LogFAQs > #970616476

Maybe using the Japanese release date was cheating :p

60. Final Fantasy (1987)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/3/2/AABKTfAAEDv8.jpg
Back in the day (sometime in the 90s), I tried playing FF1 on emulator, as I'm sure many fans did. I didn't get far - I think I played for a bit, did some random battles, died, and gave up. I didn't even beat Garland, maybe? It felt overly grindy and it's not like the story had much to offer as motivation. Thankfully, the Pixel Remaster fixes a lot of issues with the game (though a lot of the fixes were already there in the GBA/PSP versions). XP gains are more generous, there's a great map system, it adds an excellent autobattle functionality, and everything is just more refined with a nice modern coat of paint. It's probably a bit too easy now (I never got a game over, and very rarely had characters die in battle), but I don't generally find that to be a problem with JRPGs. Most parts of the experience are pretty cool. The story is simple, but it gets the job done. The way it hints about where to go next is neat, even if I did resort to a guide several times (taking notes would probably be the way to do this back in the day, I guess). The dungeon design was good. The game's fast-paced (took me ~12 hours). Combat, leveling, equipment, and the class system are all solidly designed.

The one issue I had with the game is that there are way too many random encounters. I don't think the encounter rate was particularly high for a game of that era, so I might just not be as tolerant of random encounters anymore, or maybe the auto-battle setting just makes them more boring. Auto-battle speeds up battles too, so I almost always used it, since I felt like I was wasting time otherwise. I had to find other stuff to do while playing since it was so dull. I wish the Pixel Remaster had added random battle settings of some sort - setting it to half encounter rate or being able to turn them off entirely would've been quite nice, and maybe then I wouldn't have been quite so overleveled. Regardless, it's nice to have finally beaten the first game in what was my favorite franchise for a long time.

Next game hint: I played four Metroidvanias last year. This was the newest and worst of them, offering nothing but atmosphere. (2022)