The old classics

As you may know, Square-Enix recently released "Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls". This is another in the recent trend of releasing old NES and Genesis games onto the GBA, since the GBA does have more processing power than that old POS.

I'm kidding. I did love the NES, when it worked and when I didn't have to jab a cleaning thing into the cartridge slot, which held a cartridge as BIG AS A BOOK, in order to get the damn thing working. But it was still the best thing we had at that time.

God, is that sad...

Anyway, Final Fantasy I was the game that saved Square, and spurned a series of games who's only similarity in terms of plot is the name and that most of them have the NPC "Cid", for some reason.

Still, it was an excellent RPG, the creator of the Japanese RPG sub-genre.

Now?

It isn't bad...

Now, despite the obvious flaws, like poor graphics and sound, being that it was a freaking NES game, still, it is rather amazing how far the gameplay in the genre has come in so few years.

Well, I SAY few...

For one, the plots nowadays are far more developed. Which isn't very hard.

Defeating the first boss of the game, which saves the princess, procures two rewards: 1: The king agrees to rebuild a bridge that has no reason not being built in the first place. I mean, seriously, its a bridge that's only a few squares north of the city, probably a major trade hub to the rest of the world, and you haven't rebuilt it yet? Come on!

2: A lute.

Yeah.

In exchange for saving the king's daughter, she gives you a freaking lute.

Whoopty doo!

Its not even an equippable item...

Also, the gameplay has become much more refined. Its nothing really big, but comparing FF1 to FFIX, the difference are apparant. Including speed into combat, so thieves attack more often than fighters, adding limit breaks so that you can get a huge boost of power when you need it, throwing in non-spell abilities, simple strategic options like deciding whether to target one or all enemies/allies or creating two lines of combat, stuff like that.

But the similarities are also pretty interesting. The classes didn't change much, the magic system's only change is that its learned off of items instead of purchasing spells. Random battles still pop up, leveling up is done automatically, some spells can be cast outside of battle, the basic elements. I haven't gotten far enough to discover if the elemental spells were done with the classic-yet-absurd "Fire -> Fira -> Firaga", but I have hopes.

The best way, perhaps, to look at old games is, I don't know, an unfinished sculpture. The original is good, but the details aren't there yet. Each progression refines it more and more, making a better game each time. But ten iterations later, the resemblance to the original product is clear as daylight...