Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster (2021) [Steam]

“Behold, I make all things new.”

-Revelation 21:5 KJV

I’m here to do some sick backpedaling. It’s difficult to describe the range of emotions I felt, like many others, when Square Enix bequeathed the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series trailer upon us this past E3. After spending so much time with a comic book IP and action RPGs, this was it. The single-digit FFs were back to wow the world again! I was euphoric at the start of the teaser trailer and then in its roughly 30-second span, I endured every stage of grief.

No One Touches My Princess!!

Steam and Mobile?!

Days later the refrain became: Look at that font!

You gotta be kidding me with these sprites!

It looks like a mobile game!

Uninspired!

Cash cow!

What’s next? Gacha?!

Squeenix couldn’t care less about the legacy fans of the games that Squaresoft, their predecessor and superior, made!

While I still hold some of those criticisms to be true, I am here at the end of my journey through Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster to inform you three things: this version of Final Fantasy (1) looks much better in motion than in still screenshots; new players will have an easier time getting through the game than ever before; classic fans will find their home in Uematsu’s re-envisioned score.

A First Time Red Mage

A Japanese-only developer interview video circulated shortly after the games were announced but it was difficult to appreciate without being able to speak Japanese. It revealed to us a bit more about the character sprites (which do look flat) and the font choice (which is laughably awful in English). What wasn’t immediately apparent was just how much went into updating the entire look of Final Fantasy and streamlining its gameplay with quality-of-life features.

Let it be known that I had never completed any version of Final Fantasy (1) before last week. I played the original NES version a few times and balked at the glitches, the ineffective spells, the constant missing, and the lack of a sense of direction, not to mention the rather extreme difficulty. Later, I played the PS1 version via Final Fantasy Origins which had made great strides to unwrinkle the game but it still didn’t click for me.

Maybe it was the act of streaming the game and interacting with people while playing that made it an easier pill to swallow. Then again, there are quite a few changes that have been made in Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster that set it apart from at least its earliest versions. It’s these changes that I believe make the game more welcoming for those unfamiliar with the game. Despite FF1’s insistence upon not giving you adequate direction for where to go next, I was able to finish it with just a little bit of advice and a walkthrough (consulted less than a handful of times).

An Airship’s Eye View

In an age where we’re shown nearly everything about a game before its release, it should still be said that it’s too easy to judge a book by its cover, or in this case a game by its platform, its visuals, its publisher, and so on. I believe there’s still a distinction between seeing a game and playing a game for oneself. I don’t know that there’s any other way that the Pixel Remaster project could have impressed me.

So there. I’ve said it. I’m sorry. I don’t take back all the jokes, though. Some of them are legitimately funny to me.

The 8-bit Review

Visuals: 7/10

It stands to reason that Final Fantasy (1) had the most to gain from the Pixel Remaster series, a project aiming to create a sort of visual uniform for the first three numerical Final Fantasy games. After all, this is the oldest of the games with the most archaic visuals. It looks dramatically ancient next to screens of its SNES counterparts, particularly Final Fantasy VI.

The water animations… I kid you not the WATER ANIMATIONS… are phenomenal. The spell animations are also great. Taking to the skies in the airship for the first time hearkens back to Mode 7 in the age of the dinosaurs. Enemy sprites, particularly bosses, are finely detailed, richly colored, and dynamic.

My biggest criticism of the graphics is their startling incongruity, and that is a theme of the design of the Pixel Remaster games. The menus and font look as if they belong to a different game, considering there’s already an in-game pixel font that shows how much damage you give and take. The new uniformity imposed upon the character sprites guarantees they’ll be consistent across these six games but it also renders them flatter than enemy sprites and they therefore appear out of place. Even the spell animations don’t seem like they match the player’s party. A little more consistency for all of the visual features would have gone a long way to make the game(s) appear less cheap.

Audio: 9/10

Even the music suffers a bit from Pixel Remaster’s dedication to contradictions. In isolation, it sounds like a wonderful realization of what Uematsu’s original score was always meant to be but couldn’t due to hardware limitations. In the game, it occasionally seems like it belongs to a different game with its orchestral crescendoes and rocking riffs alongside the simplistic pixel art.

However, because you’ll hear so much of the music on repeat, it’s one of the game’s contradictions that’s easiest to forgive. Well, that and the fact that it’s Uematsu’s work. The legendary composer has created a truly magnificent canon and it’s inspiring to hear him return to the game that helped make him an icon. I can’t wait to hear more of it in the next games in this series.

Narrative: 7/10

It’s tempting to dismiss the entirety of Final Fantasy’s plot for a variety of reasons. I almost opted to skip grading its narrative entirely. But I think that would’ve been a mistake. Beneath the D&D veneer, there’s a lot going on that sets the game’s story apart from the simplistic and archetypal fairy tales that dominated many of its high fantasy peers.

Most reading will be familiar with its subversion of the rescue the princess trope. You knock Garland down rather early and return the princess to her castle and then the game title appears on screen. Past that, a quest to heal the land unfolds in which the player must defeat four fiends and salvage some crystals before… *checks notes*… traveling through time to complete (or begin?) a time paradox of some kind. I’m not sure it makes perfect sense.

Getting further in the game made me appreciate that Final Fantasy actually represents a world inhabited by history. It is already an ancient world with its Sky People and their largely ruined cities. I took no small pleasure in coming to believe that Sakaguchi took inspiration from Laputa: Castle in the Sky, courtesy of Studio Ghibli in 1986, to help fill in the blanks and flesh out some background for his 1987 RPG. They share some similarities. Both center around the relics of advanced civilizations of the past and the airship designs are too similar to be a coincidence. Castle in the Sky is Final Fantasy Zero.

Gameplay: 8/10

The best part about remasters is they have some ideal of authenticity about them. Though the game was easier and simple things like the spells worked or characters didn’t swing at empty air when an enemy died, I still felt like I was really playing Final Fantasy and not some separate game with all-new story sequences and characters smashed in like so many square pegs in round holes. These are the kinds of “remakes” I am most interested in, ones that really bring the original game to new fans in a modern setting without changing too much. Spell charges are here, not MP. Everything plays out the same.

Challenge: 6/10

The inclusion of Phoenix Downs and quick saves make the game immediately easier. No more traipsing through an entire dungeon with fairly high random encounter rates only to get wiped by the boss (or Warmech) and losing all your progress, experience points, and treasures.

There is an auto battle feature that frustratingly triggers a character’s last action rather than auto attacking, but if you’re careful with it, it does speed up the battles, thereby making grinding a little more palatable and experience more plentiful. Oh and you can sprint and walk diagonally, too. Saves even more time. I completed this game, first playthrough, in about thirteen and a half hours.

It should be said, though, that the game still requires a lot of patience to get through. The final boss also represents a significant difficulty spike.

Oh and screw Warmech.

Watch at twitch.tv/thewellredmage

Accessibility: 4/10

“Where the heck do I go now?” That could’ve been the game’s tagline. NPCs will hint now and then at something notable in the surrounding countryside, but the order in which to pursue those interests isn’t always clear. I climbed the Mirage Tower without getting the transportation cube first, thank you very much.

What’s more, not all of the game’s mechanics are clearly laid out or even commented upon. For instance, I still don’t think I fully understand the hidden mechanics tied to which spot on your team you place what character and how it’ll affect the damage they take and the stats they gain.

Fortunately, if these mysteries elude you, guides and walkthroughs abound.

Uniqueness: 5/10

This is what? The umpteenth re-release of Final Fantasy? Remaking or rather remastering the game is nothing new. Every aspect of its systems, plot, characters, gameplay, and setting, even including a bestiary, music player, and digital artbook… it’s all been done elsewhere in other Final Fantasy games and RPGs since. However, I can safely say that the goals of the Pixel Remaster series are worth noting: uniformity and geniality (toward newcomers). This is an iconic game and I think that in the years to come, this version will continue to stand out. Now… if they really believe in bringing this game to new players, then they absolutely need to bring it to consoles.

Personal: 9/10

You know what?

Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster was a great experience. I know intellectually that there are a variety of things wrong with this release, from a few odd gameplay quirks to its inability to customize the font in-game to its visual contradictions to Square Enix’s aloof, out of touch, tone deaf suggestion that they needed to see some demand for these games before thinking about bringing them to another platform… but the best part about making the distinction between what is intrinsic quality and what is extrinsic experience is that my experience was still a delight despite valid criticism.

This is the first time I ever got to beat Final Fantasy! That to me is something truly valuable. The finish just barely beating Chaos is now one of my favorite moments of my gaming career!

So this just happened…

1 last Red Mage vs CHAOS!!!https://t.co/nWn6Pspf6Z

— the Well-Red Mage (@theWellRedMage) August 7, 2021

Aggregated Score: 6.9

Red formerly ran The Well-Red Mage and now serves The Pixels as founder, writer, editor, and podcaster. He has undertaken a seemingly endless crusade to talk about the games themselves in the midst of a culture obsessed with the latest controversy, scandal, and news cycle about harassment, toxicity, and negativity. Pick out his feathered cap on Twitter @thewellredmage or Mage Cast.