Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls




Posted by Proto Man

So I just beat this game this weekend. It's been about 2 years since I bought it. It was during Christmas time, and I originally wanted Kingdom Hearts. Target happened to be sold out, but I really wanted a good long RPG game for my trip out west to Indiana. I then spotted this game, and having played a little bit of FFI when I used to have it for the NES AND seeing it had the ORIGINAL FFII, I decided to pick this one up.

I am not disappointed with my choice, because this game has given me pretty much a couple years of entertainment. I actually might have beat it sooner, but the way I play RPG's, I will play them for weeks on end and then just stop. It will be about a month later that I will pick the game back up and the cycle continues.

Final Fantasy I on this package was ok. It IS a lot easier than the original, which I found disappointing at first, but the extra Dungeons make up for that. They were nice and long, and had some tough bosses. I named each of my characters after the Ninja Turtles. My Fighter was named Leo, my Thief Leo, my White Mage Don, and my Black Mage Mike. In the end, I pretty much maxed all of them out.

It was Final Fantasy II though that I found to be the better game. This game definitely had a better story going on. A grand epic where rebels of a fallen kingdom fight against a growing, evil empire. You got attached to the characters that joined your party, just to have them get killed right before your eyes. It was rather heart wrenching. I actually beat the main game a while back, and I have to say, it's my favorite FF game yet (FF III and later may change my mind). It then felt very satisfying to reach super power levels, and then use powerful magic attacks against the final boss.

It was this weekend though, that I finally beat the Soul of Re-birth, which the title says it all. You play as the characters killed in the main game, and destroy the evil emperor once and for all. It was kind of neat because it extended an already good story, and was a nice plot twist. I got a little bored though having to do a lot of leveling up before fighting insanely hard creatures. This is the part where I just put the game down, and come back to it about a week or so later.

Over all, the game was very satisfying, and if you haven't picked it up yet, I suggest you do. You can also get a variant of this game on the Playstation called Final Fantasy Origins, although it doesn't have all the extra's of THIS game. Origins does, however, have the HARDER versions of these games if you like a better challenge. For someone who wants to get started on the FF series that hasn't played it before though, I recommend starting with Dawn of Souls.




Posted by Fei-on Castor


Quoting Proto Man: Over all, the game was very satisfying, and if you haven't picked it up yet, I suggest you do. You can also get a variant of this game on the Playstation called Final Fantasy Origins, although it doesn't have all the extra's of THIS game. Origins does, however, have the HARDER versions of these games if you like a better challenge. For someone who wants to get started on the FF series that hasn't played it before though, I recommend starting with Dawn of Souls.

Origins was nice because they kept FF1's magic system in tact. In DoS, they totally re-did the whole thing, including MP, which wasn't present in the original FF1, and certainly made the game more challenging.

I do love FF2, though. For one thing, the advancement system is neat. It's like the more you get hit in battle, the more likely you are get a max HP increase after the fight. The more you attack in a battle, the more likely you are to get a strength increase, and so forth. I don't usually like systems that vary from the traditional "experience level" system, found in most FF games. But the system in FF2 worked very well. SaGa Frontier had a nice individual stat leveling system, similar to FF2's, but that's for another thread.

My biggest beef with FF2 was Ultima, Flare and Holy. I honestly didn't use a LOT of magic in this game. By the time I got to Pandaemonium, my strongest spell was a level 6 Fire for Maria. It's so frustrating because by the time you even get your hands on Ultima, it's not that useful because you've already leveled up other spells and it would take a long time to get Ultima up with the others.

Also, shields, anyone? Did anyone give Firion a shield, or did everyone just give him two swords? I am all about the dual sword action.

I didn't like the extra dungeons in FF1 that much. They were okay, I guess. It was cool to fight Kainazzo and Valvalis (called "Cagnazzo" and "Barbariccia") with my FF1 guys. But I didn't like how confusing some of the dungeons got on the lower levels. Like the one that looks like a world map, and you have to find a ship and all that.

DoS was pretty good. I prefered FF1 for the NES, though. More fun. More charm. Probably has a lot to do with the fact that I grew up playing FF1 for the NES. I've never played the NES FF2.

I'm sure it's great, but I like FF Origins a lot. The cinematics before each game are incredible. On FF2, you actually see Spoiler:[spoiler]the Dark Knights attacking Fynn, and you see the four kids running from them. Maria trips, and Leon runs in to save her, and while Leon is holding the Dark Knight back, Firion throws a dagger and a sword, one after the other. The dagger sticks into the Dark Knight's eye, and the sword, into the middle of his face. The kids run away from the felled Dark Knight, who within seconds simply gets back up and continues destroying. The cinematic ends with the four kids looking down on Fynn, in ruins.[/spoiler] Super cool.