💎 Final Fantasy 1 Beginner Club - Home Thread

Sounds good to me :slight_smile:
Maybe you could have a poll at some point to know how people feel about the current pace, I would be curious to know how the beginner readers are doing!

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Good idea.

Give opinions here:

  • The pace is fine
  • I could go faster but I’m ok with the way it is
  • I would be fine going slower but I’m ok with the way it is
  • This is way too fast for me
  • This is way too slow for me
0 voters
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well, i’m officially behind already :sob:
i just don’t have the energy to play games these days…
i knew that going in, but thought it would be fun
not that it isn’t, but i have so much other stuff to pack into a day :pensive_face:
i’m not giving up yet, but currently i’m anxious about the unpausable text about to come my way

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The bridge thing? It’s really unimportant.

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You can find the unpausable text in the spreadsheet (or take screenshots as it scrolls to read it later)!

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In addition to those two great options, there is a third one: to find a playthrough on youtube and pause the video as needed.
Found a playlist for FFI Pixel Remaster:

Same but with timestamp for the scene at the bridge:

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Always a good option! A year or two ago I was doing that when I played Like a Dragon Gaiden for lines I missed in those cutscenes.

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You guys are THE BEST!
Thanks for finding a good YouTube playthrough (I love those!)

I am already officially 5 weeks behind on the FF play through
:rofl:
Because…life …

But today is my day to actually sit down with my Switch and play the pixel remaster… so I’m curious to see how I do. (OMG, it’s already noon and I still have to start the laundry and have breakfast!)

It was VERY helpful and confidence-boosting
to be able to read through the Japanese text in the spread-sheet
I’m hoping it will come back to me much more easily when I encounter it during gameplay!

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Lots of conversation already about the fantastic music of the Final Fantasy series. For some chill editions to enjoy during play, study, or work, check out John Oeth’s Final Fantasy classical guitar covers. They’re on Spotify and YouTube (and probably other places), but that link is for YouTube. The first four tracks are Final Fantasy 1 songs.

Enjoy!

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A busy week ahead of us:

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One of the things I find a bit annoying about the original NES version – is that even when you miss, the animation is still the same as if you hit.
So, you see the “being attacked” animation around the enemy – get your hopes up – and then get the message saying ミス… :sweat_smile:

I wish they just didn’t do any animation on enemy when you miss instead :sweat_smile:

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What the meow?! trunky_rolling

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And, for my final post in the row, I noticed some interesting thing: the NES version actually remembers at which point you enter a town, so when you exit – you exit from that point.
The GBA version, on the other hand, despite being more advanced in many ways, doesn’t remember the entry point, so, regardless of where you entered, you would always exit from the same spot trunky_rolling

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So 5 weeks in I’d like to take a little time to give impressions so far - spoilers up to end of week 5 content are included, so watch out:

ネタバレ注意

Something I wasn’t quite prepared for is how much this would be steeped in classic D&D. I enjoy this a lot as I’m a fan of fantasy, so I’m right at home with elves and dwarves and whatntot. The bestiary does seem like it was basically a straight lift of the monster manual, using some stuff like Sahuagin and Piscodaemons that as far as I understand originated in D&D. Obviously the magic system is inspired by the so-called “Vancian magic” that D&D introduced as well. Then you’ve got mechanics like tents/cottages effectively standing in for the long rest to replenish HP and whatnot. Plus the classes - warrior, monk, cleric, mage, thief, etc. I’d be interested to know how much of this was direct influence and how much was secondhand via things like Lodoss and Wizardry

The game itself is fun so far - it definitely feels fairly basic as an RPG but the fundamentals are there and this is enough for me. The story aspect is sparse, for sure, but it’s not like there’s nothing there either. It’s just mostly left to implication than expounded and super complex (I think the whole little quest chain with Astos/the elf king was fairly interesting; it’s cool how it became its own little self contained arc - I know this is a relatively common sort of thing in JRPGs, where you’ll have more self-contained arcs within the wider story, but it’s interesting to see that kind of narrative structure being employed this early in the genre’s history). It’s amazing what a few lines of dialogue can do, and for the time this does still feel like it would’ve been quite impressive for the amount of dialogue it did include

The music is, of course, wonderful - I’ve been staying in the classic soundtrack and not regretting it. I can’t really comment too much on the graphics since I’m playing the Pixel Remaster, but I do quite like how it looks in this remaster

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As someone who didn’t play the Famicom FF for a long time (they looked to old for me in the 90s/00s), I had the same reaction. The western Fantasy/RPG influence is everywhere, both gameplay and world-building. It feels closer to Baldur’s Gate than Final Fantasy VII. It’s going to be interesting to see FF “become itself” over the course of the next few games. I started FF2 and already you can see a significant switch in many aspects of the game. But that’s for next year…

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The pixel remaster version has a gallery of the original concept art by 天野あまの 喜孝よしたか in the menu, and as you’ve read (A)D&D Monster Manual it’s basically a 1:1 carbon clone of that imagery. Based on those drawings I’d say the influence was very direct. Great artists steal and all that, but I was also very surprised at the degree of “inspiration”, given how very seriously Japanese culture seems to take copyright.

Although, back then D&D wasn’t quite as big as it is now and probably quite a bit more unknown still in Japan as the original books were in English.

I expect to see a dramatic shift away from D&D over the next few games as the popularity of the series increases – otherwise Square would’ve been opening itself to a lawsuit.

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I also took this screenshot. :joy: Three versions.

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There’s at least one enemy whose appearance and name were drastically changed between the original Japanese and American releases, so I guess they flew too close to the sun in at least one instance (I’ll show the difference when we get there in a few weeks, but the original was a carbon copy of an emblematic D&D monster).

I guess the devs assumed that all of these monsters were traditional western mythical creatures (and therefore public domain).

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Hi! I’ve never really dipped into the forums before, but as I’ve become more serious about my studies this year, this sounds like a lot of fun and just the right level for me. I’ll be joining about 5 weeks late here, but I’ll try to get up to speed.

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We’re going pretty slowly so it shouldn’t be too difficult to catch up. Don’t hesitate to post on the old threads as you go along, many people are certainly still monitoring those!

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