In case you missed the first episode, here's a link: Back To Basics With Final Fantasy I - Episode I: Time For Some OG Final Fantasy Nonsense

Part 9: Why Would You Make An RPG With No Story?

Of all the games covered in my Final Fantasy blog series, this has been the hardest. Final Fantasy I's mechanics are rudimentary at best, and its story is a non-starter. The latter of those makes the game entirely untenable. Part of the appeal of any role-playing game is being able to live vicariously using a player assumed avatar. Final Fantasy I struggles to make do with the most barebones RPG tropes. Even when given the means of production, it has no idea what to do with them.

This episode will cover the Earth Cave, Ice Cave, Airship, and Mt. Gulg. That may sound like a sizeable chunk of Final Fantasy I, but it's not. I would estimate these locations comprised of approximately four hours of my play time. What does the game accomplish in this span of time? If we are honest, PRACTICALLY NOTHING! For the most part, the "Warriors of Light" fight a handful of generic bosses after a series of fetch quests. It's the same bland template the game has used since its inception.

To the game's defense, it does have a handle of some RPG fundamentals. As primitive as it may seem, each town or city has a graveyard as a reminder of the decaying state of the world. Furthermore, some of the worldbuilding is surprisingly poignant. The ruined condition of Melmond does a good enough job of showing how far society has fallen. Additionally, interacting with NPCs, and learning how their societal stock has dropped is intriguing.

Therein lies one of Final Fantasy I's critical storytelling limitations. All of its world building is told through optional NPC interactions. Worse, it never clues the player as to which NPCs contribute to the overall narrative. Having to explore every labyrinthine alleyway in a town is far more exhausting than it should be, and for what? The few bits of flavor text are fascinating to read, but the game rarely makes good on their potential. For example, the elven citizens of Lufenia want the player to believe Tiamat has cursed them. Nonetheless, their town is pristine, and there's no sense of societal blight to be seen.

The worst part is how the player progresses the story. Players will enter new towns not knowing who they need to approach or what they need to accomplish. It's not even apparent players need to use the NPCs to fill in the game's narrative gaps. When the Warriors of Light enter Melmond, it can be quickly surmised a disease afflicts the village. Finding out the source of this affliction, and how to put an end to it, is discovered from random yahoos with no other intrinsic value. Furthermore, the game rarely directs the player on where they should go next after identifying a malady.

Part 10: It's All About The Game, And How You Play It

Part of the reason why Final Fantasy I does not enthrall me is its sterile gameplay. I never felt a sense of joy in watching my characters become stronger than what they were in the beginning. Instead, I felt like I was grinding for the sake of it. It's nice to see more substantial numbers pop-up when queuing up attacks, but that feeling is fleeting. Players can easily exploit any number of mechanics to dissolve most of the game's difficulty.

During normal playthroughs, income is a limiting factor. Higher leveled weapons, armor, and spells all require it. Thus, a player has to strategize which characters they improve in-between the main dungeons. This situation is what the designers hoped for during a typical play-through, but programming oversights allow most players to avoid this scenario. Next to the game's second town is the fabled "Power Peninsula." Here players can efficiently grind and collect money to their heart's content. There are other times when players can exploit random encounters to spawn an infinite supply of high-leveled enemies.

It was in these hilariously broken moments when I felt compelled by the game's mechanics. If it makes any sense, finding the optimum grind path was oddly enthralling. Additionally, when I found an exploit, it became a deeply imprinted moment in my memory. Can I explain Garland's master plan for world domination? FUCK NO! I can, however, go on and on about my experiences with the Evil Eye exploit, sliding block puzzle, or Peninsula of Power.

There's another doughnut hole to Final Fantasy I's design worth mentioning. The game has nothing in its wheelhouse to deal with the exponential growth of its player characters. When experience points are an easily accessible resource, as they are in Final Fantasy I, the player's party will eventually become a walking death-machine. Bosses rarely pose a threat, and the random encounters become a blur. Bullshit status effects are the only consistent source of difficulty. Nevertheless, even these can be mitigated by the time you reach the game's final act.

Part 11: The Earth Cave Is BULLSHIT!

Let's pick up where we left off from the last episode. After the Four Warriors of Light make their way to Melmond, they learn of a nefarious Lich who has the entire town at their mercy. These Warriors endeavor to defeat the Lich, as part of their quest to collect four elemental crystals. Sounds simple enough, but it honestly isn't! If anything, the Earth Cave is one of the hardest segments of the game.

The Earth Cave catches most parties during an awkward transitional phase. The player's party is not strong enough to breeze through each dungeon. They are however at the stage where one-on-one boss battles are irrelevant. Most of the level's struggles come from mobs of enemies with paralyzing status effects. I ranted enough about the paralyze status effect on the last episode, but one point bears repeating. A status effect that prevents you from playing the game has no place in ANY video game!

There's another issue that rears its ugly head during the Earth Cave: mob control. You see, in Final Fantasy the fighter classes have NO crowd control options. As someone who rocked a party featuring a monk, warrior, white mage, and black mage; half my party was useless in dealing with large mobs of enemies. Even then, the White Mage is only helpful if the enemies are undead. Whenever I found myself up against eight or nine wolves, I had to rely entirely on my Black Mage. This scenario wouldn't be a problem if the turn order in OG Final Fantasy weren't FUCKED!

I cannot begin to count the number of times I took unnecessary damage because one of my mages took FOREVER to cast their spells! What was especially heinous is when my White or Black Mage would select their commands first but would be the last to follow through. There's no rhyme or reason why this is the case, and it is endlessly frustrating. Worse, it doesn't appear the character's levels determine their turn order.

Navigating the Earth Cave doesn't fare better. Like the game's previous dungeons, it is plagued by pointless loops and dead-ends. The designers even dared to program a hideous circuit populated by nothing but giants affectionately called the "Hall of Giants." IT'S ON THE FIRST FUCKING FLOOR! It's around this point I gave up on giving a shit about treasure chests. With a grapple on how I could turn the game's mechanics against it, I didn't feel compelled to play by the game's proposed rules of progression. Likewise, I wanted to keep my time in dungeons to a minimum.

It bears mentioning there are only five levels to the Earth Cave, yet the designers manage to stretch your time there to a breaking point. Between the labyrinthine level design and random encounters, floors that should only take a few minutes end up taking ten. Regrettably, there's nothing intrinsically gained in these dungeons. They exist because the designers knew of no other way to program roadblocks. The worst is yet to come when the Earth Cave forces you into an arbitrary fetch quest at the halfway point of the dungeon. Speaking of which:

Part 12: The Fetch Quest In The Earth Cave Is BULLSHIT!

The Earth Cave is already a tedious bore. Random encounters dole out far quicker than they should, and the enemies therein are surprisingly tricky. Why the developers felt the need to eject the player from the dungeon is beyond my comprehension. When the player reaches the third floor, they fight a vampire mid-boss. Following the battle, they discover a plate blocking the entryway to the final levels of the dungeon.

What ensues next is a colossal waste of time. First, players need to pick up a ruby from a nondescript chest on the third floor. After picking up the ruby, players must successfully leave the dungeon, and find a giant in the "Titan Cave." This cave is a one-off location you'll never visit after completing this quest. After feeding the ruby to the giant, the Warriors of Light progress through the "Sage's Cave," and talk to Sarda the Sage. Sarda provides the "Earth Rod," which is used to open the plate at the Earth Cave.

One of most apparent signs of this game's age comes from its lack of direction. The solution to almost every problem is brute force. It does not help this game is unnecessarily obtuse. How was I suppose to know I needed to pick up a ruby from a random treasure chest and give it to a giant in a completely different area? How was I suppose to know what purpose the ruby served? How was I suppose to know the "Earth Rod" would allow me to access the lower depths of the Earth Cave? The answer is that's just the way these games were designed, and I cannot fault Final Fantasy for mimicking common design decisions from a bygone era.

In-between each of my annotated steps are dozens of random encounters and frenzied treks to town inns. In the NES and PlayStation One versions, the only way to save is to use a "tent" or rest at an inn. Replenishing MP only happens if you relax at an inn or use a "cottage." Not being able to save in the dungeons is fucked because most of the game takes place there! Having any clue as to where you should be going is another annoyance. The only way players will know they are in the "wrong" location is if the random encounters wipe their party. Otherwise, they can start several quest chains without knowing how any of them relates to one another.

Furthermore, why are there so many one-off locations? After collecting the Earth Rod, there's no reason to return to Sarda the Sage. It's not like Sarda imparts a world-building anecdote about the prophecy everyone else is apt to mention. Questline NPCs are just item givers. I'm not asking for the thorough world-building of Final Fantasy IX or X. All I am asking for is a little bit of lore to add context to the game's required activities. Why doesn't Sarda or the ruby eating titan explain how the Lich became corrupted?

Part 13: I Guess This Game Is "Open World?"

For a game that is over thirty years old, I have to give Final Fantasy I credit where credit is due. It features a relatively large open world populated by a handful of interesting characters. While the enemy design plagiarizes Dungeons & Dragons, it holds up surprisingly well. Likewise, Nobuo Uematsu's score is excellent. Despite my earlier grousing, the structure of the world isn't without merits. If players want to see parts of the world out of order, they are welcome to do so at their leisure.

I also cannot deny the developers' resourcefulness. Cities and towns look and feel distinct. While it pains me to say this, the same sentiment applies to the dungeons. When I entered Mt. Gulg, I understood the entire premise of the level. It was a fire-based dungeon where the enemies had an elemental weakness to water. All of this is communicated to the player WITHOUT dialogue, and that's an accomplishment in game design.

Ultimately, what I am left to question is what the game accomplishes with its locations. It's nice there are architectural differences between the human, eleven, and dwarven cities, but why is that the case? Why are any of these races or characters here? They are because the game needs them to be here. The same can be said of the dungeons and bosses. They exist because the game's scripting requires them.

To further my point, let's examine the battle against the Lich as a case study. When the Warriors of Light first encounter the Lich, it subjects them to a generic villainous speech not fit for the likes of Lex Luthor or The Joker. Do we learn of the Lich's reasoning for sapping away Melmond's lifeforce? NOPE! Do the writers care about such world building? I would hope, but I don't think they knew how.

But no matter, the Lich is eventually defeated! Is there any evidence of what this means? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Melmond is always in the same decayed state it started in, and only a few of the NPCs thank the Warriors of Light. Talk is cheap, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. For fuck's sake, why isn't there at least one NPC in Melmond to direct the player to the next questline? Would it have killed the designers to include a town mayor who mentions the Crescent Lake or Ice Cavern after a round of congratulations?

Part 14: The Ice Cavern Is The Pokemon Gym Of Your Nightmares

The Ice Cave is filled with undead monsters that pose a more significant threat than any of the in-game bosses. Most of the enemies can inflict Paralysis or Stone. Other monsters can instantly KO party members in a single attack. Many of these encounters can result in immediate doom, especially if the enemies come in packs of nine. If all nine connect before the player can queue up an AOE magic spell, it's game over. Sure, it's a relatively short dungeon, but every corner is programmed to cause immediate frustration.

By the second floor players are flooded by trash mobs of wights, wraiths, and ghosts. When these enemies come in packs, they have a disheartening tendency to inflict entire parties with "Paralyze." Players will also have to contend with Sorcerers, who can cast "Trance" which can easily paralyze half of their party in a single blow. Cockatrices come in swarms like wights, but they also have a high evasion rate and inflict "Stone." I guess what I am saying is the Ice Cave is the "best" level in the game.

Let's not dance around the simple fact that this cave is FUCKING SMALL! Most of the floors are painfully linear and don't have any treasure. One of the dungeon's levels only requires three steps! The only thing preventing this cave from taking three minutes is the soul-crushing amount of random encounters. Hilariously enough, the random encounters here exceed the final two levels of the previous boss dungeon.

Thankfully, your time spent in this cave pays dividends. Lord have mercy on your soul if you forgot to pick of the Floater/Levistone from the Ice Cave. Finding the item is tough enough as it requires the player to interact with a hole-on-the-floor puzzle. By this point, all pretense was out of the window as I was using a guide. To my defense, the questline to gain the Airship is insane without the use of a guide. After acquiring the "Floater," there's a specific plot of land in the southern desert where player's raise a flying ship from the ground. Outside of parking, the airship is a godsend as it frees you from dozens of random encounters when traversing the overworld.

Part 15: Whoever Designed Crescent Lake And Mt. Gulg Is An Asshole

First, why is Mt. Gulg only accessible by canoe? What is the justification for that? Second, why are the sages tucked away in the furthest corner of Crescent Lake? It took me FOREVER to figure out I needed to talk to some asshole named "Lukahn" to get the canoe required to enter Mt. Gulg. Only an asshole would design something like that.

It's also at this point I started to resent the magic system. Some of the spells are easy enough to parse out, but others are deceptive. How was I suppose to know "Quake" doesn't inflict earth damage and is instead an instant death spell? There's a ton of trial and error involved with the magic system, and that's regardless of which version you play. Would it have killed the programmers to include in-game spell biographies?

Mt. Gulg is a friendly reminder of the limitations of Vancian Magic. When I first entered Mt. Gulg, I figured out it was a general lava level and correctly assumed water magic would be extra useful there. Because magic is purchased at stores, optimizing your spells isn't as easy as you'd like. Finding and buying the spells appropriate for continually shifting conditions involves a ton of backtracking. Furthermore, it's not a practical use of the player's time, especially if the damage output of the fighting classes is designed to grow exponentially. More often than not, the mages are left to crowd control when needed, but nothing more.

But let's move on to the level design of Mt. Gulg. It's one of the worst designed levels I have seen in a video game. Nothing is allowed to be a straight line. Every walkable path is a giant loop designed to maximize the number of random fights. Final Fantasy I is filled with blind alleys and needlessly obtuse routes, but Mt. Gulg operates on a different plane of existence. I mean, seriously, WHO THE FUCK DESIGNED THIS:

That's just one level in a dungeon hounded by lousy design! Take, for example, the third floor of Mt. Gulg:

I want you to notice something about this floor in particular. Notice on the bottom portion of the map, the player is presented with a choice in which direction they should go. Either they go right and immediately locate the stairs to the next level, or they turn left and find themselves in a pit of lava. When players revisit this level a second time, they find themselves in a very similar situation. Starting from the stairs labeled "D" they can either go down and quickly locate the next set of stairs, or they can go left and subject themselves to a lava-based death loop. THIS GAME CAN GO FUCK ITSELF!

Part 16: Here We Go Again

Every boss battle repeats the same structure. There are four to five levels in a dungeon, and they culminate in a confrontation against one of the "Four Fiends." Despite the impressive boss designs, which oddly hold up, the boss battles are another missed opportunity. While each boss spews a villainous spiel, there's no genuine attempt at context building. I know Marilith is an evil serpent lady, but nothing more.

At no point does this game ever take the time to scaffold why the characters are in their present circumstances. There's no justification of what the Four Fiends plan on doing with the four elemental crystals. The unfortunate result is it is impossible to grasp what the designers hoped to accomplish with each boss. Additionally, there's no sense of "stakes" when confronting the Four Fiends. Am I supposed to look at Marilith and know she plans on using Mt. Gulg to spew lava over Crescent Lake? Is there a reason why Kraken enslaved the mermaids at the Shrunken Shrine? What did Tiamat hope to accomplish after overtaking the Flying Fortress?

Instead, each of the significant dungeons necessitates a fetch quest before the player can enter it. Once in the dungeon, the player stomachs through hours of skullduggery before fighting the boss. The lack of lore and personality makes everything feel monotonous. Players fight bosses because they are there, and not because they feel motivated to do so. Everything feels contrived and artificial.

I know I come across as being "nitpicky" by raising all of these questions, but I think it is important to highlight that Final Fantasy is trying to be a "role-playing game." At what point does Final Fantasy I provide a compelling story where someone feels motivated to assume a "role?" I honestly cannot list a single moment where a sliver of an opportunity to role-play was presented. It is on that count I can safely say the developers did not know what they were doing. Every time I face a new boss, and I had no idea why I was fighting them, I felt like the game was painfully orchestrating how this was Square's first role-playing game.

Part 17: This Isn't A Roleplaying Game And Here's Why!

Let's review the true meaning of a "role-playing game." I want to do this because it illustrates my perspective whenever I play one of these games. In Final Fantasy I, the cast functions on a red thread of fate. Someone or something conducts them, and it's certainly not the player. It's a mode of storytelling I am all too familiar with because every Final Fantasy game copies this format. Thus, I have to question if there has ever been a Final Fantasy game that was an actual role-playing game.

That last sentence might come as a shock, but hear me out. Even when this series is at its best, it feels more like an ensemble cast simulator, rather than a role-playing game. While the characters and their journies run the gamut, there's rarely any agency given to the player. In the vast majority of JRPGs, the player is more a passive observer than an active participant. At no point in Final Fantasy I do I feel empowered to act out as a Thief or Warrior. Even in a game like Final Fantasy IX, I control Zidane, but rarely dictate the events that populate his adventure.

All role-playing games have a self-defined world, and there's no doubting the Final Fantasy franchise values this building block. But where this entire franchise stumbles is on the matter of "control." The player is provided plenty of control over how to act in combat. There are classes to explore and types of magic to learn. However, the moment any of these games delve deep into their stories they never seem to trust the player to assume any responsibilities. Role-playing traditionally places an immense amount of value over the game reacting to the efforts of the player, but that never happens in Final Fantasy I, neither does it ever happen in this franchise.

This dilemma is the original diving line between CRPGs and JRPGs. During the dawn of games, western RPGs tended to create worlds where the player assumed a role and was mainly in charge of how their story unfolded. Freedom always has a cost, and the consequence was what the story accomplished could feel muddied. And while the inverse logic applies to JRPGs, at some point I start to question if that's even worse. I want to have more control over these games, but I know I never will.

But what baffles me most of all, especially as I play more and more of Final Fantasy I, is how the divide between West and East could have been avoided. Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy have a common ancestor to Ultima and Wizardry. But I suspect I have ranted enough about this topic. Next time we talk, I finish this game.

Aw shit, I forgot to mention the podcasts for this series. This time, the podcast version of this series is VASTLY superior to the blogs! Not only is there witty banter between @thatpinguino and myself, but we are joined by @jeffrud! Get this, jeffrud is able to speak about the game's mechanics and history intellectually! Like, if you listen to the podcasts, there's at least one person who knows what the Hell anything in this game is about!

Anyway, here's the podcasts for anyone interested:

Final Fantasy isn't an RPG in the true sense, nor are most JRPGs, but I kinda prefer it that way. I'm sure there's a parallel timeline out there where Japanese RPGs more faithfully followed the RPG formula, like the west, but then half the games I love wouldn't exist and gaming would just be more homogeneous as a whole. Sometimes I want an RPG with real agency and choice, like The Witcher. But sometimes I don't. Sometimes I want a linear story told with purpose that I can enjoy more passively. If one were to ever replace the other I would be truly upset.

But maybe that's getting a little off-topic. I don't think that's Final Fantasy's real issue.

I guess I can see where you are coming from so long as we agree this game is a stepping stone or transitional game, and nothing more. As I always say, there's more than one way to make a cheeseburger. Sometimes you want a restaurant quality cheeseburger, and other times you just want McDonald's. Where I start to push back is when Square tries to have its cake and eat it. Somewhere around Final Fantasy VII or VIII, these games became narratively messy and mechanically convoluted.

There's a long list of issues about Final Fantasy. As I play Final Fantasy XIII I feel like I can safely say voice acting has had an overall negative impact on the series. Square's steadfast refusal to compromise on the technical language of their scripts makes voice acting laughable. Also, in the transition to 3D, Square has got to figure out a better way to design enemy models and bosses. There's something deeply sinister about the 2D boss sprites that never translated to 3D models.

Finally, I have no idea why Square refuses to recognize there's an appeal to turn-based combat.

I'm hardly an expert in JRPGs, but there's definitely a perception that turn-based combat doesn't have big-budget mainstream appeal and is something for obsessive tactics nerds or old people. In your playthrough of FF XIII, I have to imagine you're getting the vibe that the developers don't trust the player to figure out their heavily automated, macromanagement focused video game without hours of tutorials. I don't know if that's because they were trying to appeal to people who don't play a ton of games (...with a 40 hour, combat-intensive RPG) or because they actually thought that shit was complex enough to spoon feed it to you for a large chunk of the experience.

That said, there are certainly teams at Square who make games with turn-based combat, but they're either from the Enix side (i.e. the Dragon Quest teams) or a small group probably forced to huddle in the basement around a small fire (The Bravely Default people, who are now making Octopath Traveler.) I don't know if it'll ever be in the Deep Listens "Final Fantasy torture chamber" wheelhouse, but Bravely Default is an interesting, if depressingly flawed game that feels like the logical extension of Final Fantasy V.

@zeik: But what makes a game an RPG? I feel FFI is absolutely an RPG as I created a team of four characters whose classes I chose and developed them as I liked. JRPGs are almost always different from WRPGs (a sort of dumb term as it is less defined and indicative as the former). WRPGs put you in a character which then makes choices that have a considerable effect on the narrative, while JRPGs mostly have a static narrative and player choice comes into developing those characters as they see fit. For me both choices are valid and while WRPGs like Mass Effect might be more faithful to what RPG actually stands for, I felt a more personal connection to the pre defined characters of Persona 4 and Tales of Vesperia than I have felt in the majority of WRPGs. Basically I agree with you that while JRPGs might not be technically categorized properly as an RPG in a literal sense the different kind of character building and storytelling employed by them can produce similar feelings.

@zombiepie: I actually almost brought up turn-based combat as a comparison to the whole "JRPG" vs "WRPG" thing, as I feel they often fall under similar scrutiny. There is definitely a preconception out there (maybe a little less so now, but it's still there) that turn-based combat is outdated and should universally be replaced by "superior" action oriented combat. Which is a sentiment I could not disagree with more. Just like WRPGs, I enjoy action-RPGs at times, but I also love turn-based combat for reasons that action combat can never truly replicate, so my dismay would be palpable if turn-based games ever went away.

Unfortunately SE seems to have latched onto that sentiment and feels like they must transition to more and more action based combat to stay relevant. At least from a broad appeal perspective. Which is a shame, because the ensemble based casts that Final Fantasy is known and loved for just doesn't mesh that well with action combat.

@grayfox666:Like I said, I love (and often prefer) narrative driven JRPGs. I don't think they have any less merit than WRPGs, even without much role-playing. I don't necessarily think it's wrong to suggest that JRPGs don't fit the true definition of "role-playing-game", but I also kind of think that's a useless argument. There's no way we're going to change the name of "JRPGs" with the term so ingrained into our lexicon, so it's just one of those things people have to learn to accept. JRPGs have carved their own unique niche into the gaming landscape and I would never want to see them forced to conform to more traditional "RPG" structure just so it can fit the term more accurately. At least broadly speaking. I have nothing against JRPG developers experimenting with stuff like that from time to time. Just like I would love to see some WRPGs experiment with some JRPG elements on occasion.

I will carry your banner on the way to their offices. It will do no good, but I'll do it.

As much as FF1 has flaws - and it has plenty of them - I've always like it more than their efforts which moved away from TBC just because I like TBC that much. There's just something to it that I find very, very enjoyable.

Also I meant to say this on the first blog for this entry. You can legally buy and play the first 10 final fantasy games on Vita/Vita TV if you make it past El Dorado and find one of those things. I have them all on a single memory card. It's a fun but also nightmare card to own.