this is the most that i have felt like i am playing a prototype of real final fantasy, rather than a fully formed game. there's a lot to like about this! it has an astounding sense of scale that almost feels "next-gen" despite still being a famicom game. it's really cool to see the edge of the world or the gnome forest or the endless sea or the enormous saronia or the interior of the invincible. especially in the mid-game, there are lots of fun job combinations. the focus on hidden paths and items gives a nice sense of exploration.
but even though this game has lots of interesting pieces, they're all a little clunkily assembled. this goes for a dragon quest 3 style episodic town structure, but the episodes resolve themselves so quickly that it barely feels like anything happened. there are a few good ones like the town of cursed outlines or the floating forest in the desert or goldmember's mansion, but overall i could tell you more about the towns in ff1 than i could the towns of ff3. the lack of character in town episodes is especially noticeable in saronia, a huge city where npcs all say the same things.
there are lots of little annoyances in traversal that add up. it's fun to have a shrinking sequence where you're forced to use magic once or twice, but tedious to have to shrink or frogify just to get through a gate and reverse your status. hopping mountains with the invincible feels slow every time. and having to park one airship to go ride the other airship that can dive underwater is always a chore. despite the hidden paths in towns and dungeons, the dungeon layouts tend to be very boring. lots of simple hallways and symmetrical rooms that don't give much sense of exploration beyond noticing a hidden path. this really contributes to the final gauntlet feeling like a slog, just as much as the difficulty spike.
crystals handing out sets of jobs gives the game unique "mechanical chapters", where you'll use one set before moving on to the next set. the early jobs feel a little restrictive because it takes a while before you get the good spells, but mid-game jobs like geomancer, viking, bard, ranger, and thief have interesting unique abilities. i did like the boss fights that were built around short-term gimmick jobs like scholar and dragoon, but i wish those sequences had more than one design trick each. the late-game jobs settle into the good versions of the base jobs, which is fine but does feel like the game giving up on the potential of the job system before it really had a chance to blossom. but it is a fun consequence of the gendered job designs that the warriors of light come off as genderfluid. i think ff2's equipment system ultimately does a better job of making characters feel adaptable to different situations, even without unique commands.
all that said, i'm still mostly positive about this game. i got to see some nice sights and listen to some nice music and build some nice teams. they can't all be as revelatory as ff2.
but even though this game has lots of interesting pieces, they're all a little clunkily assembled. this goes for a dragon quest 3 style episodic town structure, but the episodes resolve themselves so quickly that it barely feels like anything happened. there are a few good ones like the town of cursed outlines or the floating forest in the desert or goldmember's mansion, but overall i could tell you more about the towns in ff1 than i could the towns of ff3. the lack of character in town episodes is especially noticeable in saronia, a huge city where npcs all say the same things.
there are lots of little annoyances in traversal that add up. it's fun to have a shrinking sequence where you're forced to use magic once or twice, but tedious to have to shrink or frogify just to get through a gate and reverse your status. hopping mountains with the invincible feels slow every time. and having to park one airship to go ride the other airship that can dive underwater is always a chore. despite the hidden paths in towns and dungeons, the dungeon layouts tend to be very boring. lots of simple hallways and symmetrical rooms that don't give much sense of exploration beyond noticing a hidden path. this really contributes to the final gauntlet feeling like a slog, just as much as the difficulty spike.
crystals handing out sets of jobs gives the game unique "mechanical chapters", where you'll use one set before moving on to the next set. the early jobs feel a little restrictive because it takes a while before you get the good spells, but mid-game jobs like geomancer, viking, bard, ranger, and thief have interesting unique abilities. i did like the boss fights that were built around short-term gimmick jobs like scholar and dragoon, but i wish those sequences had more than one design trick each. the late-game jobs settle into the good versions of the base jobs, which is fine but does feel like the game giving up on the potential of the job system before it really had a chance to blossom. but it is a fun consequence of the gendered job designs that the warriors of light come off as genderfluid. i think ff2's equipment system ultimately does a better job of making characters feel adaptable to different situations, even without unique commands.
all that said, i'm still mostly positive about this game. i got to see some nice sights and listen to some nice music and build some nice teams. they can't all be as revelatory as ff2.