Final Fantasy Origins
- February 04, 2003 16:40 PM PST
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Wow, did NES games really look this good? Er, not really, actually?Square's audiovisual department has been working overtime on this remake, that's all.
The first thing that'll cross your mind when you load up Final Fantasy Origins may not necessarily be "Wow, what amazing classics these are!" Indeed, it may be more along the lines of "Wow, how'd they get this GBA emulator in my PlayStation?", and there's good reason for this, too: the remixed games in Origins, a collection of the first two Final Fantasies, are actually ported from versions Square released for the WonderSwan Color portable system in Japan a year or two ago.Everything you'd expect to see in an RPG remake is here, along with a few very nice (and very Square-like) extras. The graphics are strictly GBA quality (save for the very pretty CGI intros for both games), but the music has been completely reorchestrated and will likely be worth the price of admission for FF fanatics alone. There's also a monster book and art gallery for both titles, letting you browse the original Yoshitaka Amano character designs as you run across them in the games themselves.
On a more practical note, Final Fantasy I and II are a bit easier to play as well. Your character can run across towns instead of plodding along 8-bit style, and?wonder of wonders?there's even an Easy difficulty setting for the notoriously difficult FF1. Not that FF1 in Easy is necessarily easy, though?by our measure, your party will still die horribly much more often than in any modern RPG, save Breath of Fire V. But don't let that bother you. This is history we're talking about, after all.
