Topic: Final Fantasy I & II Advance Details Revealed

[TheYoungerPlumber]

Square Enix announces the first details on Final Fantasy I & II Advance for the Game Boy Advance on its teaser site.

Square Enix has published the beginnings of its Japanese Final Fantasy I & II Advance website, and with it come the first concrete details on the collection’s enhancements to the originals.

Much like Enix’s Dragon Warrior I & II for Game Boy Color, Final Fantasy I & II on the GBA features updated graphics and tweaked gameplay mechanics.  The remake supplements the originals’ magic stocks with a more modern magic point system and includes a convenient save-anywhere feature.

The two-in-one cart also boasts completely new content.  [Highlight to read spoilers.] Square Enix has added a new dungeon, named the “Soul of Chaos,” to Final Fantasy I, which holds shiny new treasures, like the Ultima Weapon, and classic bosses from multiple Final Fantasy games.  Final Fantasy II will contain a new plotline called the “Soul of Rebirth,” where players control NPC’s Ming-Wu, Scott, Joseph, and Richard, who all die in the main story.

Final Fantasy I & II is scheduled for a July release in Japan.  Plans for an international release have not been announced, but are expected to surface at E3 next month.

[Djunknown]

Hate to push even more foward, but does this mean that a FF3j isn't far off (Final Fantasy 3, the NES version that never made it stateside)?

[ruby_onix]

I think Square's plans (or lack of them) for FF3j are still completely unknown.

Square put some major effort into making the Wonderswan remakes of 1 & 2j. They couldn't do FF3j for some reason they've never really commented on.

It was sorta speculated by some that maybe there was something weird in the code of FF3j that was needed as an underlying base for the Wonderswan remakes, but was incompatible somehow. It would have to be really weird to force Square to shoehorn an SNES game (FF4) onto the Wonderswan in it's place.

It was also suggested that maybe there was some sort of legal blockage that Square couldn't get past, but I don't think there's any real "evidence" to support that. We're really just grasping at straws to try and find any sort of reason behind Square's problem with FF3j.

It's pretty clear that Square thought they could do a remake of FF3j at one point, because they announced it, along with FF1 & 2j, then delayed it, then replaced it with FF4 (believed to fill some sort of "3 FF remakes" contract with Bandai), and indefinitely delayed/cancelled it. IIRC, at one point (before FF Origins on the PSone), Square said they were "still working on it", even though some places had it listed as "cancelled".

Then they extensively "re-remade" the first two games for the PSone, and when asked about FF3j, they said that the two remakes in Origins were being based on the Wonderswan games, and there was no Wonderswan version of FF3j to base another remake off of. Not even an incomplete one? Who knows.

It's possible that the theoretical "legal troubles" of FF3j might be based around Nintendo somehow, which could make a GameBoy version more possible than a Bandai or Sony-oriented one, and just the fact that the subject of remakes is being brought up again could increase the chances of some signs of life regarding FF3j, but I think that if Square had any plans for FF3j, they would've delayed their announcement of FF1 & 2j on the GBA.

IMO, FF3j is long dead and buried, never to appear again, until I hear something, anything, that makes a suggestion to the contrary.  

[Nephilim]

^
you Have too much time on your hands

If there were Legal probs proberly have NOTHING to do with nintendo, Just like Sonic CD wasnt able to be released on DC/GC.
Lot of people think that FF3j sucks compared with FF4j, maybe they think so too. and Dont wish to release a game which is Stale and would make the player think "oh gosh this feels like im playing 1 and 2 again". They picked 4 cause of its user base and cause it was BETTER

[jasonditz]

On the other hand Nintendo could have gotten some sort of exclusivity agreement on FF3. I mean, without knowing we can't really guess with any accuracy.

The "feels like I'm playing 1 and 2 again" excuse doesn't really hold water since they are actually re-releasing 1 and 2 again.  

[vudu]

have there ever been any plans on remaking ff6j?  i've never played it, but after hearing so many great things about the game, i'd be really interested in seeing what all the fuss is about.

[ruby_onix]

FF6j is the one we knew as "Final Fantasy 3" on the SNES.

It was ported essentially "as-is" to the PSone as "Final Fantasy 6" along with FF5j in FF Anthology (recently re-released for $20 on the PSone). I think they changed the spell-names from "White" back to "Holy", but aside from that (and the longer loading times), the game was completely untouched from it's English SNES counterpart. No retranslation or anything like that (well, aside from the tacked-on CGI opening when you first turn the power on, of course).  

[vudu]

i don't own a playstation.  any chance of a gba release?

[ruby_onix]

Square's first known reason for wanting the GBA was because the Wonderswan couldn't handle SNES ports like FF4, so everone figured that once Square got onboard with the GBA they'd make quick ports of all their SNES classics, and make a lot of easy money, but that doesn't seem to have happened.

Square gave us the all-new FF Tactics Advance. And Sword of Mana, a complete remake of a B&W GameBoy game. And now FF1&2, which are remakes of remakes of NES games.

I think that if Square decides to go for SNES remakes, the timing would probably put them on a future platform. Especially since FF6 would come in at the tail-end of them. Probably the PSP, knowing our luck. "Cheap ports" on the NDS are looking to most likely be in the form of N64 games. SNES ports would look out of place. Of course, Square could still put them on the late-in-life GBA SP, like how they put FF Origins on the PSone, not the PS2.

You could always potentially play it on a PS2, or maybe a PS3. Or a PS4. A PSone should be $50 brand new (cheaper if you can get a good one used somewhere, like a local Electronics Boutique or other videogame store), and the SNES cart version looks to go for over $100 on eBay, or about $30 if you're willing to have an "incomplete" version.

[vudu]

i'll be honest here ... i've never played any of the nes or snes final fantasy games.  ::hangs head in shame::  can anyone here tell me (ruby_onix, i'm looking in your general direction, since you seem to be the resident ff expert) if the originals will stand up to modern rpgs (not modern ff's, mind you) or will they seem too simple by today's standards?

[KnowsNothing]

Well, I haven't played FFII but I've played one (haven't beaten it though), and it does seem a bit too simple.  the main thing missing is a continuous storyline.  There are no cutscenes or long stretches of dialogue.  Evrey town is pretty much the same with the same music.  The overworld is pretty large, fomr what I've seen is basically all pretty much the same.  It's comletely open, so there are no restrictions.  That means you'll often find yourself in an area with really hard creatures and not enough experience to beat them.  Also, the overworld has water and stuff going through it, so it's a bit like a maze, often with long stretches of land with lots of enemies, only to find it goes nowhere at all. =p  Once you get a boat the amount of land to explore becomes overwhelming, and often times i get lost in a large bay or whatever.......

I had fun with it at first, but i eventually lost interest and turned to more modern things......yeah........

[ruby_onix]

KnowsNothing got FF1 pretty much pegged right there. Square's added a bunch of modern flashyness to the remake, but the game itself seems to have inherent design flaws that would be considered "unacceptable" by almost any modern standards.

I would only reccommend FF1 to people looking for an "old school" RPG experience (but only after they've played every single Dragon Warrior game that they can get their hands on first, as they are clearly superior, and I would HIGHLY reccommend playing at least one of the DW games to any RPG fan), or people who feel interested in "the Final Fantasy series" and would like to understand it more completely by experiencing it's basic roots. There are some memorable high points to the game, to go with the low points. Like, when you cross that first bridge, and that now-legendary music pops in, you'll know why they've kept it around so long.

FF2j is a bit different. Square supposedly made a large shift toward the "melodrama storytelling" of later games with this one. But I can't really judge it, as I haven't really seen much more than the opening.

Final Fantasy 6j (FF3 SNES) and Final Fantasy 4j (FF2 SNES), and to a slightly lesser extent FF5j, can all easily be reccommended to any RPG fans who don't have a "problem" with 2D (except when they have PSone loading times, then it's debatable). FF6j is often even argued to be a better game all-around than FF7. And not just by PSone haters.

I would say that you should get the SNES-era FF's before you get the NES-era FF's. But if you don't have a PSone (which is a "passable" way of playing them), then that's a toughie.

I would say that if you haven't played them yet, you should look for the Dragon Warrior 1&2 and Dragon Warrior 3 remakes that came out on the GameBoy color, for now. DW1&2 is a comparable package, the games are quite enjoyable, and it's better to understand "RPG history" than it is to understand "Square history".

BTW, if you haven't seen it yet, there is some talk now about the ill-fated FF3j remake being in the works for the GBA.

[Ocarina Blue]

I have barely played FF7. I spent a few hours at a gaming store, and played through the first area. First, it was boring, then it wanted another disc. At this time, the PSOne was so unbelievably hyped here, I presumed it was just another crappy game that Sony had decided should sell well. I've never played it again.

A few months later, however, I began playing the second and third parts of the series, I think they're called FF4 (the one with Cecil) and FF6 (the one with Kefka) in English. I love both of these games, even though my love of action severely restricts my ability to play them.

FF4 is clearly an earlier game with regards to mechanics etc, and has a few balancing issues, but it's still good. The storyline is very linear... I think it was one of the first games to have such a linear storyline. The translation can be a pain sometimes, but overall it's not too bad. The storyline, however, actually managed to interest me, which is something only Chrono Trigger (which is a game you really must play, I cannot emphasize that more) had managed to previously do in a game. The art style was appropriate, and the relationships between the characters remained clear despite the dodgy translation. Most of all though, the game is fun... it's not the standard affair where all the characters have a set purpose in both the storyline and combat, characters can just be plain crap. (Or at one point one character becomes extremely powerful, and you can destroy all the monsters, which you have grown to hate, easily.) It's unpredictable, original and a breath of fresh air.

FF6, although I still haven't finished it, is also fun. My main gripe is the random battles... they can really be a bitch a lot of the time. The storyline, however, is well formed and the translation has really had a step up. Although the game contains more character cliches than the previous title, it still retains the air of suprise and suspense throughout most of it.

Neither of these games are what I'd call simplistic, although I have limited experience in the genre. Games like Skies and Chrono Trigger are if anything simpler than these games, which can often seem a little unstable a lot of the time. They both contain some excellent puzzles and they generally require you to use your head more than just buy/sell/level up. I'd highly recommend both of them.