Ready for an Adventure?

Okay, I swear that's my last title based on Final Fantasy Adventure.

Really quick sidenote before we start, in case you've all been living under a rock like I have been, you may not be aware that Final Fantasy VII and VIII are now available on Steam. Looks like it's only available on Windows machines but I'm not positive. Anyway, these are copies of the PC port for both games. Having played both ports before, they are fine but the controls weren't translated all that well from the Playstation. Hopefully, they support gamepads, in which case, I recommend them, assuming you don't have access to a Sony console.

So, last time I mentioned that I'm starting Final Fantasy Adventure next, my first side-story, but what exactly is this game? Why did they deviate from the standard numbering for this one? Well, if you give it a try, you'll instantly know why it isn't Final Fantasy V. In fact, it's hardly even Final Fantasy.

Final Fantasy Adventure was released in 1991 for the Game Boy but it was originally intended as Square's last ditch effort on the Famicom Entertainment System. Instead, Square decided to abandon the project and focus their efforts on what would become Final Fantasy. Seiken Densetsu (as it was known in Japan) would have to wait.

After Final Fantasy I - IV came out and were huge successes, bringing Square back from the dead, they decided to dust off this old project as several of the Final Fantasy developers were interested in making a real-time fighting system, rather than the turn-based system of traditional Final Fantasy games. Final Fantasy Adventure was thus born... and it's basically a Zelda-clone.

FF Adventure + Imagination = a real game!

The game plays like Final Fantasy meets Zelda. The action is all done in real-time but you have HP and MP, like Final Fantasy and you level up by killing monsters. Plus, you get to equip new armor and weapons that you find/buy throughout the game.

As if this wasn't enough to give the game an identity crisis, the naming of the game was ridiculous. So, in Japan, it was called Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden. Now, to be honest, I'm not really sure what Seiken Densetsu means but I believe it loosely translates to Legend of Mana. Sound familiar? Hold on, I'll get to that. In the US, this was simplified to Final Fantasy Adventure, probably as a marketing thing but also to differentiate it from the wildly popular Ninja Gaiden, since Gaiden didn't really mean anything to most American gamers (it means side-story FYI). Finally, it was released in Europe as Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. That's right. This isn't the same as Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest USA which was the crappy beginners Final Fantasy later released in the US on the SNES, this was Final Fantasy Adventure but using the same subtitle. I guess they just thought Mystic Quest sounded too cool to not release in the US, also.

But anyway, many of you are still stuck on the translation of Seiken Densetsu. It sounds familiar, right? Yeah, Final Fantasy Adventure is actually the starting point of the Mana series. In fact, the game was remade for the GBA many years later as Sword of Mana, removing the Final Fantasy elements from the game. Many classic RPG fans fondly remember Secret of Mana for the SNES, one of the best RPG's on the console and one of the best Action-RPGs ever made. Well, here's the beginning of that great series.

The first time I can remember seeing a direct reference to death in a licensed Nintendo game

Final Fantasy Adventure also holds a special place in my heart as it's the first Final Fantasy game I ever completed. I mentioned before that I didn't own a Nintendo home console until the Gamecube many years later or a Sony console until the PS2 even later than that, but I did have a Game Boy Color. When I found out that there were Final Fantasy games available on the Game Boy, I needed them and I started with this one. I still remember much of what happens throughout the game, despite playing it almost 13 years ago. That's how important this game was to me.

And my first impressions so far show that honestly, the game hasn't held up all that well. More about that next time, though.

Game on!