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Final Fantasy I and II Are Coming To the iPhone and iPod Touch
jonasvdc tips an announcement by Square Enix that Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy II are being developed for the iPhone and the iPod touch. The graphics and UI have been modified to look and run better on the touchscreen devices, but everything from Cecil to the classic Black Mage is clearly recognizable. The announcement did not include any information on a price or release date.
Cecil isn't in any of the screenshots...because he isn't in either of the games mentioned. That's Final Fantasy IV, which has been known by that name in every release except for the US SNES version.
I can see being confused by the renaming, but how do you see a character in the screenshots who just isn't there?
"So how long till it makes its way to Droid - if ever at all?"
:)
I assume you mean aside from playing it through NESoid? I'm currently in the middle of a game of Nobunaga's Ambition on my Nexus One. (I might have started up a game of FF1 instead, except i was already playing that on the Wii Virtual Console =) Even if you want to be entirely ethical (since you apparently don't already have an old copy lying around) i personally wouldn't feel any qualms about buying a copy for some other system (even an old used copy) and then d/ling the rom.
"I personally never played any of the FF series, only because I hadn't heard of it until like 7 or 8 came out, and I thought I'd have a lot of backstory to catch up with (though people have reassured me that I really don't)."
I wouldn't suggest playing FF1 for the first time now unless you're already very familiar with how clunky those old NES games could get. FF1, along with Dragon Quest 1, were both exploring how to do RPGs on the console format, and there's a lot of UI issues that got resolved in later versions. (In particular, having to buy each item one at a time, no descriptions for any items, no way to view stats without equipping an item and switching to the status screen.) And even aside from the difficulties the UI imposes it's probably the most challenging game in the FF series. (It's hard to say if the fact that attacks targeted on enemies that die before that character's turn don't get re-targeted to another enemy is a UI bug or just an unneeded increase to the difficulty, but in either case they got rid of it in later games.)
I still think it's a great game despite all that, but i admit that i come pre-equipped with a pair of rose-tinted glasses which you would be lacking
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
It doesn't always mean better when graphics are a substitute for gameplay, but the exact same FF gameplay with updated graphics? Yes that's better! It's not like the original developers went with a 16-color palette and pixelated graphics as a stylistic choice. They made it as pretty as they could, and did a good job, but would they rather have had SNES graphics capabilities or more? Do the screenshots look like what they would have gone for, had they been able? Yes and yes.
Other games that were better after a graphical update include Kings Quest I and Heroes Quest (I mean Quest for Glory) when they were updated for VGA from EGA. Super Mario Brothers was improved by its release as part of Super Mario All Stars. Quake was vastly improved by the switch to OpenGL (oh god and how!), and today open-source mods improve it further just by adding shader effects. Star Control II is improved in its Ur Quan Masters form by the simple expedient of anti-aliasing the rotated sprites.
In summary: Same game play, with better graphics that are in the same spirit as the original? Yes please!
The enemies of Democracy are
I point you in the direction of Muramasa: The Demon Blade, which was released just a few months ago, uses sprites for all in-game characters/enemies, and is quite a beautiful game. Here are a couple screenshots:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NXLKQR2FNpY/SwitorQly1I/AAAAAAAAAGs/unJ2YjKwJ3M/s1600/muramasathedemonblade-3.jpg
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/2009/06/custom_1244093929468_Muramasa2.jpg
It looks even better in motion, I highly recommend you look up some videos of the game in action. Using sprites doesn't necessarily mean it will look pixelated, it just means it isn't a fully rendered character. Considering the quality of 3D back in the PS1 days, it was a mistake to move the series to 3D then. I know that it would have eventually happened, I'm just questioning the timing of the move.
Living With a Nerd
The sad part is that I have been alive for all of these and have purchased over 50% of them!
Source: Final Fantasy Release Info
We'd like a way to play this game on a console with bloodlines to the original, without having to resort to emulators to do so.
FF I+II GBA Cart on a NDS or DS-Lite (just not the DSi where they took out the GBA slot)