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chuckroMore than thirty years ago, SquareSoft was in trouble and needed a big hit to remain a viable company. They created what was to be their Final game in the Fantasy vein, but did such a good job of it that they’re been making even final-er fantasies ever since. And remaking the original one (this is something like the ninth system the game has appeared on).
Unfortunately, everything that was added to this from the PSP version (which is virtually all controls / interface changes) is lousy. The buttons are a “floating d-pad” that moves to wherever you tap and drag, which in practice means you need to watch it when you try to move; and instead of a “button” you can press to do stuff, you need to tap on people to talk, chests to open them, etc. So everything moves slower than it has to. In battle, your party inventory is now a shared bag, but while that means you can carry any number of things, you also need to scroll through them every time you want to use an item in combat, and there’s no manual sorting option. (There’s also no autobattle feature; which granted wasn’t in the original, but at this point I feel like retro-rpgs should have it by default.) If you turn off your tablet or let it go to sleep, rather than just pausing the game like any sensible app, it saves the Quicksave file and exits the game completely. Square-Enix, you’re supposed to be better than this.
While every other recent version of the game has included the Soul of Chaos bonus dungeons, this doesn’t. It does use the spell point magic system and translation that we started seeing in Dawn of Souls, and the super-pretty graphics from the PSP Anniversary Edition. It also has items like Ethers and Phoenix Downs included, though there don’t appear to be any of the bonus weapons and armor that appeared in other versions (except for the Rune staff, a Healara-casting item that the revived Tiamat dropped, so I had for exactly one battle).
It feels easier than other versions, though it may be on par with Dawn of Souls and I’m just not that conscious of it. I definitely never needed to grind, and I barely touched my item stock. (The only battles that gave me a little trouble were the last few bosses, who clearly had received massive increases in HP from the original.) They’ve definitely rearranged the gear available at stores again—there’s no Silver/Mythril sword in Elfheim, for instance. Also, oddly, the class levels required for various magic levels seem to be changed: My Level 38 White Wizard couldn’t learn 8th level spells. (This was right before I entered the Temple of FIENDS Revisited, mind you, and I ended up never needing those spells.)
On a less version-specific note, I realized that I have a set order that I play the game in, since I discovered it: I always hit Crescent Lake to go shopping before I fight Lich, then do the Castle of Ordeals right after getting the canoe, then the Ice Cave, the Gulg Volcano at some eventual later point. I remember this being recommended online years ago (in sharp contrast to the standard order presented by Nintendo Power), and it's great. The difficulty of the Volcano, Ice Cave and Castle are all roughly equal, and doing the Castle first gets you the Heal Staff and Zeus Gauntlets, which make everything after that easier. I also did the Waterfall immediately after getting the Airship and class change, but I had a Red Wizard, and getting him the Defender really made a difference to his damage output.
Overall: This is one of the granddaddies of the entire genre, and though time has shown a lot of its flaws (relatively weak plot, unclear direction, no real puzzles, etc.) it’s still a classic for a reason. It’s a shame about the porting job. Really, it feels like they gave this one to interns who had never ported a game (or playing on one an Android tablet) before. Which is doubly odd in that they included this as a free giveaway if you installed the Final Fantasy Portal app at a certain time. Wouldn’t you want to give something that doesn’t suck as an incentive for people to buy more of your games on a new platform? It’s a loss-leader, right? This certainly doesn’t make me want to try the Android version of FF6.
Unfortunately, everything that was added to this from the PSP version (which is virtually all controls / interface changes) is lousy. The buttons are a “floating d-pad” that moves to wherever you tap and drag, which in practice means you need to watch it when you try to move; and instead of a “button” you can press to do stuff, you need to tap on people to talk, chests to open them, etc. So everything moves slower than it has to. In battle, your party inventory is now a shared bag, but while that means you can carry any number of things, you also need to scroll through them every time you want to use an item in combat, and there’s no manual sorting option. (There’s also no autobattle feature; which granted wasn’t in the original, but at this point I feel like retro-rpgs should have it by default.) If you turn off your tablet or let it go to sleep, rather than just pausing the game like any sensible app, it saves the Quicksave file and exits the game completely. Square-Enix, you’re supposed to be better than this.
While every other recent version of the game has included the Soul of Chaos bonus dungeons, this doesn’t. It does use the spell point magic system and translation that we started seeing in Dawn of Souls, and the super-pretty graphics from the PSP Anniversary Edition. It also has items like Ethers and Phoenix Downs included, though there don’t appear to be any of the bonus weapons and armor that appeared in other versions (except for the Rune staff, a Healara-casting item that the revived Tiamat dropped, so I had for exactly one battle).
It feels easier than other versions, though it may be on par with Dawn of Souls and I’m just not that conscious of it. I definitely never needed to grind, and I barely touched my item stock. (The only battles that gave me a little trouble were the last few bosses, who clearly had received massive increases in HP from the original.) They’ve definitely rearranged the gear available at stores again—there’s no Silver/Mythril sword in Elfheim, for instance. Also, oddly, the class levels required for various magic levels seem to be changed: My Level 38 White Wizard couldn’t learn 8th level spells. (This was right before I entered the Temple of FIENDS Revisited, mind you, and I ended up never needing those spells.)
On a less version-specific note, I realized that I have a set order that I play the game in, since I discovered it: I always hit Crescent Lake to go shopping before I fight Lich, then do the Castle of Ordeals right after getting the canoe, then the Ice Cave, the Gulg Volcano at some eventual later point. I remember this being recommended online years ago (in sharp contrast to the standard order presented by Nintendo Power), and it's great. The difficulty of the Volcano, Ice Cave and Castle are all roughly equal, and doing the Castle first gets you the Heal Staff and Zeus Gauntlets, which make everything after that easier. I also did the Waterfall immediately after getting the Airship and class change, but I had a Red Wizard, and getting him the Defender really made a difference to his damage output.
Overall: This is one of the granddaddies of the entire genre, and though time has shown a lot of its flaws (relatively weak plot, unclear direction, no real puzzles, etc.) it’s still a classic for a reason. It’s a shame about the porting job. Really, it feels like they gave this one to interns who had never ported a game (or playing on one an Android tablet) before. Which is doubly odd in that they included this as a free giveaway if you installed the Final Fantasy Portal app at a certain time. Wouldn’t you want to give something that doesn’t suck as an incentive for people to buy more of your games on a new platform? It’s a loss-leader, right? This certainly doesn’t make me want to try the Android version of FF6.
