Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6138 in Video Games
• Brand: Nintendo
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Platform: Nintendo NES

Features

• Classic fantasy RPG
• Save the world from darkness
• Direct a party of four characters in the fight against evil
• Simple, compelling gameplay
• For one player

From the Manufacturer
This classic console fantasy RPG spawned an unstoppable series of great games. The graphics and sound are shadows of its descendents, but the gameplay is addictive and the story is stunningly rich and thoughtful. Players guide parties of four characters on a series of quests to defeat four ancient demons and save the world--which is also stuck in a time loop!

Customer Reviews

GOSH, THE MEMORIES!!!
Remember those Jeff Rovin books entitled How to Win at Nintendo Games? I first heard of Final Fantasy in one of those books. Upon being pursuaded I decided to try my hand at a new side of video gaming--RPG's. Unlike the Zelda games, the graphics were SHARP and BRIGHT. Not the stupid pastel-colors in earlier NES games. When you first pop the game in, the blue narrative screen comes up and the Final Fantasy Prelude plays. But where's the title, you ask? I'll explain later. Then you name your four characters, and the best part is that you can choose which TYPES of characters you want EVERY time you start again! Do you want muscle, or magic? Fighter, Thief, Black Belt, White Mage, Red Mage and Black Mage. After this, the fantasy begins . . . .The princess has been kidnapped by the evil knight Garland, who lives far to the north on this tiny island continent. The four warriors beef up and face Garland, whereupon he says, "You impertinent fools! I, Garland, shall knock you all down!" Then the first major battle in the FF series takes place. But the title screen STILL hasn't appeared yet. Back at your home castle, the king and queen are so happy that you saved the princess that they agree to build a bridge spanning over to the other continent. You step onto the bridge . . . and THAT'S when the title screen appears, when the Final Fantasy (anthem, I guess you'd call it) plays. In short, the first hour of the game was just a PROLOGUE--like they have in books. I've played all the way up to FF9, but that title screen still impresses me. I hope you know that I'm writing all this from memory--that's how good this game is. Even now, USED copies of Final Fantasy cost ... I could write on and on and on, but I think I got enough down to encourage people to play this game.

one of my all time favorites
When I first played Final Fantasy for the NES, I had been playing video games for a couple of years. I'm not sure I had yet played Dragon Warrior, but I know that I had never heard of an RPG. I received this game for Christmas one year and just started playing. Even though the gameplay was so different and I only got to tell the characters what to do instead of controlling them, I was absolutely engrossed in the game. I couldn't put it down. I spent time fighting Imps, beating the Pirates in Pravoka, and venturing into the Marsh Cave (but not before level 9). I loved this new game.

Compared to RPGs today, Final Fantasy had an incredibly simple story. The world is in trouble (naturally). Four Fiends of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water have ruined the land. A prophecy states that four warriors of Light would come to save the world. You control these Light Warriors and get to pick the character classes of your party (Fighter, Thief, Black Belt, Red/White/Black Mage). It is your quest to destroy this evil plaguing the land and restore the Crystals which give the land its strength. You fight and level up your characters so that they will be stronger and are able to destroy the more difficult enemies. You buy items to keep your characters strong. You buy weapons and armor so that you characters will be able to fight more effectively and live longer.

I only had two problems with this game when I was first playing it for the NES. One: if one of your characters kills an enemy but another character is still targeting that enemy, your second character will attack the empty space where the enemy used to be. That character wastes his turn. It made me use a lot more strategy when fighting (which may have been the reason), but it didn't make sense. If you were in a fight against a pack of wolves and your friend killed one, would you still fight the dead wolf or retarget against a live one? Yeah, me too. Two: This is a problem with the NES. Since this is a battery backed game in order to save your progress, I had many instances of the save data erasing on me when I was hours and hours deep into the game. That's probably why I can walk through the first portion of the game without and guidance whatsoever and it is only near the end that I have to try to remember what to do.

There are games for the Nintendo that I like better, but Final Fantasy remains one of my all time favorite games and it is perhaps the most influential in my gaming life. Without Final Fantasy, I probably would not play RPGs as much as I do.

What started the most popular RPG series World Wide
I'm an old school gamer and actually had my first shot at playing this in the Final Fantasy Origins package. I was pleased with that but I thought it would be much better to play the old original on the NES. I couldn't help it so I set out to find it and surprisingly, someone was willing to let me play their copy.

Let me start off by saying no matter how you look at it whether its on Final Fantasy Origins or on the original NES that prologue is amazing! You start off by being asked to rescue a princess that's been captured by Garland. So you head off to the Temple of Fiends (Temple of Chaos on FFO) and battle Garland the first boss in Final Fantasy history. When you go back and return the princess the King will have the bridge rebuilt to the north. When you finally cross that bridge the words "Final Fantasy" appear on screen. That moment in my entire RPG career (well next to the opera scene in FFVI) will remain to be quite possibly my most memoriable. I've never seen an RPG do a prologue like that eversince. Not even FFIV's was that spectacular.

Now I'm sorry but if you're like some people my age you don't really care for this and you'd much rather have the eye candy and so you're sitting around playing Final Fantasy X (sorry but eye candy sickens me!). But I found it very nice to play the origin of the series and it shows me now why Final Fantasy X isn't the best one in the series.

Again, this is old-school and so the storyline doesn't get off to a great start. But I'd played Dragon Warrior and when I played Final Fantasy I was glad that it wasn't a save the princess deal (as most games on the NES I played were.). It was actually a story about saving the world. Something that in the 80's I never got from gaming. The story paces a little slow but in the 80's when I played Dragon Warrior, that paced slow too.

The storyline is actually one of my favorites in the series. You go around restoring the crystals that restore piece to the land. Then you go back 2000 years into the past and prevent any of the events from every happening. It was one of the greatest in the series. Plus, it was actually FANTASY!

My only gripe with the original NES version was what most people didn't like. The fact that if all your characters targeted an enemy and the enemy died before all the characters attacked it they'd attack an empty space. Luckily in the Final Fantasy Origins package this was remedied. Still, one of the best Final Fantasy games in the series. If you want an example of what the perfect RPG should be this is a great example.