This is a review of the PS1 version.
Short version: The game starts out pretty fun, but becomes a slog in the late game. Spells rarely feel worth it to cast making martial characters way stronger than casters, and the insane number of random encounters gets pretty monotonous when they stop being any kind of threat.
Long Version:
The early game was pretty enjoyable. I picked Warrior/Monk/White Mage/Black Mage to have a nice spread, and while the Warrior very clearly outclassed the others at the start I could feel the Monk slowly getting more and more powerful, and the White Mage was valuable just for some extra healing. Black Mage seemed super weak, but I expected them to catch up and overtake the "martials" in the late-game, similar to how D&D class progression works.
The early dungeons were actually really threatening, and with the extremely limited availability of spell-based healing and AoE damage (due to the Spell Slot system) I was forced to think a lot about resource management in order to save enough juice for the bosses. There are a lot of random encounters in these dungeons (and the overworld), and a lot of the random enemies can be pretty threatening, but it was just the right level of difficulty that it was fun to manage my resources and pull through by the skin of my teeth. By the mid-game I felt like I was getting into a nice groove. The Mages started getting enough slots to be a little more consistent, and the higher-level damage spells start to actually be worth using more often... at least, sometimes.
One big problem with magic in this game is that the damage is insanely inconsistent, with higher-level spells having huge ranges of possible damage like 50-200 or 60-240. When most enemies have 200-300 health and the martials are easily dealing 200-300 damage per attack, that's the difference between good damage and a completely wasted turn + spell slot. This is made even worse in the late game when every enemy seems to start resisting magic, meaning even a 6th or 7th level spell often does only 40-ish damage to each enemy.
As I got further into the game, magic just felt more and more worthless. On top of the damage issues above, most spells also just got completely overshadowed by the introduction of a suite of items that can be used to cast a given spell for free, infinitely. Why would I ever bother using one of my 3 high-level spell slots on a big AoE spell that deals ~50 damage to all enemies, when I can infinitely use the Gauntlet/Mage Staff/Black Robe to deal ~40 damage instead? Why would I ever bother to cast healing spells when I can spam Healing Staff/Healing Helm every turn to keep my whole party at full health forever? Why do I have spells like Invis2 if I can just use them for free through items? Considering any class can use these items, it really started to feel like there was no point in having dedicated magic-using classes at all.
The only way that the Mages actually pulled their weight was through the handful of support spells that can't be replicated through items, and by the White Mage being able to clutch heal or revive during boss fights. While it's better than nothing, it's really sad in my opinion to have your Black Mage - usually depicted as an unstoppable force of raw magical power - reduced to nothing more than spamming low-level buff spells like Haste and Temper on your martial characters. I feel like I really understand why people say the optimal party composition is 3 Warriors/Monks and a single Red Mage - low-level buff spells and the occasional heal is all I really needed dedicated casters for in the end.
If the spell items were more limited, or spell slots were more abundant, or spells simply did more damage/healing per cast, then this wouldn't be nearly as pronounced. But with everything the way it is, having a dedicated White/Black Mage in the party feels like nerfing yourself for most of the game.
Beyond the issues with spellcasters, the game is decent but unremarkable by modern standards. The overabundance of random encounters gets really grating in the late game especially since they cease to pose any sort of challenge once you get the infinite-healing items and high-level gear. Battle animations take so long that even a trivial random encounter in the late game can take a minute or more, and you get dozens of them per-floor in all of the huge late-game dungeons. I started turning up the emulation speed by the final dungeon.
After all of those trivial encounters, the final boss was a huge shift in difficulty. He has a number of moves that did tons of damage to the whole party (some of which didn't even seem to be included in the Fire/Ice/Lightning element wheel that I have Null spells to counteract), can Haste himself but can't be Slowed to counteract it, and can fully heal himself whenever he wants. It feels like a battle against RNG more than anything else - if he doesn't Haste early and doesn't Curaja before you can kill him, GG; if he Hastes early and spams Curaja then you're completely fucked. Until I looked online and realized that buff spells stack (allowing the cheesy strategy of stacking Attack-up spells on your Warrior and dealing silly amounts of damage) I didn't think I would be able to beat him despite finding everything before him so easy it was boring.
And as far as story goes... practically all of the story content is just in the scrolling text after beating the final boss, and it gets extremely convoluted extremely quickly. Partially as a consequence of introducing complicated elements last-minute and partially because barely any time or word-count is put into explaining what the hell happened. It's a little more ambitious than I was actually expecting, but it wasn't great.
Anyway, to sum up: The game was pretty fun early on but became a slog in the late-game, and the class balance is so fucked up it's ridiculous. I'm glad I got through it because it's interesting in a historical context, but as an actual game it's not very enjoyable. 4/10, would not recommend unless you're specifically interested in Final Fantasy or old RPGs in general.
Short version: The game starts out pretty fun, but becomes a slog in the late game. Spells rarely feel worth it to cast making martial characters way stronger than casters, and the insane number of random encounters gets pretty monotonous when they stop being any kind of threat.
Long Version:
The early game was pretty enjoyable. I picked Warrior/Monk/White Mage/Black Mage to have a nice spread, and while the Warrior very clearly outclassed the others at the start I could feel the Monk slowly getting more and more powerful, and the White Mage was valuable just for some extra healing. Black Mage seemed super weak, but I expected them to catch up and overtake the "martials" in the late-game, similar to how D&D class progression works.
The early dungeons were actually really threatening, and with the extremely limited availability of spell-based healing and AoE damage (due to the Spell Slot system) I was forced to think a lot about resource management in order to save enough juice for the bosses. There are a lot of random encounters in these dungeons (and the overworld), and a lot of the random enemies can be pretty threatening, but it was just the right level of difficulty that it was fun to manage my resources and pull through by the skin of my teeth. By the mid-game I felt like I was getting into a nice groove. The Mages started getting enough slots to be a little more consistent, and the higher-level damage spells start to actually be worth using more often... at least, sometimes.
One big problem with magic in this game is that the damage is insanely inconsistent, with higher-level spells having huge ranges of possible damage like 50-200 or 60-240. When most enemies have 200-300 health and the martials are easily dealing 200-300 damage per attack, that's the difference between good damage and a completely wasted turn + spell slot. This is made even worse in the late game when every enemy seems to start resisting magic, meaning even a 6th or 7th level spell often does only 40-ish damage to each enemy.
As I got further into the game, magic just felt more and more worthless. On top of the damage issues above, most spells also just got completely overshadowed by the introduction of a suite of items that can be used to cast a given spell for free, infinitely. Why would I ever bother using one of my 3 high-level spell slots on a big AoE spell that deals ~50 damage to all enemies, when I can infinitely use the Gauntlet/Mage Staff/Black Robe to deal ~40 damage instead? Why would I ever bother to cast healing spells when I can spam Healing Staff/Healing Helm every turn to keep my whole party at full health forever? Why do I have spells like Invis2 if I can just use them for free through items? Considering any class can use these items, it really started to feel like there was no point in having dedicated magic-using classes at all.
The only way that the Mages actually pulled their weight was through the handful of support spells that can't be replicated through items, and by the White Mage being able to clutch heal or revive during boss fights. While it's better than nothing, it's really sad in my opinion to have your Black Mage - usually depicted as an unstoppable force of raw magical power - reduced to nothing more than spamming low-level buff spells like Haste and Temper on your martial characters. I feel like I really understand why people say the optimal party composition is 3 Warriors/Monks and a single Red Mage - low-level buff spells and the occasional heal is all I really needed dedicated casters for in the end.
If the spell items were more limited, or spell slots were more abundant, or spells simply did more damage/healing per cast, then this wouldn't be nearly as pronounced. But with everything the way it is, having a dedicated White/Black Mage in the party feels like nerfing yourself for most of the game.
Beyond the issues with spellcasters, the game is decent but unremarkable by modern standards. The overabundance of random encounters gets really grating in the late game especially since they cease to pose any sort of challenge once you get the infinite-healing items and high-level gear. Battle animations take so long that even a trivial random encounter in the late game can take a minute or more, and you get dozens of them per-floor in all of the huge late-game dungeons. I started turning up the emulation speed by the final dungeon.
After all of those trivial encounters, the final boss was a huge shift in difficulty. He has a number of moves that did tons of damage to the whole party (some of which didn't even seem to be included in the Fire/Ice/Lightning element wheel that I have Null spells to counteract), can Haste himself but can't be Slowed to counteract it, and can fully heal himself whenever he wants. It feels like a battle against RNG more than anything else - if he doesn't Haste early and doesn't Curaja before you can kill him, GG; if he Hastes early and spams Curaja then you're completely fucked. Until I looked online and realized that buff spells stack (allowing the cheesy strategy of stacking Attack-up spells on your Warrior and dealing silly amounts of damage) I didn't think I would be able to beat him despite finding everything before him so easy it was boring.
And as far as story goes... practically all of the story content is just in the scrolling text after beating the final boss, and it gets extremely convoluted extremely quickly. Partially as a consequence of introducing complicated elements last-minute and partially because barely any time or word-count is put into explaining what the hell happened. It's a little more ambitious than I was actually expecting, but it wasn't great.
Anyway, to sum up: The game was pretty fun early on but became a slog in the late-game, and the class balance is so fucked up it's ridiculous. I'm glad I got through it because it's interesting in a historical context, but as an actual game it's not very enjoyable. 4/10, would not recommend unless you're specifically interested in Final Fantasy or old RPGs in general.