Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls

"For once and finally, an FF remake done right!"

Intro

Well all right, so I should have said once again instead of for once, but I didn't. My point is that this is only the second time that Square has remade a pair of Final Fantasy games and gone about it in the right way. Well, I suppose saying "for once' still could count, since they just remade the same two games they remade the first time, though thankfully they did it right again. Now that you're all totally confused I'll attempt to clarify just exactly what I mean here.

Those of you who have played Squaresoft's other Final Fantasy remakes will doubtless know that they have until recently demonstrated an unfortunate tendency to simply take the games they wished to port to a new platform, rip them from their original platform and simply dump them on whatever medium the new platform uses. To explain further, they took Final Fantasies 5 and 6 *5 was never released here and 6 was renamed to Final Fantasy 3), and simply dumped them on Playstation CDs and called it Final Fantasy Anthology. Well, ripping a Super NES game from its cartridge and dumping it on a PSX CD without updating it to make it more suited to its new platform resulted in a number of very undesirable sideeffects, messed up sound, painfully slow load times, that sort of thing. They did the same thing with what they called Final Fantasy Chronicles, which consisted of Final Fantasy 4 (we know it as 2) and Chrono Trigger (where the hell did that come from?), and once again there were load times and other undesirable quirks because of the haphazard port.

But they wised up when they decided to release Final Fantasy Origins. Final Fantasies 1 and two were propperly updated, though thankfully with the music left in its proper place. They didn't do what the remakers of Crystalis did and totally revamp the music. All your old favorites are present in almost orchestral glory. And since FF2 was never released here, you get another new game!

Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls followed Origins, and quite frankly I'm glad they did it. I'd sold my PS2 before discovering that Origins was available and, after hearing a sample of the music I was understandably perturbed with myself for selling my PSX. But anyway, let's get on with the review. I've rambled quite enough.

Dawn of Souls features two games as I'm sure I said. Final Fantasy 1, which I received almost fifteen years ago for my twelfth birthday, and the proper Final Fantasy 2, which as I said above wasn't released over here for the NES. Both games have been altered and updated, but the changes are for the better in my opinion. For one thing you can now save anywhere, or at least on the World Map and in towns, without having to use Tents, Cabins, Houses or things like that. This helps to eliminate some of the frustration from the NES version when you'd make a long trek to a dungeon, complete it and then get killed on your way back to the nearest town.

Control 10-10. It's nice and simple. The A button acts as your Conform button. It selects whatever choice the cursor is on. B cancels, meaning of course that if you want to back out of a choice you press B to exit that particular menu. The D-pad moves the character or the cursor. Nice and simple.

Audio 10-10. Thankfully all the old tunes from both these games remain present. Also thankfully they didn't do what they did for previous FF compilations and simply rip NES games from their cartridges and dump them on GBA carts. While the GBA might have been able to handle that better than the PSX, it still would have felt wrong, to me if not to anyone else. In all honesty, the music in the game is the exact same as that found in FF Origins, though it was redone to fit the GBA. This means that the new tracks found in Origins (yes, they did add a few new songs which are all quite fitting), are present in the GBA remake. This is good, since it means we get the battle themes for FF1 (yes folks, themes!), and not just the one heard throughout the NES version. Granted FF2 did have one extra battle theme, but it too got a few new fight themes when it was remade.

Story 10-10. The stories of both these games are largely unchanged. In FF1, you play as four warriors whose destiny is to restore the power to the four crystals of the elements. Not groundbreaking, but made up for by the fact that each warrior can be one of a variety of classes, and the combinations are almost endless. The fun of the original Final Fantasy was and has always been in seeing what party you could put together and finish the game with.

Final Fantasy 2's story was much more developed. You controlled four heroes engaged in a desperate battle against the Palamecia Empire whose goal, yep, you guessed it, is to rule the world. Unlike FF1, in FF2 you get characters who'll join you and leave at various points, whether they are killed or simply return to defend their own homes. And yes, both games feature side quests. There's only one in each, but let me tell you, they're almost separate games in themselves.

In Final Fantasy 1 there's the Soul of Chaos quest, which consists of four dungeons which can be accessed after each of the four fiends are destroyed. Return to the room in each dungeon where the fiend was slain and enter the teleporter found where the fiend's statue was. There are four dungeons as I said, each with many floors to explore and enemies to fight.

In Final Fantasy 2 there is Soul of Rebirth, which as I said before is almost another game in itself and lets you take control of those characters who fall in battle as part of the main story. Needless to say, I was overjoyed to discover this game among my Christmas presents in 2004.

Overall 10-10. Final Fantasy I & II is, in my opinion, an example of an FF remake done right. They didn't just rip the games from their original media and dump them on GBA carts without updating them. Why they resorted to this sloppy method for Anthology and Chronicles I don't know, but they didn't for Origins and Dawn of Souls. If you haven't played it yet, you ought to pick up a copy or, at the least, borrow one from a friend. I liked it and you might as well. And then of course there are FF4, FF5 and the soon-to-be-released (at least I hope so) FF6. So the Final Fantasy franchise seems to have quite a bit going for it if you ask me.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 02/05/07