BlueSmoke - Guide : A History of Final Fantasy - Part I

		Date	: Mar 17th, 2001
		Genre	: RPG
		Developer	: Squaresoft
		Author	: Jin-Ning Tioh

You may not know this, but before its multi-million success, Square was but a small publishing company based in Japan. There, Square published many other smaller games for the Famicom Disk System. These titles sold respectably, but the Famicom Disk System only had a modest installed base, making console hit a very elusive goal. It was only when Hironobu Sakaguchi suddenly got the bright idea of creating a game similar to competitor Enix's Dragon Quest, when work began on a massive one-megabit cartridge role-playing game for the Famicom Disk System that would attempt to revolutionize the basic formula of the RPG genre. Since the game would either make or break the company, they decided to name it Final Fantasy.

It's been 14 year since then, and the outcome is clear. The first Final Fantasy released was an enormous success in both the States and Japan, with every sequel released being even more successful then its predecessor, the latest of which being Final Fantasy X, and soon to be Final Fantasy XI. As if this wasn't enough, a major blockbuster entitled Final Fantasy : The Spirits Within was also released earlier this year. Join us as we trace the Final Fantasy series back to its roots and later to its current globe-spanning success. So with no further ado, let the adventure begin!

Here's a list of gaming systems that the Final Fantasy series uses :

Famicom Disk System The station that Square started off with, the Famicom only had a modest installed base, making console hit a very elusive goal. It started getting more popular after Square began the Final Fantasy series however. It was used from Final Fantasy I - Final Fantasy III. There is a converter for the station that will allow you to use Famicom games on it, but is very hard to find now.

Nintendo Entertainment System ( NES ) The Nintendo Entertainment System ( NES ) was used from Final Fantasy I - Final Fantasy III. It usually comes with two controllers and some additional stuff. There is a converter for the station that will allow you to use Famicom games on it, but is also very hard to find now.

Wonderswan The Wonderswan was only released quite recently in Japan. Square redesigned most of Final Fantasy I - Final Fantasy III for it, including monsters, backgrounds and characters. To the best of my knowledge however, the Wonderswan is only available in Japan, unless you ship it of course.

PlayStation The popular PlayStation was used from Final Fantasy IV right until Final Fantasy IX. It usually comes with two controllers and some additional stuff. Many emulators have already been created for this console, such as Bleem, Connectix Virtual Game Station (CVGS) and so on...

PlayStation 2 Forget everything you know and step into the 128-bit universe brought to you by the PlayStation 2 entertainment system. The console's dazzling 300-Mhz processor delivers enhanced clarity and mesmerizing graphics, and it doubles as a CD / DVD player. You can also play your original PlayStation games. And you thought it was just a game...

Personal Computer Many emulators such as NESticle by Bloodlust and others are use here. But I don't think I'll have to go much deeper into the Personal Computer's history since without it you wouldn't be reading this right?

Final Fantasy I Released:  July 1990  18th December 1987 Systems: Famicom Disk System Nintendo Entertainment System ( NES ) Wonderswan PC Emulators

The Story

At the heart of every Final Fantasy, comes an original and unique plot that is unrelated to its predecessors. Likewise, the fist Final Fantasy's plot might not be as complicated as later games in the series, but at least it beats Dragon Quest's "Save the princess / Whoop Dragonlord's ass" two-act scenario.

The world is slowly dying from within, and the people are desperately waiting for the fulfillment of a prophecy: That four Light Warriors, bearing orbs would arrive to renew and save the world from disaster. The game will begin with the warriors going through the usual fantasy quests: Save the princess, awaken the sleeping Elf king, placate the blind witch, dethrone an usurping pretender, wash the princess's under garments... You get the idea. Pretty soon however, the cause of the greater problem is discovered. Four Fiends are behind the world's decay. And behind them lies Chaos, an evil beast that has twisted time itself for its own ends.

These Four Fiends come from 2000 years in the past. Since then, they have grown weak. In order to restore their former strength, they send the knight Garland 2000 years back in time. Here, Garland becomes Chaos by melding with the Four Fiends. Chaos intends to use his new found powers to send the Fiends into the present. However, the Light Warriors travel into the past and defeat Chaos before he succeeds. Their victory over Chaos erases all traces of their journey and only their legend remains, passed down by the dwarves, the dragons and the elves. Unfortunately, many gamers were confused, and didn't understand the story. Many doubt the designers themselves knew.

The Heroes ( Good Guys )

Final Fantasy I has no fixed heroes, leaving the players to name their characters in all their four-character-name glory. There isn't much character development in FF1, practically nil actually. I would recommend a party of one fighter, one black mage, one white mage and a thief / second fighter. Anyway, here are the job classes your characters can choose from :

Fighter / Knight - The fighter is basically a human tank. He's tough, hits on the enemy with a vengeance, and unfortunately, costs a bomb to equip as well. It's recommended you have at least one of these guys in your group to dispatch tough enemies. They also have the highest HP (Hit Points) in the game. The fighter will evolve into a knight during a "class change" in the game. As a Knight, you can equip all the strongest armor and weapons in the game and even cast some low-level white magic spells.

Black Belt / Master - The black belt is a more versatile fighter, being cheaper to maintain than the fighter. He is averagely tough and can do quite some damage using his training in martial arts. Also, he requires no weapons to inflict heavy damage on his enemies. If you want a cheaper although somewhat less flexible fighter, the black belt would be a good choice. Has HP second to the stronger fighter. The black belt will evolve into a Master during a "class change" in the game. As a master, the only benefit he gains is that he can kick butt better than before using his fists.

Thief / Ninja - The thief is a moderate fighter with an equally moderate HP rating in the beginning. However, he is good for one thing: running. He has the highest agility rating in the group, enabling him to help ensure that the group manages to get out of sticky situations. This will become a totally different story when he evolves into a Ninja later in the game. As a ninja, he can equip a lot more weapon and armor types as well as cast up to level 4 black magic spells in the game. To sum it up, only use this class if you have the patience to wait for him to become more useful. If you do use him, he'll ensure that you can make the best use of many of the fighter's hand-me-downs.

Red Mage / Red Wizard - The red mage is the fighter/mage of the group. He deals out respectable damage in combat, and has the ability to cast both black magic and white magic. Unfortunately, he can only cast low-level spells for both kinds of magic. So if you're looking for a balance between combat skills and magic, this is the man. However, I recommend that you use specialized characters like the Black Mage or the White Mage to enhance your party further. The red mage will evolve into a Red Wizard during a "class change" in the game. As a red wizard, he is now able to equip more weapons and armor types as well as cast more black and white magic spells.

Black Mage / Black Wizard - The black mage is the master of the black arts. Unlike his counterpart, the white mage, he can help your party out by inflicting heavy damage on enemies through his black magic. It's recommended you have at least one black mage in your party. The black mage will evolve into a Black Wizard during a "class change" in the game. A black wizard can cast all black magic spells in the game. A poor fighter, evolved or not.

White Mage / White Wizard - The white mage is the master of the white arts. Unlike his counterpart, the black mage, he helps your party by healing and curing your party of various ailments through his white magic. It's recommended you have at least one white mage in you party. The white mage will evolve into a White Wizard during a "class change" in the game. A white wizard can cast all white magic spells in the game. An even worse fighter than the black mage / wizard, evolved or not.

The Villains ( Bad Guys )

In a move that will help inspire the future Final Fantasy IV's villains, Final Fantasy I has the Four Fiends: Tiamat, the Fiend Of Air who lives in a floating castle; Kraken, the Fiend Of Water who lurks in the murky waters of his Sea Shrine; Kary, the many-limbed temptress Fiend Of Fire who dwells in the middle of Gurgu Volcano; Lich, the undead and skeletal Fiend Of Earth; And finally, Chaos, the ultimate evil who controls the four Fiends from his abode within the Temple Of Fiends. Here's a slightly more detailed version of these fiends of evil.

Garland - Your heroes will encounter the dark knight Garland while rescuing the princess early on in the game. But don't worry, Garland is very easy to beat. At level 3 you should have no problem. Have fighters use their weapons, Black / Red Mages use FIRE or LIT, and save your White Mages for curing. But, like I said, he is quite a push-over for now, so you shouldn't have much of a problem finishing him off.

Chaos - The ultimate evil who controls the four Fiends from his abode within the Temple Of Fiends, he is the last enemy you will encounter in the game. He can use any spell he feels like using, plus he has spells ( weird and powerful spells ) that you've never seen before. He can CUR4 himself back to full HP any time he wants, although he doesn't do it often. His physical attack really hurts a lot too. Okay, so first things first, use INV2 and FAST. If you have a Ninja, have him use FAST too, before attacking. If you gave the Masamune to one of your mages, don't forget to FAST him or her too. Your White Mage should use WALL on as many of your party members as she can. Then start attacking. Your Black Mage should use NUKE and any other powerful elemental attacks he has; no magic hurts Chaos very well, though. FADE works well too. But make sure your White Mage keeps everyone's HP up, because Chaos could easily pull a Spell of Death out of nowhere and wipe you out. Chaos has 2000 HP, so this fight could take a long while. So just hang in there, and sooner or later you'll be able to send him down six feet under.

Kary - The many-limbed temptress Fiend Of Fire who dwells in the middle of Gurgu Volcano, she is one nasty opponent. In comparison with the other fiends however, she's not all she's cracked up to be. The only thing you'll have to look out for is her powerful physical attacks and FIR2. First of all, make sure you're at full HP before you start this fight. When the battle begins, protect yourself with AFIR, and use FAST on your warriors, as always. You may think that ICE would hurt Kary a lot, since she's made of fire and all, but no elemental spell hurts Kary more than any other. So use your strongest spells you have on Kary. If FIR3 is the best you have, use it, as it will actually hurt Kary. Other than that, keep your HP up and rely on your fighters.

Kraken - The Fiend Of Water who lurks in the murky waters of his Sea Shrine is suspected to be a bad joke by Square's programmers, being ridiculously easy for a fiend. So, unless you're afraid of the Boogey Man, you have nothing to fear from his most powerful DARK attacks. Kraken's physical attacks also shouldn't be a problem for you at this point in the game, especially with all the levels you should've gained in the Ice Cave, Castle of Ordeals, and Waterfall. Anyway, use FAST on your warriors, cast ALIT in case Kraken uses LIT2 on you, then attack Kraken with LIT3 and your best physical attacks. Kraken will be dead soon enough. If you're not strong enough to take Kraken, you should consider leveling up a bit.

Lich - The undead and skeletal Fiend Of Earth, Lich is the first of the Elemental Fiends you must fight, and also one of the hardest to defeat. Lich knows quite a few nasty spells; she can use ICE2, LIT2, and FIR2, which will hurt everyone in your party, and she also knows ZAP!, XXXX, and RUB, which are instant killers, but luckily she usually doesn't use on you when you fight her in the Earth Cave. Lich is an undead. Meaning FIRE and HARM will damage her a lot. If you already have FIR3, don't use it on the way through the Earth Cave; save it for Lich. Likewise, save a couple higher-level CURE spells for the last battle. Before starting the battle, use Heal Potions to get your party to full strength. Start off using FAST on your fighting characters, and use AFIR, AICE, ALIT, or INVS to protect your characters. Then hit Lich with everything you have, especially FIRE and HARM spells. Make sure your White Mage is healing everyone in between doses of HARM; don't let your HP fall too low. With luck, Lich will be destroyed in no time.

Tiamat - The Fiend Of Air who lives in a floating castle, Tiamat is one of the hardest Fiends to kill... unless you know the ultimate secret. Tiamat has a weakness to BANE, which will kill her in one hit. If you have the Bane Sword and a good Black / Red Mage, you can win this battle quite easily. Give the Bane Sword to someone other than your Mage so that you can cast it at Tiamat twice a round, because BANE misses quite often. Of course if you feel like fighting fair ( Ha Ha Ha! ) you can kill Tiamat the old fashioned way. Use FAST and INV2, then have your fighters fight, and your mages use magic, blah blah blah, you know the drill. Make sure you're at full HP before entering the battle, of course ( I really shouldn't have to say that at this point in the game, should I? )

WarMech - Itching for a fight? On the top floor of Tiamat's floating castle, go across the bridge. There harbors one of the games tougher opponents: WarMech. You have approximately a 1 in 64 chance to fight him, so keep going. But don't worry, he's not a boss, so fighting him is optional. Anyway, WarMech is a walking death machine - His physical attack is strong enough to kill a Mage in one hit, and his NUCLEAR attack hits all of your characters for some really MAJOR damage. Your party won't be able to survive more than a couple of NUCLEAR attacks unless you're at a very high level. If you should happen to run across WarMech, say a prayer, and cast AFIR and INV2. Use FAST on your fighters ( If your Black Mage lives long enough to do it, that is ). Then start attacking. Save your White Mage for exclusive healing; you're going to need it. If you have some Ribbons, they should lower the damage from Nuclear by a little bit, at least. But it might not matter. In the end, whether you kill WarMech or not depends on what level your characters are at, and how lucky you get. If you do manage to kill WarMech, you'll get rewarded with a King's ransom in gold and a load of EXP. Later in the game, come back here to gain levels and get rich quick fighting WarMech.

Additional Hints & Tips

These are some of the secrets / game bugs in FF1. Some of them are quite useful, like the super-strong monsters above Pravoka, but most are just curiosities or things to do for fun.

Hint #1 While aboard your Ship, simply hold down button "B" and then press button "A" fifty-five times to play a sliding puzzle game. You'll get a whopping 100G for winning the mini-game.

Hint #2 You can usually only land the Airship on grasslands. But there is one square of desert on which the Airship can land. Where? Right on top of the Caravan. It'll save you a long walk to the Caravan, at the very least.

Hint #3 In Elf Land, just beside the White Mage shop, there are three tombstones. Two of them are just ordinary tombstones, but the one in the middle is special. It is the tomb of Erdrick. Erdrick is a character from Dragon Warrior, another very popular game series produced by competitor Enix.

Hint #4 There are some very out-of-place monsters to the north of Pravoka. This was apparently a programming error; the random monsters from the northern continent were accidentally placed on the very top of the southern continent. This is a very good place to gain levels early in the game, if you can survive long enough. The monsters found here are far above the level that you'd normally fight at this point. Just walk back and forth on the two squares of land at the very end of this peninsula to get rich quick.

Hint #5 Apparently, the reason she is invisible is because of a slight programming bug. At least, I assume it was a bug; it could have been intentional, who knows. Normally, people's sprites are visible most of the time, and when you enter a room, they become invisible. You can see this when entering any room; the people outside disappear, the inside of the room becomes visible, and usually the outside darkens a bit, to simulate being in the room. Well, with the Invisible Woman, her sprite was accidentally made visible only when you're INSIDE a room. If there was a room within site of her, when you entered the room, she'd become visible. But there is no room close enough to her to let you see her. To solve this problem, we must use the Walk Through Walls Game Genie code. To use this code, go into a room in Coneria Castle. Stand near the bottom of the room. Open the ROM Patch window in NESticle from the menu, enter the code SLZIAA, and double click it to activate it (it should be flashing). Now, whenever you open and close the Menu screen in the game, your character will walk down one space, walking through walls, over mountains, even onto the ocean if that's the next space below him. Use this twice while in the room, and you'll be outside the room, but with the insides of rooms still visible. Walk up to the Invisible Woman, and lo and behold, there she is, in all her glory. You'll notice that now, everyone ELSE is invisible. At last, the mystery is solved. I'm a genius!

Historical Facts

Final Fantasy introduced many revolutionary concepts to the console RPG genre. The turn-based battles, with their party of heroes on the right and villains on the left, are as frequently imitated in future Final Fantasies and other games as Mario's running and jumping antics are in arcade games. The game's characters are drawn from the mythological archetypes of several cultures. For example, Kraken was one of the last Titans according to legend. Later games would eventually evolve and refine the battle system, but the current magic system would be jettisoned entirely later. Instead of a common pool of Magic Points, Final Fantasy I has eight levels of spells and from one to eight uses per level.

Final Fantasy I was released in the U.S. about a year after Final Fantasy III was released in Japan. Localized and published by Nintendo, the game actually sold more copies in the US than the original had in Japan! Sadly for fans, not even this success could bring Final Fantasy II and III to the States. This landmark title practically created the console RPG genre single-handedly. Its historical influence can never be denied by anyone. For those of you who still want this historic title, NESticle ( An emulator for the Nintendo Entertainment System ) as well as the "ROMs" for Final Fantasy I, II and III can be downloaded from Part II of the series. Don't worry, NESticle is freeware courtesy of Bloodlust Software. As for the "ROMs", you're supposed to delete it after 24 hours of usage if you don't own the original cartridge for the NES. It won't self-destruct or anything so Square is counting on the goodness of your heart to delete it. BlueSmoke also wishes to thank Brian Carper, otherwise known as Dr. Unne or Chwombat, for his information and pictures for Final Fantasy I. His site is currently being hosted on Classic Gaming, so you can check it out here.

Hope you enjoyed the article. The next installment in this series will cover Final Fantasy II and III. So stay tuned...