Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls

"Final Fantasy 1&2"

Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls - GBA

The originals, the games that redefined RPGs, Final Fantasy 1 & 2 are now on the GBA. Final Fantasy I - four young travelers appear, and in the hand of each was clutched a crystal. Battle through your adventure and gradually the crystals will regain their glow. Final Fantasy II – Four youths from Fynn flee the imperials. Help them escape to freedom in the second epic journey of the series. Dawn of Souls offers dozens of hours of gameplay, as you take a trip back in real time to tackle a journey that is never too old to be fun.

Gameplay

If you've played Final Fantasy I and II before then there's nothing new to learn here. The game works fine on GBA, and offers a fresh breath of life if you wanted to play through the games again. Dawn of Souls is filled with new plots in Final Fantasy II, and new dungeons in Final Fantasy I to keep you busy working through new areas. The updated graphics engine will also keep you happy, but there's more about that below.

Starting the game in Final Fantasy I, you'll choose four characters out of six different classes ranging from a Warrior to a Black Mage. Once you've selected your desired characters you'll be ready to start your Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy II however, the characters are preset allowing more of a storyline to develop, with some background available on each character: Firion, Maria, and Guy (He can communicate with animals, much like Guy Sebastian). There is space for a fourth spot in Final Fantasy II and you'll find Leon occupies it for a little while until he disappears, however other characters will come and go, helping you on your tale. Final Fantasy II is basically a Final Fantasy I full of upgrades and new features, as one might expect - it's better developed, and definitely the more enjoyably title.

The Final Fantasy games were the first games ever to be released to the Western world which involved an in-depth storyline, and many gamers didn't know what to make of it at first. Sooner than later though, Final Fantasy was a well known title amongst gamers, and now it's flourishing with the release of Final Fantasy XII soon, and the recent release of Final Fantaxy XI Online on PC. If you were able to get a hand on the Playstation's versions of the early Final Fantasy games known as Final Fantasy Origins, then you'll hardly find anything new here, but it's still a great game to have in your pocket.

The battle system works most like any RPG and doesn't need much explanation. The fighting is similar to any strategy game, taking it in turns, and at the end of each fight your characters get upgrade points in some way shape or form. This goes without saying for all Final Fantasy games and is nothing new in the RPG world. In Final Fantasy I, as your characters get stronger you'll notice their classes change. A Monk will turn into a Master; a Thief will change into a Ninja, and so forth. Final Fantasy II is a little more complex though, instead of the simple upgrade, you'll find that the characters get upgraded in different skills separately. If they attack more, they will become stronger; if they get hurt more, they'll have a higher maximum health, and so on. This system works well if you've got your eye on it, but sometimes you can find that your characters will have a very diverse range of skill levels.

After Pokemon Red and Blue, gamers around the Western world grew sick of random battles. Thankfully you'll find there aren't as many random battles in Dawn of Souls; however there still are more than enough to get you annoyed as you travel around the worlds. You'll find monsters from Final Fantasy III-VI throughout the new dungeons in Final Fantasy I, which have all the better weapons and will give you a better challenge to upgrade your skill levels for all your characters. You'll find the random battles are the worst inside dungeons in Final Fantasy II.

Graphics & Sound

If you've ever played Golden Sun or the newly released Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap you may laugh at the graphics in Dawn of Souls. Evidently the graphics are an improvement on the original games, but they aren't noticeably better than the ported PSX version which is a disappointment. Hopefully these two games will be put to sleep forever now, or totally revamped into a 3D world. Sound wasn't all that impressive, but keep you hanging in there for the duration of your playtime. The music is what separated Final Fantasy from the rest with respect to sound, but sound effects are nothing to get excited over.

Overall

Dawn of Souls delivers what it promises: a remake of the original Final Fantasy games. It offers a new plot and some new dungeons with monsters from the latter games, and a graphics engine that's on par with PSX graphics, but there's nothing overly new to grab your attention if you've already beaten the games. They'll both take you probably about 70 hours to beat in total – exploring everything within the game would extend that another 15 hours or so, depending on how well you know your way around. Yes, the games are huge, but they don't offer much replayability at all, much like all RPGs. Dawn of Souls deserves its 78% though, as you're definitely getting your money's worth if you've never played the early Final Fantasy games before.

10/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 12/09/04