Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy, sometimes known as Final Fantasy I, is the first installment of the Final Fantasy franchise and its main series. The game was developed and published by Square. It was originally released in Japan for the Famicom in 1987 and for the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America in 1990.

Final Fantasy has been re-released on numerous consoles, including MSX2, WonderSwan Color, PlayStation, and PlayStation Portable, smart phones, and the Nintendo 3DS. The game has been packaged with its follow-up, Final Fantasy II, for a few compilations, including Final Fantasy I∙II, Final Fantasy Origins and Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls. The original Famicom/NES version of Final Fantasy has been released on Nintendo's Virtual Console for the Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U.

In 2004, Final Fantasy was released on two series of Japanese cell phones. In February, it was released for the NTT DoCoMo 900i series. In August, it was released for the CDMA 1X WIN W21x series.

Story
Four hundred years prior to game's events, the race used the power of wind to craft a giant space station called the Flying Fortress and airships. They watched their country decline as the went dark. Two hundred years later, violent storms sunk a massive shrine that served as the center of an ocean-based civilization, and the went dark. The and the  followed, plaguing the earth with raging wildfires and devastating the agricultural town of Melmond as its plains and vegetation decayed. Some time later, a sage called Lukahn tells of a prophecy that four Light Warriors will save the world in a time of darkness.

The game begins with the appearance of the four youthful, who each carry one of the darkened. They arrive at the kingdom of, whose princess, named , was kidnapped by an evil knight named Garland. The Warriors of Light confront Garland at the, defeat him, and return Sarah to Cornelia. Out of gratefulness, the King of Cornelia orders the construction of the drawbridge, allowing the Warriors of Light to access reach the second town, Pravoka.

At Pravoka, the Warriors of Light liberate the town from Bikke and his pirates and obtain their ship to use on the overworld. The ship does not allow the Warriors of Light to travel outside of the Aldi Sea. Meanwhile, the Warriors of Light learn of a dark wizard named Astos, has been causing trouble at nearby locations. The third town,, is located to the south of Aldi Sea. There, the Warriors of Light discover that the prince was cast into a cursed sleep by Astos. He also stole Matoya's. To the west of Elfheim is the, whose king tells the Warriors of Light that Astos stole his crown and hid it in the Marsh Cave, though when the Warriors of Light retrieve his crown, the king reveals himself to be Astos. The heroes defeat Astos and continue with their journey. When the Warriors of Light retrieve Matoya's Crystal Eye, she gives them the to awaken the Elf Prince. By doing so, the Elf Prince rewards them with the. With the Mystic Key, the Warriors of Light return to and unlock a specific room with the. At, the dwarves use the Nitro Powder use to destroy a small isthmus, allowing the Warriors of Light to access more of the overworld.

After visiting Melmond, the Warriors of Light go into the, defeat the Vampire, and retrieve the , which allows them to access the. In the Sage's Cave, a sage named gives the  to the Warriors of Light. With the Earth Rod, the heroes access the bottommost floor of the Cavern of Earth, where the Earth Fiend Lich is fought. After the warriors defeat Lich, the Earth Crystal is restored.

In the fifth town, Crescent Lake, the Warriors of Light find the Twelve Sages, who provide a canoe to them if they have defeated Lich. With the canoe, the Warriors of Light enter and defeat, allowing the Fire Crystal to be restored. Later, the Warriors of Light visit the and obtain the. The heroes take the Levistone to Ryukahn Desert and acquire a buried airship. With the airship, the Warriors of Light go to the Cardian Islands and meet Bahamut. If the Warriors of Light have obtained the from the, Bahamut upgrades each warrior's class.

When the Warriors of Light have obtained Oxyale (allowing them to breathe underwater) from Gaia, they visit Onrac and travel underwater to the. At the end of the Sunken Shrine, the Warriors of Light defeat the Water Fiend, Kraken, causing the Water Crystal to be restored and the mermaids to be freed.

After leaving Onrac, the Warriors of Light return to Melmond and take the to a linguist named Dr. Unne, who teaches the Lufenians' language to the Warriors of Light. After learning the language, the Warriors of Light visit the last town, Lufenia, where the Lufenians help the Warriors of Light reach the. At the end of the Flying Fortress, the Warriors of Light encounter the Wind Fiend and last fiend overall, Tiamat. They manage to defeat Tiamat and restore the Wind Crystal.

When all four crystals are restored, an unknown character in the tries to absorb the crystals' energy into a portal that goes 2,000 years into the past. The Warriors of Light enter the portal and discover the Four Fiends, which were created by Chaos (revealed to be Garland) back then to access the future and create a time loop allowing him to live forever.

The Warriors of Light defeat Chaos, which ends the paradox, and they return to the present. With the time loop broken, peace returns to the world. The Warriors of Light and the people are unaware of the events that occurred, although order has been restored and the darkness has been vanquished.

Gameplay
When starting the game, the player must choose from six classes to add to their party, the Warriors of Light. Each class has their own attributes and abilities. Three classes are physically oriented, and the other three are mages, who are oriented in magic. The player can only choose four members, so the game strategy changes accordingly depending on which characters the player chose. Like several role-playing games of its time, Final Fantasy's player characters are passive participants in the story, with their names and abilities relevant only during battle. In the original Nintendo Entertainment System version, the player can only input up to four letters for each character's name.

A character's most basic attribute is its level, which is numbered between 1-50 (or up to 99 in remakes). Each character's level is determined by how much experience they have, and characters become stronger as they level up. Each character has a different number for their attributes, such as maximum HP, which represents their remaining health. When a character reaches zero HP, they die. Other attributes, such as Attack and Defense, show how experienced the character is in those aspects. In one part of the game, if the warriors complete a quest for Bahamut, he upgrades each of them to a stronger class.

The Warriors of Light can travel to the various locations from the overworld. While traveling, the Warriors of Light encounter monsters that they must fight in a turn-based battle. At the start of each turn, the player must select an action for each character, with the options including a direct attack, casting spells, using magical items, or fleeing. Once the player has selected an action for each warrior, they and the enemies begin to fight. Participants move one at a time in a randomly determined order. In the original NES version, if a character had chosen to attack an enemy who had been defeated earlier in the round, they do not attack another enemy, rendering their turn ineffective. This was fixed in remakes. The battle ends when either side flees or is defeated. If the Warriors of Light win a battle, they earn experience points, which strengthen the characters, and, which is the game's currency. In towns, the Warriors of Light can shop for items, weapons, and magic spells. There is an inn where they can sleep overnight to fully restore their HP and MP. There are also non-playable characters that they can talk to, several of whom provide them with information or hints on progressing through the adventure.

At shops, the Warriors of Light can buy items to help themselves recover while they are traveling. They can carry up to 99 of each item at a time. There are common items, such Potions, which restore HP to a character, and Antidotes, which cure a character with the poison ailment. Some items are obtained in chests in certain areas. There are unique and essential items known as key items, which have a direct role during a certain part of the adventure. The Warriors of Light can use Tents, Cabins, or on the overworld to restore their HP. When using a Cottage, their MP is also restored. There are six types of weapons: Swords, Daggers, Axes, Hammers, Staffs, and Nunchaku. A character can be equipped with four weapons, although they can only use one at a time. The type of a weapon mainly determines its associated graphics and the characters who can use it. Each weapon has three statistics: damage, chance to hit bonus, and critical hit chance. Some weapons are more effective against monsters, based on their type or vulnerability to certain elements. In the original NES version, a programming bug prevents the properties and the critical hit chance from being used.

Aside from weapons, there are four types of defense armor: Armor (which includes Cuirasses, Robes, and Bracelets), Helmets, Gauntlets, and Shields. Like weapons, a character can be equipped with up to four pieces of armor, but only one of each type. Each armor has two statistics: a damage absorption bonus and an evade penalty. Certain armor also protects the wearer from certain types of magic.

The mages and their respective upgraded wizard classes can use magic, which is separated into White Magic and Black Magic, which are respectively focused on defense and offense. Spells are classified by a level between one and eight, with the higher level spells being more powerful than lower level spells. The mages (or wizards) may learn up to three spells of each level by purchasing them at the respective Black Magic and White Magic Shops, each having spells of a certain level for sale. Black Mages can only learn Black Magic, White Mages can only learn White Magic, and the Red Mage can learn a mix of both. More than three spells are usually sold at Magic Shops, so the player must be strategic of which spells they choose for their character. In the original NES version, a mage or wizard cannot forget any spells they have learned. This was changed in the remakes.

In the original NES version, rather than using Magic Points (MP), mages and wizards were granted "charges" for each level of spells, similar to the spell-casting system of . Certain level spells can be cast as many times as the user had charges. Characters at higher levels have more charges.

Characters
There are six playable characters, each of a different class, who are collectively known as the Warriors of Light. At the start of the game, the player can only select four warriors for the duration of the game, and they can name each of them. Like computer role-playing games of the era, the player characters, in this case the Warriors of Light, are passive participants in the story, and therefore the player's choice of character type affects only the warriors' abilities in battle.

The beginning stats and a general description of each Warrior of Light is listed below.

Enemies
In later releases, starting with Final Fantasy Origins, there is a Bestiary from the main menu, and it lists each enemy and their stats.

Bosses

 * Garland
 * Astos (Dark Elf)
 * Piscodemon
 * Vampire
 * Death Eye
 * Blue Dragon
 * Lich, fiend of earth
 * , fiend of fire
 * Kraken, fiend of water
 * Tiamat, fiend of wind
 * Chaos

Transportation

 * Ship
 * Airship

Magic
There are two types of magic in Final Fantasy: Black Magic and White Magic.

Locations

 * World A
 * Cornelia

Stats
Each warrior's stats are determined by eight categories.


 * Hit Points (HP)
 * Agility (Agi)
 * Vitality (Vit)
 * Magic Defence (M. Def)
 * Strength (Str)
 * Intelligence (Int)
 * Hit Percentage (Hit%)
 * Luck (Luck)

Achievements
The Windows Phone version features achievements.

Original Famicom version

 * Original Concept &mdash; Hironobu Sakaguchi
 * Character Design &mdash; Yoshitaka Amano
 * Programmer &mdash; Nasir Gebelli
 * Scenario &mdash; Kenji Terada
 * Music &mdash; Nobuo Uematsu

PlayStation remake

 * Executive Producer &mdash; Yoichi Wada
 * Producer &mdash; Yusuke Hirata
 * Production Manager &mdash; Kiyomi Tanikawa
 * Directors &mdash; Hideshi Kyonen, Katsuyoshi Kawahara and Kazuhiko Yoshioka
 * Movie Director &mdash; Koji Wakasono
 * Movie Designers &mdash;	Mitsuhira Yamado, Satoshi Sumida, Masata Motoki, Yutaka Maekawa, Wataru Ikeda, Shin Azuma and Rumiko Sawada
 * Movie Programmer &mdash; Naoto Uenaka
 * Original Music &mdash; Nobuo Uematsu
 * Graphics &mdash; Yoshisuke Nakahara, Mieko Hoshino, Tomohiko Tanabe, Hideki Omori and Eiji Yamashita
 * Testing &mdash; Reiko Kondo
 * Localization Manager &mdash; Akira Kashiwagi
 * Localization Directors &mdash; Tomoko Sekii and Kazuyoshi Tashiro
 * Localization Programmer &mdash; Yoshinori Uenishi
 * Localization Specialist &mdash; Amanda J. Katsurada
 * Localization Assistant &mdash; Satoko Kondo

References to and from other media

 * References in Final Fantasy to other media
 * This game draws a inspiration from Dungeons and Dragons, first Edition.
 * References to Final Fantasy from other media
 * This game serves as the basis for 8-Bit Theater. The comic follows the basic plot, albeit with artistic license and creative liberties given to help flesh out the minor details. It ran for 1224 issues and an epilogue.