(This is the English translation of my Spanish review of this game)

What a great I had playing one of the biggest precursors to all modern-day RPGs, the first Final Fantasy (Pixel Remaster - Released 2021, but the original released in 1987). It’s interesting to play a game that came out in those times but coupled with today’s conveniences.

Much of the remaster consists purely of quality of life upgrades. Graphical improvements, balancing of boss fights' stats, and a beautifully reorchestrated OST with real instruments (and the ability to switch it to the 8-bit OST akin to the old Pokemons at any time). A complete labor of love that - regardless of how well or poorly the late 90's RPG mechanics have aged - deserves eternal praise.

At the risk of sounding like a boomer, it’s really hard to understand just how important these proposals were at the time since nowadays we enjoy so many conveniences and features that we take for granted. “Kids today don’t know how good they have it 😤😤😤” haha - and I think I agree. This kind of thing actually makes evaluating the game a bit difficult.

What the game offers feels very rudimentary at times. The story is very minimal and not very engaging at times. The battle system is also very simple. So simple that most bosses can be beaten in a couple of turns. The plot is also kind of trite. It's the same story about crystals that somehow protect the world from a generic bad guy (with some twists and turns towards the end to be fair). There is little motive and little substance to explain the reasons behind things - but as with everything in this game, one must have perspective; having a reason could have been something we obtained through the development of RPGs in general. I have a feeling that the type of writing that is required to have complex storylines wasn't really developed or introduced into videogames at the time.

One of the most interesting things about the game (which later games expand much more) is that the game never tells you where to go and BARELY tells you what to do.

Important sidenote: Looking into things after this review, I understood that using guides was WAY more integral to the videogame experience and it's not like you were expected to be able to beat the game without reading one, so having the game be this way kinda makes sense

You start the game by going to an audience with a king and he basically says, "Oh man, help me save this NPC pls" and that’s it HAHA. Go ahead. Where to go or what to do is almost a complete mystery.

It wasn’t until almost halfway through the game that I realized that the only reason of existence for most NPCs in all the cities is just to mention something random they are dealing with - and if you're patient enough to pay attention, that leads you to the place where you have to go in your main quest. It's something like, "Oh man, did you see that crazy tower in the desert? There’s probably cool stuff there." And that’s it! There’s almost no lore, no side quests, no other use for the NPCs.

(It should be noted that although this was the case with the NPCs, it’s very admirable that they managed to create a distilled version of what an RPG is. In other words: it's ok that NPCs are boring for now imo.)

All in all, it feels incredible to have been able to experience the genesis of this beautiful series. It feels like walking through an interactive museum full of important characters and events that shaped our present reality. A shoutout to the final twist of the game where you randomly travel 2000 years into the past so that the main bad guy never exists (the only boss that made me think a bit before fighting it).

In short, my rating is 3 overworked Japanese businessmen from the late 80s fighting with other overworked Japanese businessmen who made Dragon Quest out of 5 🗾🗾🗾