Final Fantasy Legend - Review

Gasp at my low scores

By: Ian

Review Breakdown
Battle System	3
Interface	2
Music/Sound	5
Originality	4
Plot	4
Localization	3
Replay Value	2
Visuals	5
Difficulty	Medium/Hard
Time to Complete	30 hours
Overall
Criteria

   Gasp at my low scores, but I speak the truth; This "Final Fantasy" is slop. Originally the first game for the SaGa series, it was given a Final Fantasy title to gain more popularity. However,it is not worthy of the Final Fantasy title, and this game is one of the most boring and flawed games to be produced.

   Let's start out by stating that FFL's translation was most likley done by a crew of people who most likely do not speak any English. Most of the dialogue is not in complete sentences, and the text is many absent of correct punctuation and grammer </pun>. On top of that, the script looks as if a six-year old wrote it. Talking to a person usually consists of only one dialog box. Empty, flawed, and completly boring dialog thruout the whole game.

   It starts out when you select a new game a paragraph of text gives you a brief story about a tower that leads to paradise. However, many adventurers who seek the paradise never return. Now, you may choose between a variety of races, such as a human male or female, a mutant, or some beast characters. Very interesting. However, your name can be only four characters long. When you create your hero, you are immedietly placed in front of a strange structure, finding yourself lacking of an opening event, and little knowledge of what to do. You then explore this oddity, talking to the incomplete townspeople, who run inns in the middle of the tower. It will take some exploring and bad conversations to find out what to do.

I told you before! Top hats make you androgenous!

    Bad dialog can really bog down a game's plot. FFL's story does not progress, and neither do the characters. You simply accomplish little tasks until you reach the goal that the other adventurers have wanted. Surprisingly, FFL's story does have a very interesting and in-depth twist not present in games of that time. It's a shame it didn't progress well, or have good dialog, because FFL's plot had some great potential.

   FFL's graphics make Game Boy's LCD look even worse. The surroundings in FFL lack detail. Floors in houses and dungeons are one flat color, usually white. So what exactly are you walking on through the whole game? Tiles are very repetetive, and decorations are nil (The Game Boy's lack of colors don't help, either). Very boring to the eye. However, the Sprites of the enemies and the characters do look pretty nice, and do have detail.

   Battles are annoying. Very tedious, and the battle music is very drab and annoying. In battles, you have a menu of everything in your inventory. This is very annoying because it is very limited (Only eight spaces) Which carries your weapons, armor, magic, and items. Very limited, and unneccesary. The charcter sprites are not shown, and only weapons are shown when an attack is commenced.

   Equipment in battles consists of a durability system. Usually, a weapon can be used fifty times before it dissapears, forcing you to buy another. Shields, spell books, and items also have durability. This system is very annoying, because the buying new equipment when trying to get more gold for other items is wasted, so gaining money is a very boring and frustrating process. If a charcter lacks any weapons in it's inventory, that character cannot attack. Even a fist attack has to stored in inventory. Loosing a weapon in the middle of a dungeon is very annoying, and unnecesary.

You'd think it would be easier with a full party

    Flaw after flaw, a mountain of flaws builds as go deeper into the game, at a very fast pace. Overall, FFL is just a bad, boring game. I beleive this game really set the standard for a bad RPG. There you have it, my totally negative review. Happy gaming, my friends.