still keeping it very simple: as the four heroes of Light out to restore balance to the world because the Darkness is beginning to choke out the Light, you seek out the four elemental crystals as always and gain their powers, resulting in new job classes to take on each time. Throughout this, you are helping clean up various problems occurring across the world, such as restoring peace to a nation at civil war with itself, defeating an evil ruler who has enslaved a certain race of creatures, purifying a town's water supply that has been corrupted by dark powers, etc. which have all happened as a result of Light and Darkness going out of balance in the Darkness's favor. I really enjoyed the story and its progression.

Lantis: I will say that the musical score this time around wasn't really that memorable. Actually, until Final Fantasy IV, I really didn't notice the music all that much.

SK: Actually, in comparison to the first two, I think it was, although still pretty far from the series' best. The music was very light-hearted and childlike in tone, like you're watching a kid's sword-and-sorcery film. I liked it well enough, even if it wasn't very impactful.

Lantis: Fair enough.

SK: Another, smaller complaint I have is the balancing of magic you learn. The way you expend magic in a magelike job class is by quantities assigned to a certain level of effectiveness, and as you level up on your job, you will get to use the higher level magic spells more and more often. Which in itself is fine. However, the problem is that you had very limited castings of the four higher tiers of magic - level 5 through 8 - that made it hard to outlast some of the tougher bosses in the game, seeing as, for example, you had to save your two or three available castings of Cure 3 for the boss fight alone, whereas you can keep on casting level 1 and 2 spells forever - which by now would be practically useless. And yet at one point towards the end of the game, seemingly at random (I don't know what triggered it) your levels as a summoner, black mage, etc. all balance out to where you can use your higher magic more often and lesser magic less often, which was nice seeing as I don't see how you could do without it against the final bosses, but nevertheless I can't even tell what made it happen, whether it was a specific event or not. So, yet again, the game is unbalanced in some ways. But still very enjoyable.

Lantis: I believe that was changed for the DS version. The NES version had pretty static statistics for magic casting classes. But it didn't much matter once you got Sage unlocked. Which was by far the best magic class in the game. I believe all the magic level charges were all set to 8.

SK: Nice. Never tried Sage. Well, overall, a very good and memorable game, and a significant improvement over 1 and 2.



Final Fantasy III final scores:

SarahsKnight: 8 out of 10
Lantis: 8 out of 10


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SK: So, you've played both the SNES and DS versions like me, right?

Lantis: Of course I have.

SK: First off with graphics and presentation. Very good on SNES for its time, and the DS version improved them with the same character and location design as you saw in the DS FF3.

Lantis: Well yeah. This was the first SNES FF entry. So by comparison, of course it looks great. Same for music.

SK: Music was the best yet. Still not the peak of the series on music, but many memorable tunes nonetheless. In fact, I heard that Rosa's "Theme of Love" is taught in the music curriculum at most Japanese schools.

Lantis: And Cecil comes turns out to be the first recognizable character. No one really remembers Firion. And the characters from 1 and 3 didn't have names.

SK: Cecil had a good character arc.

Lantis: Absolutely. The whole Dark Knight/Paladin thing was great.

SK: His was primarily a story of self-redemption.

Lantis: And majority of the characters were awesome as well.

SK: I would say so. Or at least likeable.

Lantis: I have a few gripes with the cast, but I'll get to that when we talk about dislikes. But what I DID like was that this was the first in the series that had multiplayer. Very few games in the series had this as an option. You and I had a blast playing them all.

SK: Yes. TERRIFIC IDEA. Why they didn't keep this for 7 and 8 .... *sigh* Even with the odd-numbered party, still ....

Lantis: Right. I wouldn't have minded taking one character while you had two. Or vice versa.

SK: Yeah. Now, on to the story. I would say on par with FFIII in simplicity yet quality. The crystals once again play a major role, with heroes to defend them and a villain to take advantage of their power.

Lantis: I agree. Though the self-redemption plot pulls it over FFIII a good ways. Even in the DS remake of FFIII the story was just pretty normal. Nothing that really pushed the bill.

SK: Yeah, I would say here you've got a bit more personal characterization to flesh out the story.

Lantis: This was also the only Final Fantasy that allowed for five characters to fight at one time.

SK: But unfortunately, pretty much all throughout the game you couldn't choose who was with you. Although it was pretty necessary to make storyline sense, so no big. This time, rather than choosing job classes, each party member sort of represented one by their own background and battle abilities, which worked for me. For instance, Rosa was your white mage, Rydia could summon, Yang had monk-like abilities, etc.

Lantis: Right, and that's pretty default. But what does bug me is that some of these characters were just plain bad. Like Palom and Porom. Edward was pretty lame too. And I wanted to like Cid more than I did.

SK: Well, I can see why they'd annoy you, but I personally didn't mind having them around, at least for their major role, to assist Cecil on his quest to become a Paladin. Although, Palom's character portrait was really stupid. And yeah, this was one of the weaker versions of Cid.

Lantis: You know what's also stupid? All the false death scenes that happen from all the temporary characters.

SK: Yes. Not a TERRIBLY huge thing, but really stupid at the same time. It felt like the game was too scared in the end to actually have one of the good guys lose to evil and die. What also really got on my tits was that, of the three characters you thought died, the only one whose death was genuine was Tellah, simply from his overcasting magic, and yet Yang survived having a tower collapse while he was in it and Cid survived falling several hundred meters from one world to the next while a ship exploded in his face.

Lantis: Can't stop that deus ex machina, man. It bugged me pretty bad. And some of the dungeons where just a chore. Like the Sealed Cave.

SK: Well, aside from that, I would say dungeon design was fine overall, and I don't remember there being any one that was particularly difficult. Battle was the most balanced yet by far of the first four FF titles. Also, um, hello, MOST AWESOME FINAL BOSS MUSIC EVER OVER HERE?

Lantis: It's aight.

SK: Any one in all of FF series you like better?

Lantis: Ain't got nothing on Clash on the Big Bridge.

SK: Ah. Fair call. It would be my second favorite, I think.

Lantis: Overall though, I'm going to have to say that I liked Final Fantasy III a bit better than IV.

SK: Well, for me, going by the SNES version, I rate it at the same as DS FFIII. However, the DS version was quite improved, for an 8.5. So, I'm going for an average of 8.25, ever so slightly above FFIII.



Final Fantasy IV final scores:

SarahsKnight: 8.25 out of 10
Lantis: 7 out of 10


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Lantis: So, I can make this super short. Final Fantasy V is everything that III was, but better. At least as far as the NES version is concerned.

SK: Hah. Do you just want to leave it at that? That in terms of battle and learning system, 5 is just an even better version of 3?

Lantis: Oh, no. We're going to go into detail. There's a lot about this game I love.

SK: Well, let's go with the positives, first.

Lantis: Characters are all great. Butz (Bartz) might be a weird name, but he's still a good guy. Not to mention Galuf is one of the most badass characters in the whole series.

SK: Oh, yeah. Galuf is a man's man.

Lantis: And you befriend the pirate Farris. And pirates are awesome.

SK: Here's the thing with me. I like all the protagonists BUT Butz because for some reason the fact that he seems to be the only one with no background at all other than being a wanderer just really got on my nerves for some reason, not to mention having one of the worst names of all time. I mean, if he'd been in the cast of FFXIII, I would have practically hailed him as a god. It's just relativity speaking, here. But all the protagonists, very good on the overall scale. Galuf just does it for us.

Lantis: Butz is more integral to the story than Vahn was to XII at least. But more on that later...

SK: Oh, yeah. At least everything started BECAUSE of Bartz. Vahn just sort of wanders in.

Lantis: But yeah. Jobs make a return to this game. And man alive. It's my crack.

SK: Best system yet, no doubt.

Lantis: There was a vast list of possible jobs. And you can combine skills from one job with another. The things you can do in that game are just awesome. Some of the best customization in the series.

SK: Like a precursor to the best-yet-to-come job class of FFT. And it was easy to understand how to level up on them, just a simple accumulation of ability points. Which certainly hasn't been a problem - over-complexity of learning systems - in the series yet, but, well, Square eventually forgot that, as we'll see down the road.

Lantis: One of my favorite builds is mixing hunter, sorcerer, and ninja. By using the two sword ability of ninja, the S-shot of hunter, and sorcerer's magic imbuing on weapons, you can have a character swing 8 times with 100% chance to hit with a flare sword. It's just good stuff all around. And the story this time around is on par too.

SK: Well, it's generally been good in every game so far.

Lantis: Like, the multi-world plot is used quite commonly. With them being threatened by something, or are going to be merged or whatever. But it actually happens. A new third world is created from the two. It was really awesome.

SK: In this one, there's three different full-on world maps to explore, pretty much like in FFIV, only the final world has more than one place to visit. Now, the plot overall involves the four crystals in peril once again.

Lantis: But this time each crystal you get opens up new job classes. So it ties the classic story into the new system.

SK: Yeah, except I did have one problem with it ... X-Death. He's just there to have a face behind the destructive force threatening the crystals. I hate his name, I hate his appearance, especially his super-corny mutated forms in the final fight, I hate his theme song .... I don't know; I just don't like 'em. No sir, I don't like it.

Lantis: Still better than Necron... Just sayin'

SK: Well, we're getting to that one, no doubt.

Lantis: It's worth mentioning though that this was the game that featured what I consider the best FF song...as mentioned previously: Clash on the Big Bridge.

SK: Like, not just in terms of battle music, but EVER? EVER EVER?

Lantis: Well, within the FF franchise, yeah. Not to say it wouldn't be close.

SK: Well, it's an awesome battle theme to be sure. Just a shame the guy you're fighting centralized to the theme is pretty easy to beat every time.

Lantis: Still. Gilgamesh is awesome.

SK: Whenever you see Gilgamesh, you just think, "ruh-roh! Heeeeeere comes Gilgy!" FFV had a soundtrack overall on par with FFIV, pretty much the best yet, and better still, the next four Final Fantasies to come exceeded that standard.

Lantis: There were some questionable tracks though. Like that "gotta hurry" track.

SK: yeah, that was GARBAGE. But, we've got Clash on the Big Bridge, and my personal favorite in the game, the dragonflight theme. So it ain't no thing.

Lantis: Indeed.

SK: All right, so, from my understanding, you became much more addicted to this particular installment when you first came over to my house to check out this strange never-before-seen gem that finally came out to America as a port on the PS1. Since then, it seems like you've played this the most times of any Final Fantasy, save perhaps VI and VII. What say you?

Lantis: Absolutely. It's a great system, and one they should re-use. It would be much better than what they've been doing recently.

SK: In any event, you seemed to make a science of the job system here. Any negatives, though, major or minor? I've touched on all of mine, I think.

Lantis: I think my major complaint really is how grindy it is. There are just so many jobs with so many skills to learn, it would take forever to master them all. It takes 30 forevers just getting the ones you want.

SK: Yeah, I guess the grind factor is still a bit of an issue.

Lantis: Majority of the game, you will get only 2 ability points a fight. Even at the tail end of the game.

SK: All right. Well, yeah, FF5 is a classic game. Of all the FF titles so far that did not come to America at the time they originally were made - therefore you might have missed it more easily - this is the one to play, I would say. If you like crystals and job quests, it's made for you.

Lantis: And grab a friend. It's also multiplayer like Final Fantasy IV was.



Final Fantasy V final scores:

SarahsKnight: 8 out of 10
Lantis: 8.5 out of 10


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And with that concludes the majority of the classic Final Fantasy titles. I hope you'll be looking forward to seeing how the rest of the games play out in our little retrospective.

Link to Part 2