It’s been awhile since I’ve done a ReRoweView because I’ve been making my way through the gorgeously redone Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster collection. A rehaul of the glorious RPG games that got my gamer gears grinding away through various lands and meeting a wide cast of characters that break hearts(and sometimes the games themselves). Let’s get under way as we have six, that’s right, SIX games to talk about.
Final Fantasy
The game that started it all. Without this game we wouldn’t have the cultural phenomenon that became the series. Spawning sequels and spin-off’s, the classic dungeon crawl and time traveling hero of light story is one that keeps you coming back.
What I really enjoy about this game: The character selection is an interesting take on the ideas brought forth by TTRPG’s and seems to mirror the dungeons and dragons classes. We have our fighter, thief, mages, and monk. All the classes are easily accessible to new players and all offer their own advantages. I myself prefer a classic Fighter, Black Mage, White Mage, and Monk team. I would go thief, but I have found the steal skill to be situationally appealing. It doesn’t seem to offer much in an advantage as a hard hitting attacker. Though, this opinion does change when steal becomes mug in later games and you don’t lose out on a round of combat. Stealing also seems to be the way to net some strong armors and weapons in later games, so its not one to shirk at.
What I don’t like: I do feel like there are areas where I am unsure of what to do because I don’t talk to everyone. Or I’ve thought I talked to everyone and I’ve missed some certain important monologue. A recurring theme in my dislikes will be my inattentiveness to the story elements and forgetting where I am in a play through after taking a break.
Over all, this is the quintessential nintendo rpg, and the pixel remaster does an amazing job at making a game that is kind of tough to get through in its initial offering. Modern conveniences have made it a replayable classic that should never be skipped by fans of the genre.
Final Fantasy II
This is a divisive game as the original is notoriously long winded with increased encounter rates, and a leveling system that some find to be an annoying grind to work on.
Things I like about it: We get some real characterization as we go from Warriors of Light to named individuals with a story focused on the actual growth of our characters. I also really enjoy the leveling system of having to use stuff to get it more powerful. It makes the game unique and in the pixel remaster I don’t think the grind is as a bad as it originally was.
Now, to be completely honest, it has been quite some time since I actually made it through this game. I started the play through of the pixel remasters when they first released in 2021 using a mobile device. The experience was great due to the modern conveniences the game adds and the ability to play anywhere.
As I was following a guide for the most part, I ripped through this title in no time which brings me to…
Final Fantasy III
The return of the job system and a title that did not make it to the United States in pixel form until these remasters if I recall correctly (don’t correct me). I had originally played this one on mobile and not the DS and the charm of the remake just wasn’t the same, though it did have a bit of FF7 feel to it.
I didn’t hit my stride with this game until I played the pixel remaster and I can see why it may be considered some peoples favorites. Our four heroes are once again nameless, or up to the player to give, which as a staple of the games allows for a more immersive role playing feeling. Couple that with the job system and you have a forgettable, but fun title to play through.
What makes this game really special is the said job system. It allowed players to change their characters throughout the game, unlike FF1 which just upgraded the chosen jobs from the beginning. Being able to swtich through the jobs allows players to really fine tune their approach to some areas, though we find a party similar to our FF1 playthrough is what we ended up choosing.
Overall this is really where we would have started to see Final Fantasy start to take shape as it brought many of the iconic moments of laters games into the series in a smaller capacity. However, in the United States we didn’t get FF2 or FF3 until after the popularity of FF7 and Tactics on the Playstation started to explode the franchise to new heights.
Final Fantasy IV
I can talk about this game for days because it is my absolute favorite of the franchise. The story itself is an our hero of a thousand faces epic tale with Shakespearean twists and turns. It is operatic and you can see this is really where Final Fantasy begins it’s journey to becoming of the greatest franchises of all time.
Released in the United States as Final Fantasy II on the SNES, this may have been many fans first foray into the series. I know it was mine. Renting it time and time again to try and beat it within the tedious rental windows set to drive consumers back to the store or incur outrageous late fees. Be kind rewind did not apply to video games, but the save systems of most games were on the cartridge itself. So often times you had to start from scratch.
That might be one of the reasons my brother and I loved playing this game. We would compete with save files and utilize the knowledge the other had gained to our advantage. And this game does require some knowledge of the enemies to effectively navigate the weird kingdom of Baron which keeps that blend of fantasy and science fiction genres. Its not steam punk, its not cyber punk, but a mixture of these that make it hard to pin down exactly where it falls.
Replaying this game was like running into an old friend at the grocery store. A stop and talk as Larry David said. Every beat of the game was an old adventure we were reliving, and when it was all over, we promised to keep in touch.
Final Fantasy V
If you loved the story and adventure in IV, but missed the customizable character options of III, then this is the game for you. This review might be divisive as I found it kind of hard to get into the story beats, but this might also have been because my playthrough had to be restarted due to switching phones and no cloud save. Overall, I ended up grinding the end game jobs and absolutely destroying everything in my way with dual cast Bahamut. So satisfying.
The sprite work in this one is great as we get more cinematic experiences. I really appreciate games that didn’t have full motion video and how they animated the sprites. We get more than the handful we have seen in previous installments and with the SNES jumping from 8bits to 16 gave us a wider spectrum of colors and larger resolutions.
Final Fantasy VI
The last pixel remaster got played on the Nintendo Switch as I made the decision to get the collection in a physical manner. I had thought about playing the game on the SNES classic where it retains the title of Final Fantasy III. The US missed out on 3 whole Final Fantasy games and just renumbered what they did get.
Up until this play through I was never really enthralled with FFVI like I was FFIV. Then I noticed that this took everything great about FFIV and expanded in a manner that makes it one of the greatest RPGs of all time. Some even ranked it higher on lists than the first 3D installment, and Playstation classic, FFVII (currently playing via physical on Switch). And I can see why.
For the most part, the story is of Terra, but quickly expands to a larger cast than FF4, each with their own unique talents and story lines. This is were the game really excels as you sometimes have to seek out these little bits of story and even miss out on some characters all together. The large cast also opens up to the dreaded Dungeons and Dragons no-no of splitting the party. You get to pick which characters go with which characters and it forces you to play as some you normally wouldn’t play with. It can also get you in trouble if you consistently play with the same party. Though grinding levels isn’t that painful of a task.
One issue I had with the game is the split between World of Light and World of Ruin. The World of Light is such a large portion of the game that once we hit the World of Ruin and collect all of our characters there isn’t that much to do aside from the last dungeon. Granted, I was not ashamed at looking up where I needed to go. A younger me might have spent the hours searching for lost characters, but I needed my boy Shadow.
One other thing that separated this from the previous games were the minigame like scenes that helped to break the player from the norm and bring to life the characters further. I remember the little stealth mission as Locke being a nice breather, and of course, the famous Opera scene.
When I first rolled credits, I said, this is the best of the pixel era. And it definitely makes a very strong case in the realm of favorite RPGs, but since I have had some time to think about it, I think FF4 remains my favorite as the linear nature of the story kept me invested and playing. I could see my self hitting the World of Ruin and just quitting the play through of FFVI as the story doesn’t require you to collect all of your characters again, but the split into three parties to open all the paths can be tedious if you haven’t.
Overall, this collection contains 6 of the greatest RPGs ever to be made, and is a nostalgic time capsule to the evolution of the series into the gigantic franchise it has become.