Final Fantasy Adventure: A Retrospective

And another one gone and another one gone...

Final Fantasy Adventure isn't a bad game, I want to make that perfectly clear. It's not bad, but it's just so not good that it tends to pass into that awful realm of meh.

The story is interesting but non-Japanese gamers will have to deal with horrible localization that makes it tough to care about what's going on. You start off as a gladiator, forced to fight the same idiotic monster again and again until you die of boredom. One day, your friend realizes that the monster comes through a giant door that just stays open after the monster dies and that door leads to the outside! Not exactly Shawshank Redemption quality stuff here but, hey, it gets you outside so stop complaining.

Before you make your daring escape through the unguarded door, your dying friend, who was apparently too dumb to figure out the monster's impressive strategy of walking back and forth, tells you to go and find the Gemma Knights and work with them. Conveniently, after you escape, you find a girl who's friend just died and they were going to find the Gemma Knights too! 

WILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!

Off you and the girl go on a grand adventure of "Let's all kidnap this helpless little girl". Honestly, the plot is rather ridiculous but it gets you from point A to point B (sometimes via point C and D  but that's another issue). The gameplay is really where the game succeeds. Yes, it's a Zelda-clone. That means you walk around and jab at enemies with your sword in real-time, trying to make sure they don't run into you or spit projectiles at you. Fortunately, the game doesn't just call that good.

Instead, you level up your character with monster kills and you get to decide how your character stats progress. You have four options: Power, Wisdom, Will and Stamina. Wisdom = magic power and Will = how fast your super bar charges. The stats seem to kind of be setup in a circle system. Power and Wisdom are opposites and Stamina/Will are opposites. The stat you pick gets 2 points up while the two side stats get 1 point each. The opposite skill gets nothing. For example, picking Power will give you 2 points in Power and 1 for each Will and Stamina.

Just in case I'm not being clear here

You also get weapons, armor and items like in a Final Fantasy game. Weapons are set to your A button, armor is obviously passive defense and items/magic can be set to the B button. New weapons also can do new things both to attack enemies and to help you progress through the game. The axe makes a swinging motion and can chop down trees while the chain acts like a whip and can help you move across gaps by hitting poles. It all makes sense and is quite clear, although you'll be going through menus way more frequently than in a Zelda game. Still, it works.

I'm going with the Devil guy on this one

But that's the problem with Final Fantasy Adventure. It just works. It doesn't really feel like it has any soul or artistry. The girl character in the game is the epitome of damsel-in-distress which just feels boring and overdone. Final Fantasy games in particular are known for their sexism but this feels like an extreme even for them. Unlike Zelda which gave players a wonderful sense of exploration in its open world, Final Fantasy Adventure feels linear and there are never any alternate paths worth traveling down. Dungeons all feel generic, like maps just programmed out and then distributed throughout the game without any thought to what goes where.

This airship I entered is apparently made out of stone

The game did a lot of things right and it was a lot of fun to play when I only had my Game Boy available, back in the 90's. Over 20 years later, though, this game is a relic that just isn't worth spending the time on. Pick up Zelda on the NES, Link to the Past on the SNES or Secret of Mana on SNES instead.

Game on!

Rankings:

Final Fantasy II < Final Fantasy Adventure < Final Fantasy < Final Fantasy III < Final Fantasy IV

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!

Adventure Time!

The first game's ending was still the coolest

That's right, another final boss bites the big one as I take down Zeromus and finish off Final Fantasy IV. Holy crap, if you were a US gamer in the late 80's/early 90's and went through this game after Final Fantasy... This is what sequels should be! Little did most of them know that the series has had three games to evolve but hey, details.

Final Fantasy IV is the first game in the series to really put the full effort into the story. Sure, Final Fantasy II worked hard at it but it was still limited by the NES hardware as well as the common perceptions of what video games could be. If you are interested in classic RPG's, this should be one of the first games on your list. In fact, many regard this as the best game in the series.

No, this isn't Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

While I'm not sure yet if I'd go that far, it's without a doubt the best in the series so far. The combat system has finally upgraded to the ATB system, a combat system that will continue until XI Online in every core game. Inspired by Formula One racing, the ATB system is essentially a bar filling up for each character based on their individual speed ratings. Once the bar is filled, moves can be chosen. Anyone who's played a Final Fantasy game is likely familiar with the system. It's far more interesting than previous iterations and gives a much more tense atmosphere knowing that you have to pay attention to what's going on.

I've already gone over the story in detail so let's just say that it's very good all the way through to the end. Nobuo Uematsu is still on the top of his game here as the music is astounding, particularly for a console like the SNES. Personally, my favorite music is still the compositions from XIII (the best part of XIII, by far IMO) but this music far surpasses the original trilogy, even disregarding the technical advancements.

You Vivi Looking!

That's not to say that the game is perfect. The biggest issue is the horrendous translations. This remains an issue throughout the entire game and will be the toughest barrier for casual players to overcome. The story is wonderful but in order to experience it, you will have to wade through some of the worst dialogue in all of gaming. Sure, the translations were bad in the original trilogy but this is the first Final Fantasy game where it really matters. Frequently, you will encounter scenes that are supposed to bring about various emotions but you'll have a tough time really feeling for what's going on when you're laughing at the ridiculous speeches. Going back to Mysidia after Cecil's exile from Baron should be a very sobering experience but I couldn't stop grinning at the poorly worded insults being thrown my way.

The side quests also mark a low point for me. Sure the fact that they exist at all is great but the odd placement of having every side quest available at the end of the game makes it feel a bit too gamey for my tastes. Sure, Chrono Trigger did the same thing but those side quests were interesting in their own right, Final Fantasy IV's are usually no more than fetch quests. The one exception is the land of Summoned Monsters which was very cool and added more to the story.

Still, Final Fantasy IV marks an obvious and definite high point in the series. Not only did it introduce some of the most important new systems and features to the Final Fantasy series but it stands as a fun game experience even today. To avoid the horrible translations though, I highly recommend revisiting this one in one of the many ports available (GBA, DS, PSP, Android, iOS) Also, in the time since I posted my last blogs, Square-Enix has released Final Fantasy IV: The After Years on Android and iOS. Interlude is still available only on the PSP, sadly enough.

Next up on the list, a bit of a side-step in the series...

Remember that nice green hue?

More on this oft forgotten title next time!

Game on!

Game Rankings:

Final Fantasy II < Final Fantasy < Final Fantasy III < Final Fantasy IV

Final Fantasy Pet Peeves

This post is more a whine session than anything else but I need to get a couple things off my chest. These are issues in Final Fantasy IV but also in other games in the series as well so it's not just from this game. As a status update, I'm currently on my way out of the Sealed Cavern (or whatever it's called) after fighting the EvilWall.

You know you have it rough when even the walls try to kill you

My first issue is with the Exit spell. I know this has been an issue in each game since at least two. I honestly don't recall the Exit spell being in Final Fantasy but it may have been. Due to the way the story progressed in I though, I don't think this would ever have come up.

Basically, the spell brings you back outside of whatever dungeon you happen to be in when you use it. Sort of a fast escape spell so that you don't find yourself in a no win situation. II, III and IV have all had this spell. Now, obviously, in certain cases, dungeons will have story elements as you come out of the dungeon which would potentially be circumvented by using the Exit spell. To prevent this, the developers simply disable the spell in these cases.

Too bad this seems to be all the damn time! Why give us a spell that we can only use some of the time and then just disable the rest of the time? I understand not wanting players to glitch past a story trigger, that would suck but why not let us at least teleport to the room the story element happens in? I'm assuming their thought process was to avoid spoiling any story element that happens since obviously, if we were taken to a specific room instead of taken out of the dungeon, we would know something was up. But don't we already know something's up since the spell failed? As soon as I realize nothing happened, I know that something's going to happen at the entrance of the dungeon anyway!

No, instead, they thought it would be fun to make you walk all the way back through the dungeon you just trudged through. Even the very first Final Fantasy game, one of the most merciless games in existence, gave you warp spaces so you didn't have to go all the way back. These dungeons always seem to be some of the hardest and longest dungeons in the games too. In II and III, they were irritating but not super common. In IV, though, it's almost every single dungeon since story stuff is happening ALL THE TIME! I'm not saying get rid of the story, just let me frickin teleport!

Remember that time the Sandworm from Dune teamed up with flying fish?

My next issue is back attacks. I'm all for a good challenge in games and I understand that they want to break up your party dynamics in certain ways periodically to keep you on your toes. Does it have to happen so frequently though? Sure, in the beginning it's always pretty rare. When I was grinding at the end of the game in III, though, it literally happened every three battles on average. EVERY THREE BATTLES. In three, you have to individually move each party member too so each time this happens, it wastes an entire turn, not to mention the initial advantage they get from having the back attack in the first place. Oh and don't forget to move them back again after the battle or else your next fight will have all your guys in the wrong positions again, assuming you don't get two back attacks in a row. In IV, picking Change for one member changes everyone which is certainly a step up but let's talk about the point of this type of battle.

So anyone who's played one of the classic Final Fantasy games remembers how there are two rows for party members. This system started with II and goes, I believe, through VI continuously. Front row members usually get some form of attack bonus but also are more vulnerable to attacks. Back row members take less damage or have higher evasion but often take a hit to accuracy and sometimes can't attack with certain weapons at all. The idea is that you stick your mages with low health and defense in the back row and your tanks up in front.

There's no real strategic reason to do anything other than this since the majority of battles are fought from a normal perspective and putting your mages up front is just asking for them to get killed. So why are these back attacks necessary? All they do is give enemies a free shot against your weakest characters, often resulting in them getting killed or at least taking huge damage that you will then need to waste healing potions to remedy. I would understand if there were a way to avoid these types of encounters but there isn't! It's not like the game is punishing you for doing something wrong, it's purely random. It's more like the developer who came up with rows and another one didn't like each other so the second came up with back attacks just to flip the first guy the metaphorical bird. Well, we're the only ones who lose from that deal. And get used to it, back attacks exist in a ton of Final Fantasy games.

You'd better be!

My final pet peeve for this post is the random battle percentages in general. Now, there's something that anyone who games should know about random occurrences, namely, they aren't truly random. When it comes to computers, there is no such thing as a random number generator. It simply doesn't exist. There are algorithms that attempt to come close to random chance but since a computer doesn't have the ability to just decide something, this simply doesn't exist. You can actually test this on an emulator copy of any classic Final Fantasy game. Basically, save state anywhere in a dungeon and move until you get into a battle. Now, load that save and move the same path. You will activate the battle in the exact same spot each and every time. In some of the NES titles, you'll encounter the same enemy formation too although the later ones determine the enemy formation later, apparently.

My point in explaining all this is that the algorithm(s) they used in each game up until IV, and probably through, absolutely suck. I can't tell you how often I'll go for a whole dungeon floor and not get one battle and then the next floor, I can't move more than a step before another battle activates. This happens frequently, it's like the algorithm is trying to average out it's percentages so instead of keeping a relatively even pace of battles, it flails all over the place causing this ridiculous imbalance in encounter rates. If you do a study on something that uses percentages as a result and come away with five results saying 10% and five results saying 90%, you don't write that whatever you're studying has a 50% chance of occurring. While that's technically true it doesn't give an accurate portrayal of what actually happens at all. That's how the encounter rates feel in this game. I could tell you that you have an encounter rate of 5% (I'm completely making that number up, I have no idea what the actual number is supposed to be.) but it's doubtful you'll see a ratio of one battle for every twenty steps very often.

Well, that's enough complaining for one day. These games are from another era and the series has evolved drastically since then. Random battles are almost never used anymore in RPG's for this very reason. It's a relic of a past time and it worked for them by saving cartridge space and presenting a relatively unique adventure for each player.

And so, I leave you all with one of my favorite bosses yet in Final Fantasy.

Game on!

These Crystals Really Need Some Better Defenders...

Final Fantasy IV is finally starting to up the difficulty from the beginning so now I'm actually having to heal my guys and I've actually died a couple times, albeit because I wandered into stronger territory but hey, it's better than being able to slaughter everything from the get-go.

In my Final Fantasy IV intro blog, I mentioned how the game finally has a plot but I didn't really go into detail about what it was. Here's a bit of a beginners guide to Final Fantasy IV.

 

 

Final Fantasy IV in a nutshell

You play the part of Cecil, the leader of the air division of Baron's military force. Unlike the previous games in the series, you don't get a central party that follows you throughout the entire game. Sure II had one character slot that rotated people but the first three were the same throughout. In IV, you blow through characters like water, but that's kind of the point.

In development, the team decided that in reality, every person has their own motivations, their own drives. Sometimes that brings people together and sometimes it tears them apart. They wanted to bring this into Final Fantasy so they make you follow Cecil and the people who interact with Cecil.

Shortly after starting the game, Cecil is cast out from Baron, losing his status and soldiers, after he decides that killing innocent people and stealing crystals from them is not a very nice thing to do. So, he decides to stop Baron instead, thwarting their world domination scheme. Obviously, other people around the world aren't big fans of their cities getting air bombed so you make friends and allies fairly regularly. However, each of these characters have their own goals, not necessarily in line with Cecil's own.

Along with the outward plot, Cecil also has to struggle against his internal demons as well. This is where the game truly shines. As a knight of Baron, Cecil is trained as a Dark Knight. By it's very nature, Dark Knights use evil power to fight, an identity that Cecil struggles with as the game progresses. One of the most famous boss fights in video game history is the battle against Dark Cecil, a turning point in the game's story.

All in all, this is where Final Fantasy truly starts to hit its stride. In the SNES version, the translation is still wonky but it's at least manageable.

 

Fortunately, the game is available on tons of different consoles with updated translations so don't worry about wading through Engrish in any version post-SNES. That's all for now, time to get back to saving the world.

SPOILER! They can't!

 Game on!

Version Confusion pt. 2: Final Fantasy IV

By now, I'm guessing you've mostly got the numbering system down. Two and three are Japanese-only, four is two, five is Japanese only and six is three. Bam, handled. So now that you've figured that out, I've got some more craziness to throw your way. There are actually three different versions of Final Fantasy IV. You mean ports? No, I mean whole different versions. Oh, you mean the sequels? No, I mean whole different versions of the same game. Got that? Let's go over this really quickly, shall we?

Final Fantasy IV originally came out in Japan in July of 1991. Now remember, Square decided to skip over two and three in order to bring four over the US around the same time. If you doubt the importance of this, take a look at the Tales series where Japan is about two games ahead of NA and is popping out another one early next year! Anyway, in November of 1991, the game was brought over to America. Or was it?

Japanese gamers have had three games to perfect their role-playing skills. Final Fantasy was tough as nails but it was the only one we had and it hadn't sold quite as well in NA as it did in Japan, which is really saying something considering the population difference. So when they decided to bring four over to the US, they decided that American gamers weren't ready for that level of difficulty yet so they dumbed the game down for us. At least, that's all the popular theory. I think Japan just thinks we're a bunch of idiots over here. But hey, that's just me.

Final Fantasy II in the US is now regarded as the easy version of the game and wow, yeah, it really is. Enemies have nearly no health and dish out almost no damage. I'm still in the early game but Cecil hasn't taken more than 20 points of damage from any enemy, including bosses despite having about 350 maximum health. Most enemies only do 1 damage to him. There are a few other version differences too, besides just the difficulty. Some of the storyline was actually cut from American cartridges. This is attributed to space limitations but I don't buy that. Don't the SNES and the Super Famicom have the same abilities? Why could story fit on the Super Famicom but not on the SNES? Not only this but standard Nintendo censorship took place in the US version as well.

To give a quick lesson about this, the ESRB didn't exist at this point in time and Nintendo personally approved each and every game that was published on their console (they still give the Nintendo stamp of approval on every game released on a Nintendo console.) Because of the wild west situation at the time, Nintendo employed self-policing on their games. This meant any religious references and references to death had to be removed. I could go into a whole blog series about this but let's leave it at that for now.

Finally, they decided that secret passages were way too intense for us American gamers so they decided to show us where they all are.

Yes, this is a direct, unedited screenshot.

To be fair, this kind of makes sense since secret passages were first introduced in three but since we didn't have three, American gamers hadn't seen these before and wouldn't know to look for them. People were more likely to think they were glitches. There is still one secret passage near the end which isn't colored in for you, leading to Cecil's ultimate weapon.

But wait, I've only mentioned two versions, right? Yeah, there's another one. Final Fantasy IV Easytype. That's right, it's literally called Easytype. This one was released only in Japan but was designed to be even easier than the US version. Oddly enough, though, I've heard other reports from players saying certain aspects of the game are actually harder than the US version.

So what does this mean for all the ports of the game, huh? Well, Easytype added some basic game engine upgrades, fixing some bugs and whatnot. These were added into every port but otherwise, every port is based on the original Japanese version. That means those of you playing on your Android or iOS devices are going to have a much harder time than I will getting through. In fact, a friend of mine told me the Android version in particular is brutally difficult.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, there are also two sequels to Final Fantasy IV: Interlude and The After Years. Both of these come included in the PSP version, the only version to have them both included. Also, in case you didn't pick up on this before, since I am playing as close to the original English-releases as possible, I am playing the SNES version of Final Fantasy IV.

Game on!

Plot? What's a plot?

...And all these new-fangled graphics? Could it be? Is it really here? The... gulp... SNES?!

That's right, Final Fantasy IV is here in all it's 16-bit glory. As much as I enjoyed the first three Final Fantasy games, the SNES titles were the ones that started my love affair with Final Fantasy in the first place. Well, okay, VI was my first Final Fantasy love but IV was pretty awesome too.

Remember, in Final Fantasy land, 2 = 4

I remember, when I was a kid, seeing Final Fantasy Chronicles on the Sony Playstation played at a friend's house. That's a packaged remake of Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy IV for those who don't know. Now, that may not seem too impressive now but it wasn't until I was in middle school that I had any console other than my Sega Genesis and in those days, the only games I really knew about were side-scrolling platformers. Anything more complicated than Sonic the Hedgehog was far beyond my comprehension. Aside from Pokemon Red for the Game Boy, I'd never even seen an RPG before.

I still loved plots though. Whenever I got a new game, the first thing I did was read the instruction manual which had plot summary, background information, character bios, I devoured it all. Hell, I can still recite the whole plot summary to every Ecco the Dolphin game if you really cared to ask, which, trust me, you don't. To think that a game could be plot-driven and that I could participate in a tale of knights, airships and magic crystals, it was all too much for my little brain to handle. I needed a Playstation with every fiber of my being. Alas, it was not to be and I thought all RPG's were lost to me (little did I know that gems such as Beyond Oasis, Phantasy Star 2/3/4, Shining Force, Shadowrun, etc. were right in front of my nose).

Now, I get to take back those lost childhood opportunities as I help Cecil to fight against the corrupt empire that used and betrayed him and finally finish my first taste of Role Playing goodness. Oh and this really must be said but, Final Fantasy Chronicles, probably the greatest compilation disk EVER MADE. Seriously, Final Fantasy IV and Chrono Trigger on one disk with new FMV cutscenes? SquareSoft, you really did love us.

Game on!