Final Fantasy (1&2) Reviews

Final Fantasy Origins
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Review contents(Final Fantasy I,Final Fantasy II)
//At the moment of these 2 reviews being made, I have finished playing FF games 1-2, 7-9, both 10 games, and all three 13 games.
//I have no intention of ever playing FF11 or FF14.
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FF1
Has a simple story progression told by NPCs.
Main characters can be customized with their names and choosing which jobs they do.
Job choices include Warrior, Thief, Monk, and Red/White/Black Mage.
Has decent replay value in that the 4 main characters can't do all 6 different jobs.
Some equipment comes with the ability to cast a spell. FF7 expanded on this concept with its battle system using Materia. FF9 revisited the concept and it seems closer to the original.
Has random encounters and most FF games used this method of initiating battle. Other popular RPGs follow this method, even wild Pokemon encounters function similarly.

At a certain point in the story, the characters will undergo a transformation that allows them to become more powerful. This character progression isn't always present in RPGs, and I actually like this style of character progression a lot. Which is why I was annoyed with how FFXIII(Stagger Fantasy I) only allowed the characters to perform half of their identity for a very long time and even when it allows the new identities, it makes little to no sense to spend 'experience' on leveling up the other half until the game has already been completed. For this game in particular, it is worth noting that the transformation doesn't really take anything away from the characters. They are not losing access to past abilities, but of course sometimes games have game mechanic limitations and/or other logic that dictates that it be done, depending on the type of transformation.

The music was quite good in many areas. The graphics were more than sufficient. I love some fantastic graphics from FFXIII trilogy as an example, but I don't think game developers should pressure themselves to make everything look so awesome and realistic. Thought should also go into story and battles and I think the developers did a fantastic job of making this game.
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FF2
Has what might be the worst story progression of any RPG I've ever played.
Main characters may be renamed at the start of the game, while guest party combat characters may not.

Jobs are dictated entirely by the player. Humans are portrayed as a flexible race to play as which has vast potential.
I think my favorite part about the battle system is that characters can switch around their equipment while battling. This functionality actually substitutes for the defend command present in many other FF games. Also worth noting that switching equipment exists in other RPGs such as Spira Fantasy I.
Coding for level up skills or stats can be difficult to understand and isn't particularly logical. I would like to comment that forcing players to play on easy mode for a first play through is a decision that resulted in backfiring for the game difficulty. Without understanding how to abuse the system, leveling up is more difficult to do, especially if someone doesn't understand the story progression triggers. Story progression in this game is not particularly logical. It can be assumed that the developers wanted players to consult guides to play the game. If you are uncertain about that, consider the layout of the dungeons.

The dungeons have some good and bad points. The good point for me personally was the treasure chests. They could be normal treasure chests or 'bonus fight' treasure chests. The bonus fight treasure chests gave a non-monotonous encounter. Some sort of rare monster or set of monsters would be popping out of the chest to fight and if defeated, would reward the player with the item from the treasure chest. However, locating such treasure chests is not easy to do. Even locating the end of the dungeon isn't easy. There aren't really puzzles in the majority of the game as it's simply getting from point a to point b but with so many illusionary side paths to take getting in the way. Some side paths would grant items useless or otherwise, others would do the same but reward the player with a special fight in the process. But most of the side paths didn't go anywhere but into a trap room. The trap rooms had the highest random encounter rate of anywhere in the game. The dungeons themselves have a ridiculously high encounter rate. The trap rooms have a ludicrously high encounter rate. With an encounter rate so high, and at some point in the game, item drops increasing to obscene levels, even rare items dropping becoming the norm rather than the exception...the game is decidedly designed so as to be almost impossible to game over against a boss and would prefer to get the player hopelessly lost on their way to that boss.

The story for the game was pretty good I guess, and I like that it ripped off of Star Wars comics to get some of that story. But I can imagine some players forgetting about the story while they get stuck on dungeons if they aren't careful to read guides to help them through the dungeons. The music was of really high quality and added a lot to the feel of the story. Again, not sure how memorable the music is because of the dungeon design, but it's solid. Would like to see FF games get an option to 'cancel switching to battle music' so that the exploring music can be better appreciated. Especially for a game like this where there's no way to turn off random encounters and players can't hear the whole song unless they just stand still.