Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy I, formerly and sometimes known as Final Fantasy, 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 I 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 I has been released on Nintendo's Virtual Console for the Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U.

Story
Four hundred years prior to game's events, a people known as the Lefeinish (Lufenian), who used the Power of Wind to craft a giant space station (called the Floating Castle (Sky Castle) in the game) and airships, watched their country decline as the Wind Orb went dark. Two hundred years later, violent storms sunk a massive shrine that served as the center of an ocean-based civilization, and the Water Orb went dark. The Earth Orb and the Fire Orb followed, plaguing the earth with raging wildfires, and devastating the agricultural town of Melmond as the plains and vegetation decayed. Some time later, a sage called Lukahn tells of a prophecy that four Light Warriors will come to save the world in a time of darkness.

The game begins with the appearance of the four youthful Light Warriors, the heroes of the story, who each carry one of the darkened Orbs (known as Crystals in later Final Fantasy games). They arrive at Coneria (Cornelia), a powerful kingdom which has just witnessed the kidnapping of its princess, Sara, by a knight named Garland. The Light Warriors travel to the ruined Temple of Fiends in the northwest corner of Coneria, defeat Garland, and return Princess Sara home. The grateful King of Coneria builds a bridge that enables the Light Warriors' passage east to the town of Pravoka. At Pravoka, the Light Warriors liberate the town from Bikke and his band of pirates, and acquire the pirates' ship for their own use. Though having the ability to travel across the water, the Light Warriors remain trapped within the Aldi Sea, in the center of the southern continent. On the south side of the sea is the kingdom of the elves, where the prince has been put into a cursed sleep by Astos. To the west is a ruined castle, where a king tells them that Astos stole his crown and hid it in the Marsh Cave to the south, though when the Light Warriors retrieve his crown, he reveals himself to be Astos. He has also stolen the witch Matoya's (Matouya) Crystal. With her Crystal back, Matoya provides a herb to awaken the Elf Prince. The Elf Prince gives the Light Warriors a key capable of unlocking any door. The key unlocks a storage room in Coneria Castle which holds TNT (Nitro Powder). Nerrick destroys a small isthmus using the TNT, connecting the sea to the outside world.

After visiting the near-ruined town of Melmond, the Light Warriors go to the Earth Cave (Cavern of Earth) to defeat a vampire and retrieve the Ruby, which gains passage to Sage Sarda's (Sadda) cave. With Sarda's Rod, the Warriors venture deeper into the Earth Cave and destroy the Earth Fiend, Lich, who is responsible for the earth's decay. The Light Warriors then obtain a canoe and enter Gurgu Volcano (Mt. Gulg) and defeat the Fire Fiend, Kary (Marilith). They recover the Floater (Levistone) from the Ice Cave, which allows them to obtain an airship. After proving their courage by retrieving the Rat's Tail from the Castle of Ordeal (Citadel of Trials), the King of the Dragons, Bahamut, promotes each Light Warrior. Using an air-producing fairy artifact known as Oxyale, the Warriors go to the Sunken Shrine to defeat the Water Fiend, Kraken. They also recover a slab with fragments of the Lefeinish language. A linguist named Dr. Unne uses the slab to decode the Lefeinish language, which he teaches to the Light Warriors. Following this, the Light Warriors travel to a small and distant town — the last remaining outpost of the Lefeinish civilization. The Lefeinish give the Light Warriors access to the Floating Castle (Sky Castle) that Tiamat, the Wind Fiend, has taken over. With the four Fiends defeated and the Orbs restored, the Warriors find that their quest is not yet over: the true enemy waits two thousand years in the past. Traveling to the past, the Warriors discover that the four Fiends sent Garland (now the archdemon Chaos) back in time and he sent the Fiends to the future to do so, creating a time loop by which he could live forever. The Light Warriors defeat Chaos, thus ending the paradox and return home. By ending the paradox, however, the Light Warriors have changed the future, to one in which their heroic deeds from their own time remain unknown outside of legend.

Gameplay
The gameplay is similar to that of many other console role-playing games. The player controls a party of four player characters, called Light Warriors (or "Warriors of Light" in later editions), who explore towns and dungeons as they travel across the world map. The goal of the game is to defeat four major enemies called Elemental Fiends or Fiends of Chaos. Along the way, the player travels to towns where he or she may shop, acquire information, and rest. While traveling, the player encounters monsters which must either be combated or fled from. Winning battles earns the player experience points, which strengthen player characters, and gold (gil in later versions) currency to buy new equipment.

The player begins Final Fantasy by creating the Light Warriors. As is typical of computer role-playing games of the era, player characters are passive participants in the story, with their names and abilities relevant only during battle. Characters are determined by four-character (i.e. four-letter) names (more in later editions), certain numerical attributes, and their class. A character's most basic attribute is its level, which is numbered between one and fifty. (The maximum is ninety-nine in later editions.) A character's level is determined by how much experience it has, and higher level characters are more powerful than lower level characters. Gaining a level increases the character's attributes, such as their maximum hit points (HP). HP represents a character's remaining health, and when a character reaches zero HP, they die. Additional attributes such as "Strength" govern other aspects of the character.

Each character has a character class, which affects the character's attributes and abilities. There are six classes, three of which are physically oriented and three of which are magically oriented. During the game, the player has the option of completing a quest which changes and upgrades each character to a different and more powerful class. With the exception of this upgrade, character classes cannot be changed once the game has begun.

The "Fighter" ("Warrior" in later editions) uses heavy weapons and armor, and can be upgraded into a "Knight", who is also able to use low-level White Magic spells. The "Black Belt" (or "Monk") is skilled at fighting armorless while empty-handed and upgrades to a "Master." The fast and agile "Thief" can upgrade into a "Ninja", which may use low-level Black Magic spells. Of the three magical classes, the "Red Mage" is a decent fighter and can use a mixture of White and Black Magic. The Red Mage upgrades to a "Red Wizard" who can use more powerful equipment and spells. The "White Mage" can cast defensive and curative spells and upgrades to a "White Wizard," while the "Black Mage" can cast offensive spells and upgrades to a "Black Wizard." Both the Black and White Mages/Wizards are comparatively weak at physical offense in exchange for their powerful magic.

Combat
Battles in the game are turn-based. At the beginning of each turn, the player selects an action for each player character, with the options being direct attacks, casting spells, drinking potions, using magical items, or running. Once the player has chosen actions for each player character, the player characters and monsters begin battling. Participants move one at a time in a randomly determined order.

In the original NES version, it was not possible to select a new enemy to attack once actions had begun; if the character had chosen to attack an enemy who had been defeated earlier in the round, then the attack was ineffective, and the character did nothing. This was changed in later versions.

Battles continue until one side either flees or is defeated. If the party wins, the characters gain experience and gold. If the party flees, they return to the map. If the party dies, the game is over.

Customization
Final Fantasy contains a variety of weapons and armor; new equipment can make the Light Warriors more powerful in combat. Each Light Warrior has eight inventory slots, with four to hold weapons and four to hold armor. Each character class has restrictions on what weapons and armor it may use. Additionally, some weapons and armor are magical; if used during battle, some of these items will cast spells. Other magical artifacts provide protection, such as from certain dangerous spells.

There are six types of weapons: Swords, Daggers, Axes, Hammers, Staves, and Nunchaku. Warriors may also fight bare-handed; however, only the Black Belt/Master may do so effectively. The type of a weapon mainly determines its associated graphics, but also indicates which classes are more likely able to use that weapon. For example, a Black Belt is able to equip nunchaku but cannot equip axes. Each weapon has three statistics: damage, chance to hit bonus, and critical hit chance. Certain weapons are also more effective against monsters of particular types or monsters weak against particular elements. In the original NES version, these properties and the critical hit chance were not used due to bugs, but these were fixed for later revisions. While four weapons may be held, only one weapon may be used at a time.

In addition to weapons, there are four types of armor: Armor (Cuirasses, Robes, Bracelets), Helmets, Gauntlets, and Shields. Unlike weapons, a piece of armor's type is very important. A character may wear up to four different pieces of armor at once, but only one of each type. Each armor has two statistics: a damage absorption bonus and an evade penalty. Certain kinds of armor also grant resistance to particular categories of magic.

At shops, the Light Warriors can buy items to help themselves recover while they are traveling. Up to 99 of each item may be carried at one time. Items available include "Potions", which heal player characters or remove an ailment such as poison or stoning; "Tents" and "Cabins", which can be used on the world map to heal the player and optionally save the game; and "Houses", which additionally recover the party's magic after saving. Additional special items may be gained during or at the completion of quests.

Many character classes are able to use magic, which is divided into "white" defensive magic and "black" offensive magic. Spells are classified by a level between one and eight, with, in most cases, higher level spells being more powerful than lower level spells. There are four white magic and four black magic spells of each level. Characters may learn up to three spells of each level by purchasing them at shops in towns. White wizards are capable of learning all white magic spells, and black wizards are capable of learning all black magic spells. Other classes have various restrictions on the spells they can learn. In the original NES version, once a spell has been learned it cannot be forgotten. This was changed in some later revisions.

The original NES version of the game allowed each magic-user "charges" for each level of spells; spells of a given level could only be cast as many times as the user had charges. As a character's level increased, more charges were gained. This system closely resembles the spell-casting system in . In some later revisions of the game, this system was replaced by Magic Points (MP).

Characters
The characters are not individually named, and they are collectively known as the Warriors of Light. At the start of the game, the player can select the types and names of each Light Warrior. Like computer role-playing games of the era, the player characters are passive participants in the story, and therefore the player's choice of character type affects only the Warriors of Lights' abilities in battle.

Classes
There are six classes, and as each of their stats increase, they change class. Their beginning stats are listed.


 * Notes
 * Fighter can class change into a Knight.
 * Thief can class change into a Ninja.
 * Black Belt can class change into a Master.
 * Red Mage can class change into a Red Wizard.
 * Black Mage can class change into a Black Wizard.
 * White Mage can class change into a White Wizard.

Stats

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

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 to Final Fantasy in Other Media
 * This game draws a inspiration from Dungeons and Dragons, first Edition.
 * References from Final Fantasy to Other Media
 * This game serves as the bases 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.