“An adventure unfolds, a new beginning…”

I think a year or so ago I wanted to try to get into the Mana series but just never did. When Visions of Mana was announced, it brought some interest in me to give the series another chance. Look I’m not gonna guarantee anything but I might play that game whenever it comes out. I wanted to at least try to play most of what the series had to offer. So without further ado, here are my thoughts on the first game.

So I’ll be honest I’m not really that knowledgeable on this series besides the fact they exist. This was the only one I had put a decent amount of time and thought into the past but never got past I think when you get the Chocobo. Final Fantasy Adventure reminds me of the Zelda series with the top down weapon based combat seen here. Though unlike Zelda, this one puts in some of the RPG elements you’d see in a game like Final Fantasy. I’m not sure if this is the case for later games but was surprised to see so much of the series still showing up here like many of the classes. I would later learn that the Japanese title was called Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden. So even over there it was seen as a FF spinoff. It made stuff like the sprite art look familiar even if I have never beaten an FF game in my life.

The progression in FFA was a nice surprise. Was expecting just some generic story but what is here is kind of touching and shows that not all stories can have happy endings for everyone. I think this was already a thing in FF games but I’m unsure. The game stars a slave to the Dark Lord that you can name whoever you want but since he ain’t a girl, I’ll just use the canon name Sumo. He swears to avenge the Dark Lord after he kills his best friend. There’s actually a decent amount of losses like Amanda becoming a Medusa and dying by the hands of Sumo with him having to get her tear afterwards to lift the curse of her brother Lester. The most tragic one for me had to be with Marcie where he says he’ll jump after throwing you to the other side only to realize he lied and went down with the sinking tower knowing he had to stay, I miss him. You can also name a girl but I also just went with the canon name being Fuji. I think her moment in the end is sad but I do feel like most of her time is just getting kidnapped now I think about it. I also really liked the part where Sumo didn’t want to be a Gemma knight anymore because he saw himself as a failure, while it’s not much there are moments I enjoy seeing his dialogue and I’m glad he has his moments of weakness. It’s hard to say much for the world itself as towns are small and almost no one is out in the overworld but what is here outside of that did get some feelings from me so I think it deserves a gold star for that.

The gameplay is the part where it shines the most for me because you can get all these cool weapons and spells to use. It’s not just a sword like the one you start off with. You get other weapons like an ax, chain, morning star, lance, and a sickle. Some have uses outside of combat like destroying some type of obstacle. They also have their uses in combat and swords & lances even use elements in combat. Even doing attacks is interesting thanks to the bar that fills up letting you do more damage as it fills up. Once you level up a bunch, it goes up really fast and when it’s fully charged, you can do a special move with it. I think my favorite weapon was the morning star as it had good range and power and it makes the mattock item irrelevant.

The magic is cool but it was never something I used a ton besides for cure. A lot of it is just too situational and I really only felt like using it since I knew I wouldn’t be running out of MP anytime soon. I should let you know that be careful when using Heal because if you use it, your defense bugs out and will be 0 until you pause. I also wish magic was more useful on bosses because most of them seemed immune to whatever I threw at them. Some enemies can also inflict statuses onto you and at worse they just feel like minor annoyances. I also felt items were very situational but maybe I was just playing too well to need them because I felt like I had a full bag for 90% of the game. This also meant I always had a ton of gold because the only expensive things are equipment and weapons and I always had enough of them.

Exploring the overworld is interesting to me because at first it’s pretty linear but by the time your chocobo gets the ability to run on water, you have a whole small world to explore and it can feel easy to lose yourself in but thankfully the areas you need to go to aren’t far off. That said however nothing in the world really screams landmarks outside of the tiles depicting what location you’re in like a desert of a snowy mountain. It can make the world feel very samey but it never really bothers me because I just like moving around hitting bad guys. There’s thankfully not many moments of needing help from a guide. There was one part I got really stuck at because the hint about palm trees and 8 make no sense to me though maybe I’m just stupid. The localization at times feels a bit rough and even left some stuff out from the Japanese version but it’s far from the worst. It should be noted that a fan translation of the Japanese version does exist if you wish to play that for a more accurate script.

There’s so many dungeons in this game that they all kind of blend in my mind as I’m writing this. None of them are really too hard, thankfully but one regret I have when playing them was not exploring them enough, I think I missed some weapons and equipment because of it. I don’t know why but it just never got old for me just exploring them and they never got frustrating, the only thing I don’t like about them is the overuse of ice magic puzzles. The bosses in these are also fine but none of them can inflict statuses on you and a lot of the patterns again blend in after a while. I swear a lot of them move in the same way. They do look pretty big and threatening but only a couple gave me much issue.

One story I have about my playthrough was how I almost had a dead save in the final dungeon. So, I made two saves, one before entering and one during the exploration. It was going fine until I accidently overwrote the one before the dungeon and then I realized I only had 3 keys. You can’t leave this area either, at least I wasn’t able to figure out how. I also couldn’t find any enemies that dropped keys. I’m sure there is some solution if you run out but I was very thankful I had just enough. Getting to Julius and facing him felt satisfying and was a good challenge and the story stuff at the end is pretty sad to think about but hey at least we get to see our chocobo be happy with another one before we leave to protect Fuji, forever…or at least until Sumo dies. Kind of screwed up to think once that Mana Tree dies, humanity is doomed.

The game does look nice graphically and it’s about what you’d expect from the genre at the time which isn’t a bad thing. Sprites look nice outside of the occasional ugly enemy, nice environments, it just works nicely. The music by Kenji Ito is amazing stuff. This has to be some of my favorite stuff on the system. Sadly there really aren't any good uploads of the OST on Youtube so I’ll refrain from sending many links of those but trust me when I say it’s great. The two overworld themes really give a great feel in my mind for the journey I’m going on. There’s some really nice sad and calming pieces in the game but my absolute favorite song has to be Courage and Pride from the Heart. The song plays for the Dark Lord and Julius phase 2 fights and my god it feels so perfect for the moment. Especially for the Dark Lord, a sword on sword action fight where you’re both moving around trying to get hits in, it’s perfect! Makes me wanna play more games with his music in them. This game even has the Chocobo theme! Everyone loves the Chocobo theme!!

I was very surprised with my final thoughts on the game. I thought it was pretty good. Don’t get me wrong, it has issues and I recognize that but I just had too much fun playing that game from beginning to end that the issues just don’t hurt the game enough for me. Final Fantasy Adventure is a very good action RPG for the Game Boy and it is a good start to this franchise. It has me very interested in the next game, Secret of Mana. If you can handle the issues with this game then it’s an easy recommendation. Maybe I’m going too nice on the game but when I beat the game I said “Well I thought it was really fun and that’s all that matters.” FFA is a game I’ll probably not replay in the near future but I’m satisfied with my finished playthrough of it! Not sure whenever I’ll get to Secret of Mana but expect that in the near future. Farewell for now.

It doesn't take an eagle eye to spot the problems with a Mana game, but Final Fantasy Adventure's flair for the melodramatic - dare I say romantic? - lingers beyond any quibbles with hit detection or inventory management. Between babies abandoned in caves, mysterious lost girls, teardrops with magic powers, and frequent acts of absolute sacrifice, Yoshinori Kitase's first step up to the plate is pulpy and grandiose in a way that hardly seems possible for the Game Boy. The purity of imagination here is almost touching.

It's fine I suppose. Only made it about halfway before getting too bored to want to continue. It's certainly got some neat aspects such as how weapons can effect traversal and an intriguing, if unpolished, ally system. It's obviously reminiscent of the Zelda games but it actually secured before Links Awakening, so it's pretty neat to play with that knowledge. Unfortunately the level design is bland and the gameplay loop is entirely unsatisfying. The growth system is cool even though it's pretty barren, and I like the concept of the Will gauge in theory, though in practice it turns some already weak combat into even more of a mess. Hit detection is extremely wonky too, especially when using the swords. I never see this game talked about on the same level as it's sequels, so that's probably a good thing. It's a fun game in extremely brief spurts, but the game is far too large to It's own detriment, and it is a very tiring type of game. 3/6

Final Fantasy Adventure is a top-down action RPG whose gameplay I'd describe as a cross between Zelda and Final Fantasy, since it has the dungeons, items with different abilities and simple puzzles of the former but the magic system, progression and story focus of the latter.

In general, I'd say it's a very fun game that's dragged down by some classic "old game features", like its cryptic systems, small inventories, crappy hitboxes and overly long dungeons. I still recommend giving it a try though.

Lo jugué de pequeño en mi Game Boy Color y no me enteraba de nada, pero me gustaba su manejo "tipo zelda" y su música.

En 2021 decidí empezarlo en Switch, pues viene en el recopilatorio "Collection of Mana", y la verdad es que lo disfruté bastante.

Tiene una buena historia, aunque de corte muy clásico, y en algunos momentos la verdad es que sabe tocar la patata.
Su música es bastante bonita y nostálgica.
Y jugablemente recuerda a los Zelda clásicos, aunque sin llegar a ese nivel, por supuesto.

No puedo añadir mucho más, es lo malo de hacer reseñas cuando pasa tanto tiempo.
¡Ah, sí! Todo el mundo se queda traumatizado con el puzle de las palmeras, si lo habéis jugado sabréis a qué me refiero xD
Y si no... ¡buena suerte!

Time has a way of making all things small.

I remember playing Final Fantasy Adventure when I was a kid. I was new to RPGs, fresh off of Final Fantasy, thrilled to have one I could play in my treehouse, safe from interruptions. I didn't know it would be closer to Zelda than its namesake, I didn't care once I found out. The world in that little cartridge seemed so big, so mysterious. I didn't mind the janky combat, the weapon switching, the simplistic dialogue and storyline. I loved exploring, grinding, leveling, was delighted by new towns and twists. It was full of possibilities, it was mine, and I played it over and over again.

And now I've revisited it. The map now seems smaller, emptier. The borderline linear nature of the game stands out. The hitboxes, the bizarre choices, the godforsaken snowman puzzles all stand out in stark contrast with my memories. The music is at times grating, it is all too easy to forget how to get back to some prior location you are suddenly directed to, the incessant swapping of weapons and the borderline antagonistic enemy immunities causes you to spend an inordinate amount of time in menus. Chests can block your path, magic is all but useless outside of healing, items simply build up in your inventory until you have to start throwing them away. Critical items like keys and mattocks are limited, rarely found and often purchased. It's all too easy to run out of them in the middle of a dungeon, leaving you to hunt down the one enemy type in the game that produces them.

Nonetheless: a lovely game, an oddball barrel of design decisions. Elephants as the final enemy type, grafting robotic legs to beloved companions, spring-based enemies found in natural environments, a man who is more hair than flesh, a noble who is the child of a medusa, a medusa that creates more of its kind via bite-based infection. It's strange, amateur, reaching and endearing all at once, the athletic brother to the more steady Final Fantasy. And while it may be smaller now than it once was, it was more than big enough to get lost in once again.

What an amazing adventure game. What most likely started as a competitor to The Legend of Zelda ended up firmly crafting its own identity with its unique weapon system, simple characters with strong personalities, and vast world that’s just begging to be explored.

Combat: There are six weapon types in this game that all behave differently. Each weapon has two attacks when standing still, and two attacks while moving. And most can interact with the environment in a different way, allowing each to be useful throughout the game for both combat and traversal. There is also a magic system. The magic works in a straightforward manner, you have a set amount of MP, and you have a designated magic/item button. You select your spell in a menu and use it as many times as you MP storage will allow. You also have companions that change throughout the story who all have unique attacks and help actions.

World exploration: The world is far mor fast than I originally expected. For the first half of the game, you’re set on a fairly narrow path, but everything is still connected, you travel to each major location battling monsters and solving puzzles on your way.
Once you unlock sea travel however the entire game opens up drastically. At this point you also have one of every weapon type, so nothing is off limits, this also opens many optional dungeons that provide more powerful equipment. There is a problem with direction though. The game lacks a proper map so it can be easy to get lost, fortunately every area has a distinct look so it’s very easy to tell where you are currently, the problem only lies in remembering where other areas are in relation.

Story: They story is a simple journey where the unlikely hero is on a quest to save the girl, but that doesn’t mean this story isn’t special. The tale is full of surprises and loaded with heart. Throughout I felt happy, sad, angry, and determined to see our heroes succeed. I was invested for every second.

Verdict: This game was so much more than I was expecting, and it felt like the only flaws were due to hardware limitations. I had always heard about how amazing Secret of Mana is, but I had never heard anything about its predecessor but I’m so glad I took the time to play it. if you want to experience a unique game full of passion, then look no further than Final
Fantasy Adventure.

Good soundtrack (although a bit repetitive at times), the gameplay loop is nice for what it's worth.

Be sure to have a guide when playing this game, there are many vague and cryptic indications that are never told to you and would feel better to get through with a guide (especially when it comes to dungeons)

Overall a decent but dated game.

Where all of the beauty began…
….only it’s on the original Gameboy.

This makes playing Final Fantasy Adventure (a.k.a. Seiken Densestsu 1), as a fan of the later Mana games, akin to a lover of Fantasia watching Steamboat Willy. It’s quite easy to appreciate, and even fun! Those parts aren’t an issue. Once you’ve been spoiled by Fantasia, however, experiencing even the most charming mouse (or, in this case, rabite)’s roots is always going to sadly feel primitive, basic, and bare bones.

Had I not been under a year old upon Seiken Densestsu 1’s release, though…Oh yeah. I’d have adored its eschewing of turn-based battles and its fusion of Squaresoft magic and Zelda elements. Playing it in 2023 may be doing this important game (Koichi Ishii’s first try at a Mana game!) a disservice, but hey, here we are.

Worth sampling to see familiar aspects in an embryonic state. Just don’t expect the same magic of later entries. They were just getting started here, and that’s okay.

A Zelda-like for the Gameboy, I thought the game holds up very well. Highlights include a catchy and surprisingly rich soundtrack; there's something I've always enjoyed about the echo-laden music on the Gameboy and it's put to good use here (the title music is great). Creative and often challenging boss fights and a pretty sprawling quest given the platform round out a fun old-school action-RPG.

On the downside, some of the puzzles are rather opaque, the kind of thing Nintendo would add to games from the era to send people seeking out Nintendo Power issues (that figure eight clue in the desert made NO sense). And there are a few times when I felt the controls and overall maneuverability were not up to the task of dealing with the enemies being thrown at me.

All in all, there's not many surprises if you go in expecting an adventure heavily inspired by Zelda, but it has its own charms and is still worth playing. (It also, apparently, has nothing to do with Final Fantasy, outside of marketing.)

Played on the Collection of Mana on Switch.