Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls

"Challenge is somewhat lacking, but the improvements outweigh the bad by far"

A port of the original two Final Fantasy games (The REAL original Final Fantasy games to boot, not the weird FF2/4 stuff) is something that was only done by the PSX before. Recently, the GBA decided to not only port it, but to ADD onto it. The improvements made to FF2 alone are incredible.

Graphics: FF1 has rather cartoony looking characters, while FF2 strives for a more serious look to them. And that makes sense, seeing how FF2 has a VERY seriously storyline to boot, but more on that later. Anyway, the graphics no longer look like NES graphics, but rather, SNES ones. The re-vamped FF1 Soul of Chaos bosses look incredible, especially the new looks to the Four Fiends. Backgrounds look good, sprites are revamped, and overall, the graphics have been greatly improved since its NES days.

Storyline: Basically, the storyline in FF1 is horrible. The earth decays, the wind dies, the sea rages, and we'll be damned if we knew what happened to the fire. Four Warriors appear out of NOWHERE carrying crystals to stop the evil from DESTROYING THE WORLD OMFG! And so, the warriors have to go on the biggest fetchquest to stop the Four Fiends and Garland from owning everything in sight.

Final Fantasy 2 has a much better storyline, the dawn of the cliche "Rebels Vs. Empire" thing. The Emperor of the Empire (Who is the antaganist) has pretty much no reason for doing anything though, nor does the Empire. Most of the game consists of you fighting back against the Empire, and eventually, a more sinister force...

Gameplay: FF1 is not a very difficult game (now, anyway. It used to be fairly hard). However, bonus dungeons have been added, with some familiar bosses. Have fun against Omega and Shinryu! The nostalgia of Soul of Chaos (the name of the optional dungeons) is amazing. Wait until you run into the FF6 bosses and you'll see what I mean. The gameplay IS very easy though.

As for leveling up and such, it happens traditional RPG style, with EXP and such. It happens really quickly, too. No need to really dive in depth here.

At the start, you pick your Jobs. Black Wizard is good for newbies, but useless later, White Wizard rules in much the same way, Red Mage is diverse (Though with all the Stat Up Items, he eventually becomes better than both of them), Black Belt is an unarmed monster, Warrior is good at Tanking and some White Magic spells later on, and Thief gets high Agility and some Black Magic spells later.

Each round consists of you picking your commands (Fight, Item, Flee, or Magic) and then the commands will happen, as will those of the enemies. There is no ATB, so you have all day to pick which commands you want. Holding L and R on your first character causes you all to pick the "Flee" command, very helpful at times.

Oddly, the top-most character seems to be attacked the most, while the one on the bottom is attacked seldomly. Oh well.

Enemy AI is rather weird. In fights Vs. multiple enemies of the same name, they'll love copying each other's moves (Case-Based Reasoning, anyone?). Other than that, they're not too stupid, with the exception of bosses who try Insta-Kill moves whilst you're all immune to instant death.

FF2 is much harder. Early on, your strength is so ridiculously low that you can only hurt bosses with Magic and Critical Hits. You have the choice of weapons and "Jobs" you want your characters to have. In addition, some characters use weapons better in their Right hand, or their Left hand. Though there's very few Left-handed people in the game. You level up stats in FF2 by "Using" the stats, such as ATK leveling up by Attacking, HP going up by getting hurt down to halfway, etc. There is also Back and Front rows. Back row is for Mages and Bowmen, and front row for everything else. Though you can strategically place front row Fighters in the back row if you want them to take less for some odd reason, though their HP is so damned high that it won't matter in most cases.

Criticals happen A LOT in FF2. For both you and the enemy. I think the Critical rate is about 25%. This is good for you, of course, but it sucks getting criticalled by a Death Rider.

After finishing FF2, you can use all the characters who died during the game, in a mode called "Soul of Rebirth", to play through mirror-versions of the last dungeons using them. This mode is interesting, and had the potential to be hard, but with the inclusion of Legendary Weapons and Genji equipment, most things were jokes (Except Ultima Weapon, sort of. I took him on the moment I stepped into Machanon, the only town in Soul of Rebirth).

Soul of Rebirth also gets harder bosses, like Soul of Chaos, but with the Legendary Weapons, they're REALLY easy.

Music: While not as good as the PSX version for most tracks (The FF2 boss theme now sounds weird instead of ominous), it has some really good ones, like the Chaos Shrine. Overall, the music is very nice for a GBA game.

I hope this review will affect your choice in buying or renting this game. It IS very good, but it's so short that a 5-day rental should suffice in not only beating both games, but getting 100% in the Bestiary included in the game as well.

The only unlockable, after all, is a Music Player (Sound Test) for beating the main stories in FF1 and FF2. You get nothing for getting 100% in both game's Bestiaries, unfortunately.

Still, it is a good game. I'd say Rent instead of buy, not because this is a bad game, but because I happened to 100% it in 8 days of playing, and I didn't play it consistently (Played about 4 hours a day on weekends, and about 1-2 on weekdays). Getting 100% in your Bestiary will likely take you about 40-60 hours.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/10/05