Final Fantasy I wiki page
Originally released for the Famicom in 1987 in Japan and the NES in 1990 in North America, FFI is, appropriately, the first Final Fantasy game. I think the story behind the creation of the game is relatively common knowledge. Basically, SquareSoft wasnot doing so well as a company in the late 80s and only had the resources for one "final" game. The man in charge of the title,
Hironobu Sakaguchi, felt that he could create a story based game better than an action game, so he decided to create a fantasy RPG. He titled the game "Final Fantasy" since it was supposed to have been Square's literal final fantasy.
FFI introduced to the series... well, everything, but specific things that have carried over to the rest of the games:
- The names and images for many of the jobs/classes
- Musical themes such as the Prelude, Main Theme, and Victory Fanfare
- Airships
- Crystal themed story
There have been many, many different remakes and ports of the game over the years. It has been released in NA as:
- Final Fantasy for the NES
- As part of the Final Fantasy Origins collection on the PSX with updated graphic, a refined translation, and slight tweaks to the gameplay (including an "easy mode")
- Part of the Final Fantasy I&II Dawn of Souls collection for the GBA. This version was made considerably easier and simpler than previous versions.
- Final Fantasy for the PSP with further updated graphics
- The original NES version on the Wii's Virtual Console
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I will be playing through the Origins version on the Playstation on "Normal Mode". The original has not aged well visually, and I feel the Origins version has the best gameplay "refinements" without compromising the original game itself, if that makes sense.
I actually started playing a few days ago. I am now on Mt. Gulg for those familiar with the game. I will update with impressions once I've completed it.