Week 8: Final Fantasy

Possibly the most famous of RPG games, Final Fantasy made its debut in 1987.  With a fairly intricate story (especially for its time) and a variety of foes to fight, the game was a commercial and critical success.  Since then, it has produced a multitude of sequels, merchandise, and cultural references that have cemented its place in video gaming history.

In the first one, the story follows four brave travelers as they set out to save a Princess and save the world from imminent doom.  The unique part about Final Fantasy was that the player can choose the class of all four characters.  The options for these classes are Fighter, Red Mage, White Mage, Black Mage, Thief, or Black Belt.  Through the battling of monsters and the traveling of the various lands, which were three continents in total, the warriors need to defeat the Four Fiends of the Elements and, ultimately, Chaos.  

Because this is a game that involves leveling up and gaining experience, it is one that requires a large investment of time.  In order to even match the monsters that come later, a player needs to fight all of the lower-level monsters and buy all of the necessary equipment.  It is very unlikely that a player will be knowledgable enough about the game to do this on their first try, so the player must also have the patience to fail a few times first.

I enjoyed the game as a groundbreaking RPG, but I doubt that I would have the patience or even interest to finish the game entirely.  There were elements that I did find amusing, though.  After my first few tries at the game, I decided that having a majority of Fighters was advantageous for the early stages of the game.  Because of that, my favorite combination was 3 Fighters and 1 White Mage, who I used primarily as a healer.  However, the thing that put the biggest smile on my face was my White Mage getting a critical hit of "3 Damage".  Another humorous aspect of the game was that it cost more gold to purchase chain mail for one of the Fighters than it was to resurrect them.  Perhaps in this fictional world, it is easier to bring people back from the dead.

The impact that Final Fantasy has had on the RPG genre of gaming is clearly evident; in a way, this game took what "River City Ransom" had done and simply made it more engaging.  Probably because of this, Final Fantasy has become a legend within the gaming community, and I highly doubt that their reign of sequels has ended.