History:

Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, was going to make the first Final Fantasy his final game should it not do well when it was first released in 1987—thus the name. Well, that obviously didn’t happen…

Chances are if you have found this site, you probably have played the early Final Fantasies in some form or other whether it’s the original releases on Nintendo / Famicom to its several re-releases on different platforms with its minor upgrades and add-ons. Every re-release is the basically the same. They try to improve the original and maybe add some extras in.

However, these pixel remasters in particular do not necessarily have add-ons like bonus dungeons, etc. that were in previous re-releases. This review will be a brief overview but focus more on what makes these versions different from the others.

BRIEF STORY OVERVIEW:

FINAL FANTASY

In a world enveloped by darkness, four warriors of light are chosen by crystals to set on a journey to free the world from the clutches of said darkness.

FINAL FANTASY II

Firion, Maria, Guy among several others join the Wild Rose Rebellion to thwart the plans of the Palamecian Empire who summon underworld monsters in an attempt for total world conquest.

FINAL FANTASY III

Once again, four different warriors of light are chosen by the crystals to restore the world’s balance.

GAMEPLAY:

Let me go over the basics real fast. It is a traditional role-playing game (well a good amount of tradition comes from these games) that involves characters adventuring through dungeons, new towns, and the world map; buying new equipment from currency called gil; fighting via random battles with a turn-based battle system; and usually saving the world in one way or another by getting stronger and stronger.

Cursor points to whose turn it is, then they select who to attack if it is an enemy or heal if it is an ally. Fight until the enemy is defeated. Get gil and experience. Rinse and repeat.

GRAPHICS:

These pixel remasters come with several upgrades including the pixel redrawing of characters created by Yoshitaka Amano by the original pixel artist of the Final Fantasy games, Kazuko Shibuya herself. It is a true 2D remaster and is a true upgrade in terms of a purist aspect.

MUSIC:

Nobuo Uematsu, the man behind the masterpiece level quality of music for most of the Final Fantasy games, supervised the remixing of the games tracks, so there shouldn’t be worry to whether they stay true to the original.

GAMEPLAY NEW FEATURES:

QUICK SAVE ANYWHERE

This is probably one of the biggest ones added. Save anywhere via quick save. It doesn’t replace regular savings as you can do that as well—up to 20 slots. So save anywhere or at any time and save yourself some headaches the more you potentially do it.

Save right in the middle of the Chaos Temple? Sure, why not. The quick save feature can be used as much as you like and doesn’t get deleted once it is loaded. There is also an auto-save feature independent of both.

BUG FIXES AND NEW BUGS

A lot of bugs infamous to the originals are no longer there such as the invisible person from the first Final Fantasy. However, a new bug that involves water and lava shading is introduced and as of yet has been officially patched.

MAPS

As well as the general overworld map, maps for towns and even dungeons are added.

A nice town map with legends depicting where you are via the red cursor, as well as the inn, item shop, armor shop, weapon shop, black magic shop, and white magic shop. Maps can be magnified up to two times should you need it.
Having dungeon maps like this where you can scroll, zoom, see which treasure chest you opened, and see which treasure chest you didn’t come extremely in handy for the games and should be utilized often especially for completionists.

AUTO-BATTLE

Pressing a certain button toggles the fighters to auto-battle.

Because it removes the need to open a battle menu and select a target, the battles go faster and it is handy for grinding levels or stats. Keep an eye on your hit points when auto-battling so you don’t get wiped out.

MOVE DIAGONALLY

Okay, so moving diagonally isn’t best captured with an image. Instead, I’ll just tell how to do it in the game.

RUN IN TOWNS AND DUNGEONS

Again, running isn’t best captured with a still frame. But you can do it. Handy for towns and dungeons.

DIFFERENT LOCALIZATION

The English version gets a new translation. Of course, the Japanese original script remains the same.

OPTIMAL EQUIP FEATURE

Good to have when buying new equipment and you want to give characters proper equipment in less time.

IMAGE GALLERY / BESTIARY / MUSIC PLAYER

An image gallery that features images drawn by Yoshitaka Amano is readily available as soon as you start the game. The music player has all songs unlocked as well. The bestiary is a different story. You have to encounter the enemies for them to show up in it.

VERY UNPOPULAR ENGLISH FONT

The Sans Serif-esque font the games come with is not too bad but to be coupled with it being condensed and squished, has caused a backlash of sorts by fans. There are workarounds of course. A fan-made patch is available as well there being a possibility of renaming the files in certain steam folders to fix it. Remember to back up everything before you try if you so choose.

By the sounds of the backlash on the internet, people would gladly have paid 30 gil for a font change. Thankfully workarounds exist.

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