Disclaimer for every game released before the fifth generations of consoles: the ideal way of critiquing a videogame would be to do itDisclaimer for every game released before the fifth generations of consoles: the ideal way of critiquing a videogame would be to do it contextually to the time period in which it was released. But since I was born in 1999, with the sixth generation of games being my first, I lack the full perspective and knowledge of previous generations that one would need to critique an older game fairly, and have no other choice but to review this product with modern games' standards in mind.
Turn-based RPGs, since their inception, have always had a strong emphasis on luck. Everybody is familiar with attacks missing and critical hits, but the element of randomness has found many more forms in the turn-based genre throughout the generations, and it almost never truly died. Most RPGs today have still missing attacks, critical hits and other mechanics purely based on RNG.
Most of those mechanics are relics of an obsolete game design philosophy and should simply die.
Because randomness and luck are the death of good gameplay. Because there is nothing fun about crafting a strategy and see it all crumble to dust because of something completely out of the player's agency, because of bad luck.
But as much as I despise it, it is still a marginal aspect of most turn-based RPGs today, and relatively innocuous, as it is not overly present.
This is very much not the case with Final Fantasy.
FF is the absolute worst case of a game based on luck that I've encountered in my life.
Most people point to the game's incredible amount of glitches and errors when talking about its flaws, whereas I point to the game's core design philosophy.
Almost every single aspect of this game is plagued, tainted and polluted by such a revolting passion for randomness.
It's not just missing attacks and critical hits, that are still present, the issue is much bigger.
Your attack could deal 38 damage point, OR 89, if you're lucky. Same for your enemies, whose attack power can vary immensely based on luck. If your speed stat is high it means that you deal more hits and therefore more damage, but ONLY if you're lucky because sometimes the game does not care. Same for your enemies, as they can either hit you once or twice or thrice, if you're unlucky. A stupid amount of enemies attack you with instant-death spells and magic that can wipe your entire party, if you're unlucky. This game does not care how much effort you've put into planning a strategy, because it can all go to hell insanely fast, if your luck says so. But the game's problems do not stop here, oh no.
The game gives you the choice of creating your own party by choosing from a big pool of classes. In a good game, these classes would be balanced, each with their pros and cons to ultimately be equal in value.
But FF is not a good game, so a handful of classes are objectively overpowered and make the game a cakewalk, whereas other classes are severely flawed and will make your playthrough a slow grindy chore. So good luck.
The game doesn't even reorganize the treasures based on the classes you chose, so you'll frequently find chests full of armors and weapons that you will never use because you dont have the only classes that can wear them. Isn't that funny.
And even with the best classes, the game still remains a slow, tedious slog because of a frustratingly high enemy encounter rate and the total absence of spells and items that can reduce said encounter rate. Speaking of spells, the magic System is one of the few things that FF actually does right, even better than its main competitor Dragon Quest, with so many different spells that can affect the flow of battles in many ways. Too bad that even this spark of quality is suffocated by the total absence of items that can restore MP inside dungeons, meaning that you'll need to run from almost every encounter to reach the boss with enough MP to have a decent chance. So in a way, even the game doesn't want you to play it.
The game takes inspiration from Dragon Quest in its progression, with the player needing to gather info in towns and act like a detective to realize where to go next. But it fails even in imitating another game: there are some cool scenarios and interesting situations where the detective work leads to a satisfying puzzle solution, but there are also instances where the player has no choice but to wander around aimlessly and use a random item in a random place to progress, with no clue ever being given to do so.
Or, in other words: Final Fantasy isn't a 0, because the game works at the very least, and it isn't a 1 because there are some good ideas like the Magic System and some interesting story puzzles, but it doesn't go beyond a 2, as the game is scarred with glitches, lobotomized by incredibly poor balancing, poisoned by an insane obsession on luck and shot in the head by slow, anti-player game design. Really baffling how this was the start of a series that would spawn some of the best RPGs ever.… Expand