Final Fantasy, NES, 1990

genre:
   JRPG, turn-based, one-player

how player advances:
   There are 2 main ways a player advances in Final Fantasy.  One is the story.  You're basically playing out each chapter in an overarching story.  The other way is by killing monsters which give experience for leveling up, and gold for purchasing better equipment.

how advancement compels player:
   The story makes the player want to know what will happen next, and what kind of character (s)he'll meet next.  The monster-killing is not always easy, and that's good.  If you won every time, there would be little incentive to continue other than the story, and frankly, it isn't that good.  Until late levels, you have to play conservatively to maintain what levels and equipment you have.  This make the player want to do well.  (S)he's rewarded for doing well, but doing well is challenging in a good way.  Not too easy and not too hard.  Just hard enough.  This also wouldn't work if the punishment was too severe.  If you die, you either lose half your gold, or you can reset from your last save.  It's bad enough to drive you to play one more time and beat what you failed at, but it's not so hard that you just get pissed off and quit.

what works:
   The story is a little corny, but in the early 90s it was still original enough to go over well.  There wasn't just a fire level, a water level, and so on.  You're fighting elemental demons so you go into a volcano and a whirlpool and such.  The graphics and music were excellent, especially considering that the game was actually 3 years old when it got its U.S. release.  The music throughout the games gives a sense of adventure, but it also gets suspenseful at appropriate times.  Although it was a fantasy setting, it wasn't the usual fare stolen from Dungeons & Dragons.  It did borrow a lot from D&D, but it had a slightly steampunk-y bent.  The enemies were unique, not just dragons and slimes.  The bosses had larger sprites than normal monsters and the last boss was even bigger.

what doesn't work:
   Back in 1990, everything in this game worked well.  It was well-received.  Nowadays, things are different.  The battles can be a real pain in the ass.  You're able to get "ineffective" if you've selected to attack a monster, but that monster is already dead when you get your turn.  Pretty much every other RPG will just randomly pick a different monster to attack.  The text moves slowly and it's all caps.  Having to select each thing you're going to do is sometimes a groan.  For example, you can only buy 1 item at a time, but you might have enough money and need to purchase 99 of an item.  Today, you'd get the option to buy x amount.  A few of the other actions would be automatic too, instead of making the player select them from a list.  A few of the NPCs (nonplayable characters) are useless.  I don't see the point of having taken the time to program them into the game if they're not going to at least advance the story.  Lastly, if you stop playing halfway through and then pick it up after you've forgotten where you're going, you might literally have to read a book to figure it out.  I think a single line of text could fix that.

out of 10:
   6.5

final thoughts:
   I would've rated Final Fantasy much higher 20 years ago.  I loved this game then and I love it now.  But I had to rate it lower because realistically, no one has the patience to wait around for some of the stuff this game makes you wait around for.  It's still good enough to play a modern remake.  I just wouldn't recommend going all the way back to the NES version if you wanted to try it out.

Intro

   I was born in 1980.  I grew up with, played, and loved the Atari 2600, NES, Game Boy, SNES, Playstation, N64, and Playstation 2, and Game Boy Advance.  I've also played and enjoyed many other consoles such as Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Turbo Grafx 16, Xbox, Game Cube, Wii, DS, Xbox 360, PS3, PC, and Droid.

   To me, video games are about compelling gameplay and fun.  If you're not compelled to play, and you're not having fun, then why bother?

   I really got into the NES above any other system listed above.  It remains to this day my favorite console.  If you are familiar with its library, then you know how badly some of the games on it suck.  Probably more than half of NES games are shitty experiences not worth repeating.  Because I became familiar with this notion early in my life, I consider myself a game connoisseur.  I don't waste my time with junk.  I want the good stuff and only the good stuff.

   The real reason I'm writing this blog is because I want to design video games.  If I'm writing at least weekly about video games and their mechanisms, I'm going to learn what kind of systems and game mechanics make great games, bad games, and the whole spectrum in between.  I hope this helps my ability to design games.

   I don't like people who do bad things to people.  I love nice people.  I don't like to hurt and irreparably damage the Earth.  I hope we can all get on board with not doing that sooner than later.  I don't like whiny music.  The music I like is usually very heavy and has at least a bit of an aggressive edge, not necessarily heavy metal.  Drum n Bass is a good example of the type of music I enjoy most, though I love singing a good country song or doowop, too.  I love explosions, ninjas, cars, parties, science, fashion, Lady Gaga, and neon.  I love to draw images which are based in math.  I love mixing music.  I love the way that cats behave.  I particularly love my own cat.  Go figure.  I generally prefer pixel graphics to vector graphics.  I generally prefer 2d games to 3d games.

   At the time being, I've been going through a lot of the GBA library, most of which is really quite horrible.  I've been searching for really good web games, a few you'll probably read about.  I'm playing through Super Mario 3d Land on the 3DS, a great example of a contemporary game that's compelling and fun.  Chances are high that the NES is the system whose games I'm most going to write about.  NES reviews on the internet are redundant.  Straight up.  However, I intend to write about the way the games play, the mechanics that drive them along, how well those work, and what does and does not work.  I haven't read any reviews that do this, so I hope that makes my classic reviews still relevant today.  Hopefully, this blog will be as helpful to its readers as I think it will be for me.

   Thank you for stopping by.