First post in a two-parter that I wrote up on my 1up blog space.

***

The Final Fantasy Legend, released in Japan as the first game in the SaGa series, is probably my very earliest gaming memory. It's a brutal, austere, black and white memory, but it's a good one. I was both baffled and utterly hooked by the odd little Game Boy RPG.

I wasn't the wise and weathered gamer that I am today when I first encountered this glorious handheld grind-fest. However, I think I must have played some scant few minutes of the original Final Fantasy on the NES at some point, because I remember being absolutely shocked that the weapons had a limited number of uses, and that there was no system of “leveling up” in the sense that I recall somehow being familiar with. I like to think that I was just possessed some sort of innate cantankerousness built into my budding gaming persona.

My young self was quickly frustrated with the need to repetitively use items of a certain kind in order to build stats. Which weapons leveled each stat was unclear to my child-mind, and I remember finally just deciding that I should “use swords”. This character development scenario was very close to the much-bitched about system that Square employed in Final Fantasy II for the NES. Despite the minor frustration that this generated, I was quickly hooked on the grind of it. However, for all the monotonous grinding in order to improve my Human and Mutant characters, there was the constant gamble of the Monster class. Occasionally, at the end of a battle, a chunk of meat that apparently just sloughs off your enemies after they're killed would bounce into view. Just to add insult to injury, you were then asked if you wanted to EAT the beast you'd just slain. Yum! If you had a character that was a Monster class in your group, feeding the meat to this hapless patsy could trigger a transformation into another monster form. For a Game Boy RPG from 1990, the transformation matrix was pretty complicated. To my fifth grade brain, the trial and error process lent an air of mystery and risk to a system of battle mechanics that could very well have otherwise bogged the game down into unplayability.

The battle system was largely left intact, but the difficulty had been lowered (or maybe I was just a bit older?), there was a larger array of enemies, and the art quality had bumped up a notch. The Monster upgrading system was still in full force in this iteration of the series, allowing me to take some risks and chow down on my enemies whenever the opportunity presented itself!

The real draw of this title over its senior was the storyline. In The Final Fantasy Legend, the story was pretty simple: There is a tower; go climb it. Final Fantasy Legend II introduced the player to actual characters, and gave the player avatar a real backstory. It's a cliché in these days, but upon my first playthrough of this title, I was not so jaded that a “Go find your father who is fighting for a greater good!” story came off as old hat. I loved it! The father is this badass Indiana Jones-looking freedom fighter. He goes from world to world collecting artifacts or “Magi” in an effort to keep them out of the hands of those who would abuse their power to become gods.

These “Magi” were the key refinement to the battle system that helped to ease the grind and the difficulty curve that made the first game so daunting. Magi had different properties, and could be equipped to a character in order to provide various stat boosts. Collecting the Magi pieces not only helped to unlock new areas and advance the story, but also helped beef up your party so that you weren't getting totally whomped every time you entered a new area.

This game was the first game I can ever remember grabbing me with its musical score.  The title screen music was very close to that of the first Final Fantasy Legend, but there were some slight changes to the instrumentation that really blew me away.  I still hum that song to myself when I'm feeling like I need to feel like going to work in the morning is a mystical adventure.

Final Fantasy Legend III was a good game in its own right, but a different entry in the SaGa lineage has brought me back to the series after so many years. The DS remake of Final Fantasy Legend II, SaGa 2: Hihou Densetsu – Goddess of Destiny.

I heard about this game a couple of years ago when it first appeared in the rumor mill in 2009. I was thrilled by the idea, and was totally hypnotized by the re-recorded title screen music that the teaser website sported. I held my breath for a US release, and was devastated when the announcement never came. However, earlier this year, I stumbled onto a hidden treasure that only the internet could have brought us. Thanks to the good people over at Crimson Nocturnal, a fan translation patch for the game has finally made this new version of a childhood memory accessible to the English speaking crowd!

My original plan was to cover my impressions of the remake in this post, but I think I'm getting a big long-winded! I'll write up something on Saga 2 for the DS tomorrow. Until then, does anyone else have any great memories of this series? Anyone played the remake?

First post in a two-parter that I wrote up on my 1up blog space.

***

The Final Fantasy Legend, released in Japan as the first game in the SaGa series, is probably my very earliest gaming memory. It's a brutal, austere, black and white memory, but it's a good one. I was both baffled and utterly hooked by the odd little Game Boy RPG.

I wasn't the wise and weathered gamer that I am today when I first encountered this glorious handheld grind-fest. However, I think I must have played some scant few minutes of the original Final Fantasy on the NES at some point, because I remember being absolutely shocked that the weapons had a limited number of uses, and that there was no system of “leveling up” in the sense that I recall somehow being familiar with. I like to think that I was just possessed some sort of innate cantankerousness built into my budding gaming persona.

My young self was quickly frustrated with the need to repetitively use items of a certain kind in order to build stats. Which weapons leveled each stat was unclear to my child-mind, and I remember finally just deciding that I should “use swords”. This character development scenario was very close to the much-bitched about system that Square employed in Final Fantasy II for the NES. Despite the minor frustration that this generated, I was quickly hooked on the grind of it. However, for all the monotonous grinding in order to improve my Human and Mutant characters, there was the constant gamble of the Monster class. Occasionally, at the end of a battle, a chunk of meat that apparently just sloughs off your enemies after they're killed would bounce into view. Just to add insult to injury, you were then asked if you wanted to EAT the beast you'd just slain. Yum! If you had a character that was a Monster class in your group, feeding the meat to this hapless patsy could trigger a transformation into another monster form. For a Game Boy RPG from 1990, the transformation matrix was pretty complicated. To my fifth grade brain, the trial and error process lent an air of mystery and risk to a system of battle mechanics that could very well have otherwise bogged the game down into unplayability.

The battle system was largely left intact, but the difficulty had been lowered (or maybe I was just a bit older?), there was a larger array of enemies, and the art quality had bumped up a notch. The Monster upgrading system was still in full force in this iteration of the series, allowing me to take some risks and chow down on my enemies whenever the opportunity presented itself!

The real draw of this title over its senior was the storyline. In The Final Fantasy Legend, the story was pretty simple: There is a tower; go climb it. Final Fantasy Legend II introduced the player to actual characters, and gave the player avatar a real backstory. It's a cliché in these days, but upon my first playthrough of this title, I was not so jaded that a “Go find your father who is fighting for a greater good!” story came off as old hat. I loved it! The father is this badass Indiana Jones-looking freedom fighter. He goes from world to world collecting artifacts or “Magi” in an effort to keep them out of the hands of those who would abuse their power to become gods.

These “Magi” were the key refinement to the battle system that helped to ease the grind and the difficulty curve that made the first game so daunting. Magi had different properties, and could be equipped to a character in order to provide various stat boosts. Collecting the Magi pieces not only helped to unlock new areas and advance the story, but also helped beef up your party so that you weren't getting totally whomped every time you entered a new area.

This game was the first game I can ever remember grabbing me with its musical score.  The title screen music was very close to that of the first Final Fantasy Legend, but there were some slight changes to the instrumentation that really blew me away.  I still hum that song to myself when I'm feeling like I need to feel like going to work in the morning is a mystical adventure.

Final Fantasy Legend III was a good game in its own right, but a different entry in the SaGa lineage has brought me back to the series after so many years. The DS remake of Final Fantasy Legend II, SaGa 2: Hihou Densetsu – Goddess of Destiny.

I heard about this game a couple of years ago when it first appeared in the rumor mill in 2009. I was thrilled by the idea, and was totally hypnotized by the re-recorded title screen music that the teaser website sported. I held my breath for a US release, and was devastated when the announcement never came. However, earlier this year, I stumbled onto a hidden treasure that only the internet could have brought us. Thanks to the good people over at Crimson Nocturnal, a fan translation patch for the game has finally made this new version of a childhood memory accessible to the English speaking crowd!

My original plan was to cover my impressions of the remake in this post, but I think I'm getting a big long-winded! I'll write up something on Saga 2 for the DS tomorrow. Until then, does anyone else have any great memories of this series? Anyone played the remake?

There's a lot of Final Fantasy enthusiasts on this site. Hopefully they'll check this out.