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1987 · NES · Famicom
| Region | Date | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| Japan | 18 Dec 1987 | Square |
| North America | Jul 1990 | Nintendo |
You start by building a party of four from six classes: Fighter, Thief, Black Belt, Red Mage, White Mage and Black Mage. You can't swap anyone out later, so that first screen shapes the whole game. Four mages is a legal choice and a very bad idea.
From there the four Warriors of Light carry darkened crystals across three continents to defeat the four Fiends of earth, fire, water and wind. Travel starts on foot and grows to a ship, a canoe and finally an airship. Battles are turn-based and menu-driven, with your party drawn on the right of the screen and the enemies on the left, a layout the series kept for years. Magic is bought in shops and slotted in, three spells per level per character, with a limited number of casts before you rest.
Hironobu Sakaguchi had wanted to make a role-playing game for years, but Square expected poor sales and said no until Dragon Quest proved the genre could sell in Japan. His small team drew on Ultima, Wizardry and Dungeons & Dragons. Akitoshi Kawazu built the battle system and pushed for free class choice; Yoshitaka Amano drew the characters; Nobuo Uematsu wrote the music; Nasir Gebelli programmed it. The name, by several accounts, reflected how precarious things were for Sakaguchi and the company, though he later played that down.
It came out on the Famicom in 1987 and shipped 520,000 copies in Japan, well above the 200,000 Square first planned. Nintendo of America published the English version in 1990, where it sold 700,000. Uematsu's prelude arpeggio, the bridge-crossing theme and the victory fanfare all became fixtures of the series.
The structure is still satisfying. The world opens in clear steps as each vehicle arrives, the dungeons get properly dangerous, and the class upgrade halfway through gives your party a visible reward. There is a real thrill in scraping through a Fiend fight with one character standing.
The NES original is hard work now. You spend long stretches walking in circles to earn experience and gold, the encounter rate is high, and your spell charges run dry deep in a dungeon with no way out but walking back. Later remakes smooth most of that over. Play the original to see where the series began; play a Pixel Remaster to enjoy it.
Four mages is a legal choice and a very bad idea, and Final Fantasy lets you make it anyway. The first screen hands you six classes and no advice, and every hour after is lived with that choice. Then comes the grind: walking in circles outside a town, fighting whatever turns up, saving for one more spell.
Why would anyone call that fun? Richard Ryan, Scott Rigby and Andrew Przybylski found games satisfy needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness, and that this predicts enjoyment and wanting to play again. Final Fantasy feeds the first two hard. You chose the party, and each level makes the next dungeon survivable. Kent Berridge and Terry Robinson add the awkward part: dopamine drives wanting more than liking. The grind is rarely pleasant in the moment. Wanting keeps you walking in circles, and the class upgrade halfway through finally makes it feel worth it. A game from a company that expected poor sales runs on the most human loop there is: one more fight, then we will see.
Read: Wanting, not liking: what dopamine really does when you play →
Verdict · 7/10
A founding document of console role-playing games, with a class system that still invites a second run. Honour the original, but play a remake unless you enjoy grinding for its own sake.
