Final Fantasy I: Difference between revisions

{{work}}

 

 

 

 

 

 

The story focuses on the trials of the Light Warriors, four people who were either [[Fragile Speedster|thieves]], [[White Mage|white mages]], [[Black Mage|black mages]], [[Mighty Glacier|warriors]], [[Bare-Fisted Monk|monks]] (black belts in the the original translation), or [[The Red Mage|red mages]]. Each [[An Adventurer Is You|character class]] had different abilities in battle, and had a variety of weapons and armor to choose from, and to top it all off, one quest you can take has as its reward an upgrade of your classes into a more powerful version, most of them with brand new abilities. The game also had three modes of transportation besides walking - ship, canoe, and airship. ''This was mind-blowingly new and different for a console game.'' <ref>Different party combinations yield different results.</ref> Compare it to its main competition in Japan, ''[[Dragon Quest II]]'', where you only had three characters with pre-set abilities and a single mode of transportation.

But even so, ''Final Fantasy I'' helped change the [[RPG]] industry.

 

{{tropelist}}

* [[Antidote Effect]]: Inverted in the original; for the price of learning the PURE spell, you can buy 53 Pure potions, which is more than you're likely to ever need.

* [[Broken Bridge]]: Actually a ''non-existent'' Bridge...the Light Warriors must defeat the first boss, Garland, before it's built. It's changed to an actual broken bridge in later remakes.

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]:

** A slightly shorter example is The Crown - while you have to fetch it from the Marsh Cave, it's not actually used by the party until the Castle of Ordeals.

** The mysterious black orb in the Temple of Fiends/Chaos Temple {{spoiler|is used to transport you into the final dungeon, 2000 years in the past.}}

* [[Game Mod]]: The [http://jeffludwig.com/finalfantasy/download.php Mod of Balance] for the ''Dawn of Souls'' version ([[Game Boy Advance]] remake), which changes things to not only make more sense (no [[Useless Useful Spell|Vox spell]] for starters) but retains the difficulty from the NES version.

* [[Ghost Memory]]: The Lufenians pass down the memories of their ancestors in some type of ceremony, which seems to be why they're the only ones who know much about what happened 400 years ago.

* [[Gorgeous Gorgon]]: You meet these later in the game. They may have green skins and snakes-as-hairs, but they're also quite buxom.

** Marilith, to some.

* [[Gotta Kill Them All]]: The Four Fiends.

* [[Hair Antennae]]: The Thief's newer sprites have one of these poking out from under his bandanna.

* [[Heroes Prefer Swords]]: Also because there's not much choice... the Black Mage can use [[Knife Nut|daggers]], the White Mage [[Drop the Hammer|mallets]] and [[Simple Staff]], the Warrior can equip [[An Axe to Grind]] and the [[Bare-Fisted Monk]] can use [[Exotic Weapon Supremacy|nunchucks]].

* [[Holy Hand Grenade]] / [[Good Hurts Evil]]: The HARM spells. They only work against undead.

* [[Infinity-1 Sword]]: EXCALIBUR! Made of Adamantium and forged by an ambitious dwarf blacksmith named... [[Punny Name|Smith]].

* [[Monsters Everywhere]]: Among the earlier games that introduced the joy of traveling a world in which monsters grow like weeds absolutely ''everywhere''. Well, except for inside towns.

* [[Mythology Gag]]: In one of the Dawn of Souls dungeons, you have to becalm the shades of several foes you slew beforehand (and except for Astos and the Lich's vampire lieutenant, they actually do get becalmed). One of them, a Piscodemon shade, admits a wish that it could have used magic. The joke is that in the original NES translation, Piscodemons were renamed due to character limits. The problem is that their staves inspired a renaming to ''Wizards''--despite having no spells whatsoever.

* [[Nintendo Hard]]: Only the original NES version, the [[Wonder Swan]] Color version, and the "Normal" mode of the Playstation remake. Later updates to the game streamlined the inventory and equipment systems, and made certain battle commands easier. Plus, the casting system of "limit X uses per level per day" was replaced with the familiar [[Mana]] system in remakes.

** Ironically, changing to a Mana system essentially ''depowered'' mages: in order to counter the fact that mages would be able to cast ''many'' more spells (Flare and Holy every round? '''HELL YEAH!'''), all enemies received a particularly large boost to magic defense, such that a black mage casting Flare (level 8 spell, 40 MP) is significantly less effective than a fighter smacking an enemy around with Haste (level 4 spell, 16 MP) and Temper (level ''2'' spell, ''4'' MP).

** LAMP cures darkness/blind. In the original game, the darkness/blind status ailment didn't do anything, making LAMP equally useless.

* [[Useless Useful Spell]]: Subverted, as many of the bosses were vulnerable to at least one [[Standard Status Ailment]].

** The FEAR spell does exactly what it says: inspires fear in the enemies so they run away. Of course, anything after Crescent Lake/Gurgu Volcano is immune to it (except the final boss, but the odds of it actually working are microscopic), and ''you don't get experience for enemies that run away''. It's only real use is in the Earth Cave if you encounter an enemy too powerful, or the Cockatrice (which can petrify you with ease). After that, well...hope you didn't need that spell slot (hint: you don't).

* [[Vancian Magic]]: FFI directly rips off [[Dungeons and Dragons]]' "spells per day" idea, and there are no magic rechargers in the game outside of sleeping in an inn or tent/cabin/cottage. The remake uses a traditional mana pool and provides access to ethers.

** It's worth noting that the white/red/black differences between the mages were probably inspired by [[Dragonlance]] (white and black are easy enough to derive on your own, but is red that obvious for the middle ground?).

* [[Violation of Common Sense]]: To get through the volcano, you have to walk through magma. In fact, it's often a good idea to do so, since it prevents random encounters.

* [[Where It All Began]]: The first dungeon is also the entrance to the [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon|much more impressive final dungeon]]. On top of that, the first boss is also the [[Final Boss]] after pulling a [[One-Winged Angel]].

** The game started and ended with {{spoiler|the villain Garland}} being slighted by the royal family and making amends with the royal family respectively after breaking the loop.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Eastern RPG]]

[[Category:Fantasy Video Games]]

[[Category:Wonder Swan]]