confidentialmisanthropy

It’s virtually impossible for me to conventionally review this compilation as objectively as perhaps someone…

· who’s adolescence wasn’t so connected with these games.
· who wasn’t an admitted Square-Enix fan boy.
· who hasn’t played remake upon remake of these games already.

So…

I’m not gonna.

There’s really a couple ways I suppose I could approach the existence of FF I - II Advance from a reviewers’ / gamers’ point of view. There’s the nostalgic approach, which frankly comes completely naturally to me considering the source.

But then there’s the cold hard truth that this isn’t 1987, and the Light Warriors may not have aged as gracefully as we’d hoped.



Back when FF I - II Advance was announced my impulsive opinion was somewhere in the range of, “It’s about effin’ time!” But, I ain’t so sure anymore.

You can learn from Nintendo and all their remakes, especially the GBA ones. Some games, regardless of advances in the industry, cosmetic and otherwise, can really be timeless.

Take Metroid: Zero Mission for example. Sure, Nintendo retrofitted the game a bit. There’s no map in the NES Metroid. ZM has a map, with indicators pointing to your next objective. A purist would tell you this is wrong because it tarnishes the experience somehow, dumbing it down, making it less hardcore or some other B.S. but truthfully, Metroid’s sequels have taught us to expect Samus to have a map. We expect Samus to grab ledges. It’s subliminal. So Nintendo adds a few features and spruces up a classic game.

The end result is something really awesome. A game, 15 years young, still relevant, equaling and sometimes besting its progeny. The blueprint for a remake.

In the event of Final Fantasy I - II we have something else entirely. Just two summers ago, Square re-released these two games for the PSOne…, which happened to be ports of the Wonderswan remakes they’d done a year earlier. Most of the updated features were cosmetic; 16-bit style graphics, orchestral soundtracks, FMV intros, etc. But there are much needed gameplay tweaks in there, like being able to buy more than one of each item a time at the shops, and the addition of a dash button and such. The NES game also had an annoying in-battle problem where if one character were set to attack an enemy that was already killed they’d swing at nothing, losing a turn. This forced us to familiarize ourselves with HP totals for monsters, which was acceptable when I was 10, but not on my PSOne in 2002. In the remake, your character auto-targets the next monster in line. However, despite all the retrofitting, the games feel extremely dated.

For the GBA compilation SE decided to alter the games (especially FF) even more. Final Fantasy’s magic system is now MP based, which makes the game infinitely more playable. The difficulty’s also been adjusted to more… tolerable levels. You can start a new game and be sending Garland to his maker in less than 15 minutes. If that wasn’t enough, you can now save without using a cottage or tent on the overworld map, which is practically a must for the portable medium.

Sadly though, despite all the retrofitting, the games still feel extremely dated.

I’ve come to the conclusion that all the tweaking in the world can’t warrant remaking these games… again; and not even a mode where I can fight the Doom Train from FFVI and Gilgamesh from FFV with my Red Wizard from FFI is gonna change that. Some games just aren’t remake-worthy.

Sacrilege, I know.

Seriously. You can’t chronicle the history of the role-playing genre or videogames as a medium for that matter without mention of Final Fantasy. But honestly, there are better candidates in the series for a true remake. I guess what I’m trying to say is, just ‘cause it worked in 1990, doesn’t mean it’ll work now. I don’t remember if I uttered expletives every time there was a random encounter in FF in 1990 on my NES… but I sure as hell do now.

If you’re one of those people who’ve been weaned on FFVII or FFX (you know who you are) and you’ve wanted to explore the series roots, just know what you’re getting yourself into. These games come from a time when Square was still shaping the genre, as we know it today, and the games are really more “experimental” than anything. My advice to you: go grab an SNES from the bargain bin and pick up Final Fantasy II (IV) if you want to see the real beginning of the series.

If you’re a long time fan of the series and you want to relive the 8-bit glory days… again, this compilation contains the best versions ever made of the two games and the “Soul” modes are cool additions but it’s a bit diluted considering how many times we’ve played this game in different forms. Just be forewarned, fondly remembering is only a random encounter away from cursing vehemently.

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