The world is veiled in
darkness. The wind stops,
the sea is wild,
and the earth begins to roth.
The people wait,
their only hope, a prophesy....

'When the world is in darkness
Four warriors will come....'

After a long journey, four
young warriors arrive,
each holding an ORB.

This is Square's first RPG created and it was released in Japan in the end of 1987. It was this game which made Square famous in Japan, well not that famous but now there was people who actually knew them. In 1990 Nintendo finally released an English version of it. Overall this game isn't the best, but it is a real classic, and remember that it was the beginning of the biggest RPG-series ever!

Story

The storyline in this game is not the best, but there is one anyway. The first thing you do is a selection of which characters you want to be in your party. You can chose between black, white and red mages, thief, black belt and fighter. Then the real game starts right on the map near a kingdom, without any intros or something. The people in the kingdom are despaired because a monster has captured their princess and your task is of course to find her. But don't be cool and go strait into the cave where the monster lurks, you will die at once. In fact a bunch of Imps may kill you if you are unlucky. For being prepared to go into the cave you should go around and gather experience in at least twenty minutes and I just hate this! Anyway, when you have found the princess and taken her back to the castle the real game begins. The only thing I can say now is that if you want to survey, gather experience in another twenty minutes again and again and again... The story in this game is a little bit too simple, I think. An hour into the game you will come to a city witch has been taken by pirates. Well, there is one pirate standing on the left side of the town, saying he's dangerous. Then, after a short fight he gives you his ship. Nothing bad with this, but it sounds just so stupid.

Music

Not much to say about it. The music in FF is basic, as everything else in it. It just can't be any good because of the Nes' very limited sound engine. There are phone signals and that is all. But the overworld and battle tunes are cool. Go to the music section if you want to listen to some remixed versions of various songs.

Graphics

The graphics isn't good at all in this game, but it fills its function. You understand who is your character, and you can move around with him in all four directions. Can it be any batter? The battles also look as they should, but have way to many windows everywhere.

Battles, menus, & gameplay

The menu screen is in this water-blue colour as always and is easy to use. Actually its look isn't to far away from the interface used since FF3. The magic system is kinda boring; you just go to the shop and buy it. As I told you before, in the beginning of the game you can chose between black and white mages. Because of this there are both black and white magic shops where you can buy spells. As you proceed the spells in the shops will be more powerful and, of course, more expensive. The battles in the first FF basically work the same way as now, except that there aren't any special abilities you can use and that you aren't time limited to choose what to do. What I mean is that you don't have to hurry when you're in battle; the enemies will wait until you are ready with all your allies. The gameplay is also very old school and basic; go to a village and gather some information about what to do and then continue to a dungeon where a boss lurks.