Gaming - Final Fantasy One

Hironobu Sakaguchi, the director of the game's development, decided that this game would be his "final" game and it would be a "fantasy". Therefore Final Fantasy. If the game failed, Square would have no longer existed and he would have been back in school. Thankfully it was a humongous success!

While this may sound like an unoriginal RPG storyline to ears of our generation, back then the storyline was considered highly original.

The world is rotting due to an evil power throwing the four Elemental Crystals out of balance. Four characters called the Light Warriors go an a quest to destroy the forces of evil and restore light to the crystals (or orbs in the american version) in order to save the world.

Your party goes around dungeons, defeating monsters and bosses. Towns have shops and you earn money from defeating monsters and selling loot. This game still uses the Gold currency. During battles, characters may attack, use abilities such as magic, use items, or flee. In this particular rpg you select all 4 character's battle decisions before each fight round and the characters would do that no matter what. This meant that if you had a character attack and kill a monster, and you had another character selected to attack that same monster, he'd attack nothing! However in remakes, there is the option to set the game so that characters go to the next enemy available.

Beating enemies allows characters to grow through experience, which will raise their levels and stats. If all characters die you get a game over. If one character dies, you must revive them through a town's church. This is the classic final fantasy death system so NO phoenix downs.

There are 6 classes available. These are absolute and cannot be changed. Later in the game, it is possible to receive an upgrade on your classes.

Fighter/Warrior (upgrade: Knight)
These guys are weapon wielders. They deal a lot of physical damage and I consider them to be vital to any team. The Knight can also use lvl 1 white magic.

Black Belt/Monk (upgrade:Master)
Leveling up with the monks will allow them to become stronger at fist fighting. Weapons may strenghten you when you're low leveled, but as your grow you won't want weapons anymore.

Thief (upgrade:Ninja)
They can steal, and they're agile (so more attacks per turn), and the damage they deal isn't too bad. I find them kind of useless, but that's just me.

Red Mage (upgrade:Red Wizard)
My personal favorite. They deal a lot of physical damage, even as much as a warrior, and yet can use a lot of white and black magic. They can't use higher leveled magic, nor can they use white/black-only magic (like Quake or Holy), but what they can do is amazing. Their magic powers are less than the mages but the fact that you can fight physically is a huge plus.

White Mage (upgrade: White Wizard)
If you like to heal a lot , or if you like being able to use Holy, these mages will do the job well. Too bad they're beyond weak in physical stats.

Black Mage (upgrade: Black Wizard)
Also weak in physical stats, though not as much as the white mages. The black Mages and Wizards deal a lot of damage when they use magic. Too bad there's so little MP to go around and no way to heal it within a dungeon. That's why having physical attackers is crucial - they kill the small fry so you can save your magic for the bosses!

Note: About magic. In the original version once a spell has been learned, you can't change it to something else later so choose carefully! Some remakes let you forget spells in order to learn new ones.

Different characters can use different types of weapons and armors. There are 4 slots for weapons, and four slots for armor. Only one weapon may be equipped at a time (so why four slots?) The best way to know what your character can use is to get an item list online. For armors each character can use all 4 slots, but cannot repeat armor types. That means you can have one helmet, one gauntlet, one shield, and one armor (robe/cuirasss/bracelet)

Final Fantasy had a score by Nobuo Uematsu, though it was aforementioned that some remakes may have had other composers redo mixes and new songs. Song very important songs were introduced in this game.
Notedly Prelude. This is the song you hear before you play the game (Prelude...get it? )
Opening Theme (aka Final Fantasy) is played soon after you set out on your quest and will appear in more games later on, though many later Final Fantasy games will have the theme during Credits.
There's of course the Victory Fanfare. You know that victory song that seems to be in nearly every Final Fantasy game? Well it was in this one too!

Also do note the style the battle music has. The beginning of the regular battle music has a certain style that will be repeated in many later Final Fantasy battle themes.

There was a CD release of Final Fantasy's score along with that of Final Fantasy II's.