tl;dr play the pixel remaster
I'll be generous and give this a 2 star rating, perhaps against my better judgement, because with an extensive guide this game is fun, but in addition to having to work out the quirks of old NES games (out-of-the-way untelegraphed locations of the canoe, airship, etc), you also have to figure out what doesn't work. I will shoutout extensively the Gamer Corner Guide for making this game bearable. I did quite enjoy the FFI pixel remaster, and a lot of my comments there on game design hold. I do like this game, but if I would've played the NES version first I think my foray into the series would've began and ended with this game.
The amount of things that don't work, or don't work as they're supposed to, is pretty big and notable. The intelligence stat. The spells LOCK, TMPR, LOK2, SABR, and XFER. Elemental swords not having element. Critical hit being based on weapon index number (which is very funny tbh). Your mileage may vary with these things, as some of them don't really matter or even are somewhat balanced (a lot of the higher index number weapons are weapons you get later in the game, who'd've thunk), but on the other hand there's no way to unlearn spells if you take a nonfunctional one.
Speaking of spells, there's no descriptions of them. Not particularly difficult to tell what FIRE and CURE do, but spells like XXXX and RUB are much more esoteric and hard to figure out. There's a range of clarity between these two extremes as to what exactly spells do. And since they are both expensive and permanent, playing without a guide is strongly not recommended to figure it out!
With all that said I still think this is outstanding game design for 1987, but looking at it from 2024 there are warts all over the place, and with this game being remade multiple times with several of the blemishes smoothed over, you really want to play one of the remakes over the OG. If you're interested in video game history, check FFI out on old hardware - but probably not as your first experience with the game.
I'll be generous and give this a 2 star rating, perhaps against my better judgement, because with an extensive guide this game is fun, but in addition to having to work out the quirks of old NES games (out-of-the-way untelegraphed locations of the canoe, airship, etc), you also have to figure out what doesn't work. I will shoutout extensively the Gamer Corner Guide for making this game bearable. I did quite enjoy the FFI pixel remaster, and a lot of my comments there on game design hold. I do like this game, but if I would've played the NES version first I think my foray into the series would've began and ended with this game.
The amount of things that don't work, or don't work as they're supposed to, is pretty big and notable. The intelligence stat. The spells LOCK, TMPR, LOK2, SABR, and XFER. Elemental swords not having element. Critical hit being based on weapon index number (which is very funny tbh). Your mileage may vary with these things, as some of them don't really matter or even are somewhat balanced (a lot of the higher index number weapons are weapons you get later in the game, who'd've thunk), but on the other hand there's no way to unlearn spells if you take a nonfunctional one.
Speaking of spells, there's no descriptions of them. Not particularly difficult to tell what FIRE and CURE do, but spells like XXXX and RUB are much more esoteric and hard to figure out. There's a range of clarity between these two extremes as to what exactly spells do. And since they are both expensive and permanent, playing without a guide is strongly not recommended to figure it out!
With all that said I still think this is outstanding game design for 1987, but looking at it from 2024 there are warts all over the place, and with this game being remade multiple times with several of the blemishes smoothed over, you really want to play one of the remakes over the OG. If you're interested in video game history, check FFI out on old hardware - but probably not as your first experience with the game.