I have been playing Final Fantasy I for iPhone for the last week or so and beat Chaos this morning. I still have a few bonus dungeons to go back and complete, but I wanted to give my thoughts.
First of all, the game is awesome. It’s ported from the 20th Anniversary Edition for the PSP, which is in turn based on the GameBoy Advance Release of Dawn of Souls. The graphics in the PSP (and consequently iPhone) version are fantastic. The music is gorgeous and there were several times I contemplated finding a way to strip the audio out of the application due to its beauty.
While the game is initially much easier than the original NES classic due to a number of engine improvements (such as: characters shifting attacks from defeated enemies to living ones to avoid wasting a turn, the addition of Phoenix Downs and the Full-Life spell to prevent schlepping back to town every time someone died, and being able to save anywhere), it gets quite a bit tougher in some of the boss battles, especially those found in the bonus dungeons. I was thankful for most of the time-saving features that had been added, however. Getting to the bottom of a bonus dungeon only to find out that you’re woefully underpowered and then getting sent back to the start instead of having to load a game saved me a lot of headache. This way, you at least get to keep your experience and items you found in the dungeon. This is great, considering several of the bonus dungeons have more than 20 floors.
Anyway, if you have played Final Fantasy I before and just want to give it another go, or you’ve never played it and want to know why it defined an entire genre for years, then I suggest you check it out.
