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.