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snap's Final Fantasy (PSP)
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| [January 24, 2008 11:36:35 AM]
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Gameplay, Take 2
It seems things can really change from day to day. While this may be good for people who like variation, it’s not good for a video game level system. After I grew my characters a level or two, the difficulty of the enemies seemed to increase steeply. Right now I’m pretty frustrated with the game, since it seems impossible to safely get to the next area without power-leveling for hours on end. It takes a ridiculous amount of experience points to get to the next level, and you don’t even get the freebie levels some games give you at the start. The sharp difference combined with the general unhelpfulness of the game (unexplained abbreviations everywhere) could be enough to make me stop playing this game for a while.
While RPG’s generally don’t lend themselves to improving social relationships, this one can, in a way. It is so ancient, and rarely seen anymore, that people will sit down and watch you play for a few minutes, saying things like ‘Whoa! So oldschool!’ Then you may reminisce together about games you played when you were a kid. But then the novelty wears off, and the bystander leaves. Still, it can be a good way to break the ice.
Design
Ok, I haven’t finished the game, and probably never will, but for a very good reason. As I have mentioned at least once before, the levels, in particular the difficulty from one to the next, is really bad. It is too hard to play the game without gaining a lot of levels before progressing, but power-leveling can literally take hours. To improve, the necessary amount of levels to progress to the next level should be obtained through gameplay as the player progresses through the story.
The tone of the game is a different matter. Although when compared to any of today’s games the graphics and music are laughable, they combine to give the game a very distinctive feel. There is a sense of epic-ness but it’s hard to take it too seriously because it doesn’t feel very realistic. I wouldn’t change this aspect of the game.
One more thing the game could do better in is being user-friendly. That means no more abbreviations, explanations of what kind of character can equip which weapons and armor, and exactly what each item and spell does.
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| [January 23, 2008 06:02:49 PM]
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Final Fantasy on the NES
Summary
Final Fantasy is a role-playing game for one player, though the player controls four characters (the Light Warriors) at once during combat. In exploring the world, the player encounters monsters that can be defeated by means of a turn-based combat system.
The object of the game is to restore light to each light orb and defeat the bad monsters.
Gameplay, 1st time around
The first thing the game does after the opening narration is to make you choose your party’s character classes. Choices range from fighter to red mage, and while there are six choices in all, you only have four party members. Already, before I even knew the controls, or anything about the game except a basic story, I was having to make some strategic choices. Other elements that required strategy were also present right from the beginning of the game. For example, you start with 400 gold, but no weapons, armor, abilities, or knowledge of anything else in the game. With so little information, it is hard to know how to use (very) limited resources. Out of habit from other RPG’s, the first thing I did was to go save my game at the Inn… but it told me I had to pay thirty gold just to save! Right away, the seemingly unforgiving nature of this game had me on edge.
However, that didn’t stop me from getting engrossed in the game from the very start. One thing that contributed to this was being able to name each character in my party. Even thought they are really just colored dots on a screen, I felt like I had a connection to them, because I “created” them. Having an emotional investment made me not want to stop playing—I had to stay and see what happened to them.
The story was also intriguing. The game starts off by the kingdom of Coneria, which is fun to run around in for a little while. But then, adventure calls, and you leave the safety of the town, going off into the great wide open. What I’m saying is that for the most part, there is a continuing sense of discovery, and that there is a world beyond what you can see on the screen at the moment.
All of these elements: the challenging unfamiliarity, the personalization and the intriguing story, make this game fun to play.
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snap's Final Fantasy (PSP)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Wednesday 23 January, 2008
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