Final Fantasy (1987)

Review

Hard to review because of how utterly basic the game is. The first in the series feels like less of a full game and more of a template or proof of concept. The bones of a thing, without the muscles, the nervous system, and so on. It's not bad per se, it's just very basic. You go to a new area and buy new things from the town that's there. You level up for a bit, visiting the inn when necessary. You delve through the local dungeon and defeat the boss there. That gives you some new thing that lets you navigate a little farther away. And we repeat that 10 or so times until we're done.

It's fun enough for the time. Feels weird to actually put any effort into railing against it. The additions made to it over the years (auto-battling) do just sort of make the whole experience unnecessary. At that point, why even play the game if it's playing itself? There's so much out there. I think FF1 is a case where you can watch a couple clips of it, maybe play up through the first fiend or so and then just move on. There's precious little else you're going to get out of it.

On to Final Fantasy 2.