Truth be told, I only got into the Final Fantasy love train on Final Fantasy IV (which was called Final Fantasy II on the SNES American version). I was into the realm of CRPGs more with the likes of Ultima and Baldur’s Gate. Nonetheless, it didn’t stop me to revisit the roots established by the very first game a few years later, specifically around 2001 in my college years.

When you go from an SNES Final Fantasy with its updated interface and slightly easier gameplay tweaks and go back to what is still considered archaic, you have to remember that you have to set your mind to that particular period where there aren’t any F.A.Qs and internet to bail you out. It’s just you, the instruction manual, and hopefully a friend to help you out sitting next to you.

As I have an already busy schedule during this crunchtime period filled with deadlines, I’ll keep this really short. Here are the five most noteworthy things I can sum up about the first game. Whether they are good or bad is debatable, but it’s what makes this game memorable to everyone who has played it in the late 80s, 90s, or in my case, the year 2000 and beyond.

i) The charge magic system. Following its inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons (probably from Eye of The Beholder, a classic from the bygones PC RPGing era), FF1 gave you a number of charges for each of your spells for your Black/White mages. They can only be refilled by resting at an inn. No items, no ether, no nothing: you have to plan carefully and not spam your magic spells during a dungeon trip.

ii) It seriously has not aged well, technically-speaking. I’m referring to basic user interfaces, not the entire image of the game here. The basic act of targetting was not refined in the first game at all. Let’s say you have two of your heroes targetting one creature. One of them hits them with a sword, while the other casts Fire. Suppose the creature died from the sword-strike: what do you think would happen? Normally, the Fire spell would either transfer to another target or just end up unused if there isn’t anything else on-screen.

But nope: your Fire spell will be used on the same spot where the dead enemy used to be. Meaning you just blew a charge for something that could have been saved for later bits in the dungeon. This s*** would not have flown if Nintendo were in charge. Compare going back to playing Legend of Zelda and going back to FF1: I guarantee that you’ll at least feel slightly better replaying the former than the latter.

iii) It’s bloody hard. JRPGs weren’t the walk-in-the-park experiences they are now, and Final Fantasy I proves that all too well. Of course, comparing difficulty levels between any RPG incepted after 2000 with FFI is like comparing apples and flux capacitors. There’s nary a store that sells Phoenix Downs, you have to use inns quite frequently, and there weren’t any save points in the dungeons themselves. And you wonder why the remakes of FFI on the PSP and PS1 had their difficulty level tweaked.

iv) It’s got an epic story. Link had to rescue the princess and defeat the pig-like Ganon. Dragon’s Quest’s main hero had to rescue the princess and defeat the wizard and the big bad dragon. FFI had you going back in time to fight Garland and the Lord of Chaos to preserve the balance of the world, but not before starting off the game by rescuing Princess Sara. It’s played-out by today’s standard, but back in the late 80s, this was considered heavy game literature and narrative.

v) It introduced many a tropes for subsequent console RPGs that followed. Airships, gauntlet-style boss battles that are absurdly hard, ancient high-tech civilizations, pretty graphics that’ll knock the sock off the generation it was created in, elemental weaknesses in enemies and bosses, Yoshitaka Amano’s involvement in the art department, Nobuo Uematsu’s contribution in the sound department, the victory tune….god, there’s just too many to list.

While Final Fantasy isn’t really an original game (Dragon Quest 1 predated it), it succeeds in its period because it came out at the right time and buttered up everything that was lacking in Dragon Quest 1. This is where Final Fantasy and console RPG history really got its start; JRPGs wouldn’t have existed were it not for this ironically-labeled title. Without FF1 being a counterpoint to Dragon Quest I, we wouldn’t be blind fanboys parading around and declaring that “Xenosaga/Grandia/Suikoden/etcetera is the best RPG EVARR.” As a console RPG gamer, you owe it to yourself to at least see how it all began. Emulators, old NES, playing the remakes on your PSP; it doesn’t matter. Just play it now.