Final Fantasy I (PSP) 20th Anniversary | The Completionist

yes you hey everyone and welcome back to another episode of the completionist before we start today I'm kind of half sick today I tried really hard to stay healthy throughout the week and I got worse so this episode is going to have half healthy Gerar and half not so healthy gerard so this is your warning also we're not from the set today because of construction so instead I got the green screen uh mark put in the background right now whenever you want just be be tasteful be cool be cool there's no doubt that the Final Fantasy franchise is incredibly popular and obviously we've experienced our fair share of Final Fantasy here on the show with Final Fantasy 7 month so with the recent debut of the demo up on Fantasy 15 I thought to myself hey let's do it let's go back to where it all began let's do a little history lesson with the grass roots of Final Fantasy the Final Fantasy franchise as of today is 28 years old Hironobu Sakaguchi has been dubbed the father of Final Fantasy as the original title of found fantasy one was fighting fantasy however saga gucci and his bosses over at square butted heads a lot he had been wanting to do a western-style RPG that was heavily inspired by Dungeons & Dragons and heavily influenced by the video games wizardry and Ultima Square gave Sega Gucci the team he needed to create the game he wanted but things as a whole weren't working out per square as they were headed towards bankruptcy saga Gucci changed the title from fighting fantasy to Final Fantasy not only did it mirror the final attempt for the game company but it was also so Guruji's last attempt in the games industry if things hadn't worked out he was going to quit making games forever thanks to Sakaguchi's brilliant in the initial creation of this game it led to millions and millions of copies sold worldwide across the franchise's for many years the original Final Fantasy sold about 200,000 copies in Japan and he pushed very hard for the game to be pushed to the American market which eventually saved Square from bankruptcy now a ton of you are probably confused as to why this game footage you see here looks a lot more modern than the original Nintendo game well I did a lot of research on which version of the game I should play I bounced back and forth between the original nest version and the GBA version but ultimately my choice was the PlayStation Portable version for Final Fantasies 20th anniversary Square Enix decided to give the game a third remake equipped with more dungeons a bestiary and a few completionist bonuses here and there I thought visually it would be nice to take a look at the new remakes I personally love the PSP so any excuse to play with mine is an excuse I would certainly appreciate like when you headphones Viva Fidel Scott and she sprayed you nasty we enter into the story in the world moan as well well nothing really the world doesn't have a name apparently the land is kept peaceful by four elemental orbs that govern the elements of water wind earth and fire go plant by your powers combined I am Captain Planet over the past 400 years each of the orbs has gone dark and subsequently the land that possesses each orb has fallen into utter chaos where the worlds completely thrown into disarray the sage leucon makes a prophecy of the four warriors of light that will make the world right aah this is where you come in you control your party known as the warriors of light each of the light warriors carries one elemental orb and together they're seeking out the darkened orbs to purify them and restore peace to the land once again our quest starts in the kingdom of corneria where thousands of years in the future you'll embark on a very different quest to save the solar system from the evil and draw send away no no I'm sorry in the PSP version it's properly localized to Cornelia never mind never mind that's from Star Fox go about your business see you guys in October for Star Fox probably let's let's hope now back with this game we had to create the characters and their classes at this point I try to keep a balanced team when I play a RPG so for this journey on my team we've got Leo the warrior Duncan the slam Duncan monk Dwayne the rock the red warrior Johnson and gung-ho al our mage now the funny thing about all of these names is how personal they are for me for starters I didn't actually pick these names they were randomly generated for me but if I'm not naming my character snitches I named one of them Leo based off of general Leo from Final Fantasy 6 Duncan is just the funny name for a Zen monk Dwayne is the Rock's first real name and gung ho ties directly to my lifelong best friend gung ho al it's up to us to travel the land helping the people of well the world and purifying elemental orbs of their darkness the first step to accomplishing this is to head off to the destroyed chaos shrine to battle the evil Knight Garland and rescue princess Sara Sara whatever upon defeating him Garland releases the four fiends onto the land and disappears the four fiends then head to four different dungeons to guard the darkened orbs and it's up to us to take him down to do our thing doo-doo-doo-doo our stuff you do our stuff so the story is pretty minimal and straightforward but think about the fact that this game was originally released in 1987 that's only one year after the Legend of Zelda which almost has no in-game story aside from a little text intro while by today's standards this seems very lackluster for its time it was big and epic another JRPG named Dragon Quest also named Dragon Warrior in the US was released a year earlier and it's the first to establish the JRPG Final Fantasy was made to contrast that games formulaic plot with a deeper story this set the standard for a long long line of JRPGs that would take inspiration from Final Fantasy things that many of us would consider tropes of RPGs spawned from this game think about how many games have included the collection or restoration of various items throughout the land or the idea of time traveling to alter the future most of that started right here in Final Fantasy Oh as I deduced based off my research this is the definitive version of ba fantasy one everything is overhauled to fit the generation at the time of release and the sprite work echoes the original game while bringing so much more to the table everything from overworld movements attack animations spell effects and even the menus have been cleaned up with bright and vibrant colors mostly everything was upgraded from the previous free releases such as the Game Boy Advance iOS and PlayStation versions each of those received their own updates and improved upon the original 8-bit graphics and the ps1 even added pre-rendered cutscenes unfortunately the FMV cutscenes from the ps1 version happened to slip up to the PSP version and they definitely feel like they still belong on the ps1 all things considered though this version really holds up well now much was changed for the 2014 reread re-release in the 3ds because the visuals and the music made the PSP version just really don't need to be improved upon much like some of the best games of the senesce era the artwork is stylistically defined to have incredible longevity now in terms of design a lot of the enemies in the game have been redesigned or rearranged from Japanese to American text sure you've got your moments of lost in translation but if something is a zombie or ghoul it actually looks like a zombie or ghoul in the early days of the nest this translations random censorships or misinterpretations occurred all the time like The Legend of Zelda final fantasy sets the standards of chimes and menu sound effects that would eventually become the permanent staple in a Final Fantasy game now we all know the battle victory team of a Final Fantasy if not here's what it sounds like each final fantasy has its own distinct version but they sound the exact same from game to game all the way up to five fantasy seven and onward a few of them did we back and forth between the new battle victory themes and the original point being Nobuo Uematsu is and forever will be the face of Final Fantasy soundtracks granted he left screenings in 2004 he was almost completely responsible for all of the music soundtracks from Bond fantasy 1 through 10 and hey another fun fact for you he also composed the theme song for Super Smash Brothers Brawl I mean there's really not much more to say than that the presentation is solid all around I don't have any real net picks about it the original game was one of the pioneers of JRPGs back in the time before there was a standard and the updated presentation really does justice to a game with that sort of gravitas behind I've only sent it a few times but Final Fantasy is the spawning point for one of if not the biggest and most popular RPG series in gaming history so with that in mind the gameplay that you get from this game is exactly that the first version of your basic JRPG so what does this mean well let's start with the basics you're going to be traversing an overworld in a zoomed out view not unlike how you would Intel the two battles do happen at random and if I'm being honest they happen a little bit too much while on one hand you do need to be battling a lot to level up and grind so that you don't get killed by bosses but once you're done grinding and you need to go somewhere it just gets super annoying when you're about to it gets super annoying when it gets super annoying when all right you get the point you get it right this is pretty clear you get the point good great we're moving on sweet when you enter in a battle you have a chance of getting either a preemptive strike or an ambushed message this means that you get the first hit or they get the first hit for free depending on which message pops up you know that iconic RPG battle screen where there's an enemy on one side and your party's on the other this game invented that combat takes place in a turn-based system involving tons of menus as you select your action for your four party members you can choose between six different classes for your four party members now I can only choose four classes so I'll show off my four choices but I will describe the other two classes I didn't pick as well here's how each of them factor in to combat the fighter is your bread and butter the standard frontman and go-to character to dish out and receive damage fighters can use most weapons and armor in the game allowing for a versatile class they can benefit from most item pickups later in the game each class can receive a promotion and the fighter will become a knight gaining access to even more weapons and armor and also some White Mage magic as well next up is the thief while a thief won't be the best in regards to taking or dealing damage they provide a great support role in helping your party run away from if you're on a last leg in a huge fight the thief can save your ass big-time upon promotion to ninja they gain access to some black magic and a slew of super-strong weapons the black belt changed to monk in this version can't take a hit worth anything but keeping him healthy is important because he hits hard he hits like a truck in fact giving him equipment actually makes him do less damage and makes him very susceptible to damage however through leveling black belts damage ramps up very early on in the game and will skyrocket after promotion to Grand Master I mean help that's why I call my monk slam Duncan it was either that or Dunkin Donuts now the Black Mage is incredibly iconic we all know that blue coat and yellow pointed at this class specializes in damaging spells and more importantly spells that target multiple enemies no matter how strong your fighter or black belt may be when you get into a fight with so many tiny enemies they'll overwhelm you pretty quickly the Black Mage exists to get you out of those situations when promoted to black wizard he gains access to some of the most powerful black magic in the game see the white mage however is the polar opposite of the black mage specializing in healing spells to aid your other party members in the heat of battle having a healer is essential to long battles and the white mage will be your best friend when you're stuck in them couple that with white magic that does massive damage to undead enemies and you're going to want to keep your white mage around for sure however in my experience I wanted to play a little bit differently so I chose the Red Mage over the white mage who once promoted to white wizard she gains access to the plenty R to communicate with the Dark Lord song run about his plans to build an army at 10,000 I mean she gets powerful white magic spells I'm sorry wrong white wizard sorry disregard that one bark edited out last up is the Red Mage which is sort of this all-round battle mage character the Red Mage can use black magic white magic and they can even hold their own with basic attacks because they have access to some great armor and weapons they're great for filling an open role that you're not sure what to do with and when promoted to red wizard they just get more of everything when it comes to mages every time you level up their magic ability you can only purchase and equip three spells in that tier that means that you have to buy spells at shops and plan accordingly so you have the spells you're going to need this also means that if you get to a place with some good spells and you're not the right magic level to buy them you're going to have to fall back into that classic RPG trope grinding a lot of this game comes down to grinding it was created before developers really knew how much was too much when it came to padding out a game's length and the result is a game that takes roughly 40 hours or longer to complete just solely due to grinding and grinding and more grinding a little can be expected in RPGs there's always a repetitive experience farming factor but this game takes it a little bit too far together with the incessant random battles it's a hard pill to swallow but from here it only got better now for the PSP version this grinding also factors into the completion of this game completion can only be achieved once you've opened every chest and filled out the bestiary which means fighting every single creature and monster in the game this is incredibly exhausting because you'll be searching for extremely rare monsters that only appear in one specific zone like the incredibly rare death machine at the end of the game and once you find them you have to kill them which is pretty tough because rare monsters are usually incredibly strong again this is a very old RPG getting close to almost 30 years so stuff like this is pretty expected if you're an RPG fan this shouldn't be new to you and it won't really take away from your experience however if you're not into this style of gameplay then this game isn't going to be the one to change your mind so you've collected all four crystals and it beated the four fiends from atop the flying fortress you see the elements converge on a point far below they come together at the chaos shrine just north of Cornelia and you and your party set off for the final battle the chaos shrine was the first dungeon in the game that we defeated we are reunited to battle our way up through several floors to fight our old pal Garland and now as we make our way up we have a few rematch fights with the fiends from before when you're at the top the demon chaos makes his appearance when you defeat a garland before he split into the four fiends who then sent him back in time to become chaos so that he could create a sort of time loop for them to live forever and now is her chance to stop them once and for all the battle with chaos is grueling he has some of the most powerful magic in the game with boo oh never mind you've got slam-dunk you know at this point in the game if you've been completing all the extra dungeons along the way your team is going to be overpowered for nearly every single fight including the final boss of the game he kind of becomes this big joke once you've brought him down chaos slowly disappears as the time loop is broken sending you back to the present and our story is summed up in what maybe some of the slowest texts crawl in the history of credits um I uh it's gonna be a while huh oh I think God it's over man this could go on for so much longer than that I'm gonna get a soda we shouldn't go they know what I'm going off to oh boy that slow crawl text could have easily been summed up with a cutscene or a paragraph but they kept that traditional slow crawl text look I know that's what the original was but this is something you could have easily updated okay never mind point taken so now that I fully completed the game I think the weirdest thing about the remake is the lack of respect towards sakaguchi his name wasn't anywhere to be found the credits from what I've seen whatever happened with him and Square Enix must have been huge because his name was scrubbed from everything this to me is a very weird call because Sega Gucci was the sole reason spraining survived without him there would be no Final Fantasy I have to say I regret playing the PSP version why because the extras while fun will burn you the out real quick it's a challenge sure but the journey is long and tedious especially for us completionists so for us completionists out there we need to have encountered and killed all 203 enemies and collect every chest in the game that doesn't sound too bad right wrong very very very very wrong each dungeon and overworld part of the map will have anywhere from 5 to 30 monsters you'll need to farm and for each area you farm for monsters there's going to be one to three monsters that are rare spawns I'm talking low 2 to 3% types pawns try following any online guide for this game you'll be confused as hell because it's all very random and no one seems to understand where it goes what what goes where damn it so let's be clear about something real quick the bestiary and the chess requirements were not a part of the original game it's exclusive to the remakes and with the remake there's five extra dungeons these dungeons themselves will test your might the more difficult they get the longer the floors become the RNG game is horrid and you will go crazy luckily for me I'm a pretty well seasoned RPG kind of guy but I did struggle a lot my favorite thing about the bonus dungeons is that all of the bosses in them are from other Final Fantasy games I got to battle the phantom train and ultros too but other than that the dungeons are very long and very very brutal the last dungeon is called the labyrinth of time it's filled with 30 dungeons that are randomized and they depend on your skill to execute certain puzzles you'll also have to sacrifice aspects of gameplay in order to give yourself more time getting to the end of this dungeon will grant you a fight against cro Nordea and probably ruin that here's the thing about this fight you guys it's not that hard but this monster has eight forms eight different forms eight different forms that you'll need to collect by completing the dungeon eight times which will require you to win and fail in space - pattern on certain floors stuff like this really really ticks me off it's extra padding to a game that didn't need extra padding and for what for what for opening every chest and defeating all 203 enemies in the game you get access to an art gallery beating the game gets you the soundtrack which is all fine and dandy but what the hell am I going to do with 76 pictures look I'm all about the behind the scene aspects of things I love art work I love music I love concept art but I mean come on it's your 20th anniversary of the franchise that saved your company yet bigger here Square Enix come on we just went through hell and back give us fun characters to play with a new class that we haven't seen before maybe an extra dungeon with a story purpose just give us something something to justify the completionist journey we just went on as somebody who's completed several long-form RPGs in my time Final Fantasy didn't give me too much trouble but I won't say it was easy there was of course a lot of time spent trying to find all the rare creatures to fill out the bestiary but if you take that away from the main game it was a pretty straightforward experience and it wasn't that bad averaging me around 20 to 30 hours but I'm sorry I'm not sorry you guys I'm not going to dance around this one the bonus for spending time to fight ultra rare monsters and to fill up that book for extra artwork to look at is really really lackluster there are games that really reward you for going above and beyond but this one's more for the people who can see the journey itself as reward enough and while I tend to usually agree with this not this time it really ruined my overall goal as a completionist I spent an additional 40 hours to fill this damn thing out the game's main story's not even that long the difficulty comes down to grinding this game will be fairly easy for gamers with a lot of patience and stamina but it could be frustrating to anybody that doesn't work well with repetitive fights and random number generated based monsters with all these mixed feelings kind of in the forefront the game is an overall fun experience to play I was bummed to see that some goo goo Chi was not really given a proper credit that coupled with the hellacious completionist journey we just went on the remake while perfect for newcomers will bum out the general Final Fantasy enthusiasts at times now I am aware at the time of release of this game the bestiary aspect of Final Fantasy was kind of the forefront of the new games and that more or less is still important today but we're talking about 20 years of gaming history and obviously Square Enix may not be as connected as they once were for their company I don't know that's just me I'm a believer of staying humble and staying hungry almost being 30 years old I'm glad to see that Final Fantasy as a series is still relevant going back to the grassroots where it all started with a nice clean polish was a lot of fun I won't be picking up this game again any time soon because of all the end game experience I'm a believer that you don't play these games in order pick the one that looks the coolest to you or the one that a friend really recommended or maybe one you read about or heard about so with that in mind guys this game is my completionist rating of play it flipz hey guys thanks for watching and thank you for putting up with my horrible voice this week I am so sorry I'm gonna try and get a lot of rest this week and while you're at it if you liked today's video please go ahead and subscribe check out some of our other videos we got going on it does help a lot when you like and comment and support us if you missed last week's episode on Megaman 4 5 & 6 give it a click right here and if you've been gone for a while be sure to check out our video on axiom verge done by Mark Karr the editor that's all time we've got for today guys so please as always let us know what you thought about today's episode somewhere on the internet like and favorite and comment tell me you hate me tell me you love me I don't care come join me when I'm screaming I'm aiming to at least stream three days a week and there's always Saturday night Slams with the tea ovg community guys we're playing smash we're playing Street Fighter we're playing Mortal Kombat X when the netcode tends to work 1 and attend chances at the very of these guys have an excellent day my dudes if you're still here tweet at me hashtag tired tell me about your week I haven't slept in two days so I've been playing Final Fantasy on non-stop mode big shoutouts to a it on it Jimmy for helping me out this episode and Emma and everyone at the office keeping me sane now if you excuse me I want some more space jam in my life I don't know what that means mark I have no idea I surprised me in overtime hey DJ turn it up qzd go run up come on y'all get on the coast oh hey

Channel: The Completionist

Views: 880,149

Rating: 4.8883834 out of 5

Keywords: Final Fantasy (Video Game Series), Final Fantasy (Video Game), Final Fantasy I, PlayStation Portable (Video Game Platform), Completionist, thatonevideogamer, ff1 review

Id: JeDcG-PKRh0

Length: 26min 20sec (1580 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 24 2015