Game #1: Final Fantasy

Game #1: Final Fantasy

Release Date: December 1987 (JP), July 1990 (NA)

Director: Hironobu Sakaguchi

Original System: Famicom, NES

Favorite Song: "Matoya's Theme"

The journey begins with Final Fantasy, a fantasy-based role playing game that was created nearly 30 years ago by Square (now SquareEnix). I think the most incredible thing about this game and the Final Fantasy series is that this game really was a last-ditch effort and was close to not being created at all. Hironobu Sakaguchi had wanted to make an RPG for Square for a long time, but was never given permission by Square because they believed the product would not sell and essentially be a failure. Determined, Sakaguchi kept putting himself out there and pursuing his dream to release his RPG. When Square saw the success of another RPG that was released in Japan called Dragon Quest (now the Dragon Warrior franchise, interestingly created by Enix), they reconsidered their position on letting Sakaguchi release his RPG. Sakaguchi created a game called "Fighting Fantasy", which was finally approved by Square. The title was then later changed to "Final Fantasy" because it was believed at the time that this would be a "make-or-break" product for Square under threat of bankruptcy. The title of "Final Fantasy" also had personal meaning to Sakaguchi who said that if this product failed, he would end his career in the gaming industry.

Wow. To think how close this incredibly successful video game series was to never existing is mind-boggling. Not only would the face of role-playing games be very different today, the video game industry itself would be an arguably much different place.

Final Fantasy (also referred to as Final Fantasy I or the "original Final Fantasy") follows the story of four youths and their journey  to return light to their darkened crystals and save the world. A very basic sounding plot, but there wasn't really much room for plot twists and character development on an 8-bit video game system in 1987. And to be honest, they actually do manage to pull off a sort of plot "twist" near the end of the game. I'll get more into that later.

That said, Final Fantasy should get a lot of credit for actually creating a story at all in the small NES video game cartridge. Most video games that were released during that time had very little story whatsoever (Tetris, Donkey Kong, Mario) or stories that were only told through the game's instruction manuals (Zelda). In this way, Final Fantasy really set itself apart from the norm and established a good credibility for story telling that wound up defining the Final Fantasy series standard over the next few decades.

I will be playing the original, 1990 North American NES release of Final Fantasy. Since its initial release, this FF game has been remade, repackaged, and rereleased more than any other FF game, for a grand total of 13 individual versions of this game. Each one comes with different difficulty modifications, updates to graphics, updates to music, game mechanics and bugs updates, and so on. I've decided to play the original NES version of the game so that I truly get a feel for what the game was like when it was initially released and this will better allow me to comment on the advances in the FF series through time.

It's really easy to find a NES emulator on the internet and download a ROM of FF to play along on your own computer for free. I'm using FCEUX as my NES emulator to play the game, but I'll leave it up to you to track down a ROM of the game (legal mumbo jumbo).

As the days go by, I'll be commenting on my progress throughout the game and speak a bit about themes, game mechanics, graphics, music, etc along the way. There are lots of characteristics that define the FF series that can be traced all the way back to its 1987 roots.

Have you guys played Final Fantasy? If so, when did you play it and which version? Do you think this game still holds up today, nearly 30 years after it's inception?