Final Fantasy: A Main Series Analysis — The NES Era

I miss final fantasy. The franchise been dead to me since 10

Awesome video. I think one of other element of the original Final Fantasy to note, especially as it parallels with both the Gulliver's Travels and Greek heros comparisons, is that it is extremely inspired by Dungeons and Dragons. The classes and blank slate characters allow for role play. The episodic storytelling is how many a DnD campaign unfolds. And the attrition of dungeon crawling feels incredibly DnD.

Very excited to watch this Professor Bopper hit

I love Final Fantasy 2. While is gameplay is undeniably flawed the story is great for the time.

Good job. I liked it.

Well... let's hear what YOU have to say.

I really have no relationship to this series (my most played entry is Tactics Advance), and I’m not even sure I’ll ever play them.

But I’m stoked you’re making these, and I look forward to watching them as you finish!

you are a zoomer bro

I was introduced to the franchise by the OG NES Final Fantasy. And I've played quite a few of them since then.

I do enjoy a video laying out the OG game's and the remakes' strengths and weaknesses. It may not be the best game (and it may not have held up especially well) but it still holds a special place in my heart. I had not considered until now, that perhaps every instance of me giving up on the game and restarting represents a timeline in the game wherein Chaos won.

Final Fantasy II gets a lot of undeserved hate. Like the first, it may not be the best game, but it experimented and tried something new. Gotta respect that.

I have played through and defeated Final Fantasy III on DS and the fan translated Famicom version. Both have their quirks, both have obvious strengths and weaknesses. I enjoyed both versions thoroughly. I went through the DS version and was able to unlock the Wandering Smith and the tiny EX dungeon, and used that to grind out a full set of Onion Gear for my group. In the FC version I just glitched the Onion Gear into existence. I consider it time well spent in both cases. Also, in my mind the characters in FF3 are named Luneth, Arc, Refia, and Ingus. This is a hill i will die on.

Anyways, great video. I'm looking forward to more.

Never seen your channel before

But the algorithm didn't disappoint.

Don't be sorry you are playing the Pixel Remasters. The original versions of the first 3 games have not aged well. Also very buggy, making the games quite unbalanced. Either with enemy encounters or how jobs compare against each other.

The Al Gore Rhythm really wanted me to watch this and has won you a subscription

Loved this!!! Although I’m already scared that my favourite one will be receive a lot of hate lol (it is VIII btw)

This was a great retrospective, I don’t have the patience for older games tbh so it’s great getting a look from someone who does lol

After my playthroughs of the Pixel Remasters, I ended up considering FF3 the best of the NES trilogy, but simultaneously my least favourite of them.

Final Fantasy 2, its bad dungeon design aside, had what felt like the most ambitious story of the trilogy, and I found it more compelling than 3's, even disregarding the Gulliver's Travels comparison. My problem with FF3 was it felt like FF1 but larger. Not the same as the first, but similar enough that it took away from what 3 did differently. I liked Xande's motivation, I can see how it fits in the wider world, but at the same time, it often feels like there's little to no connective tissue between vignettes. FF1 has a bunch of vignettes too, but with the exception of Bahamut, it mostly comes together like a nesting doll of completing tasks to complete bigger tasks.

That said, I think it's overdo for a replay from me.

Leon is not a student

TBH I have always been put off by the Final Fantasy series exactly because unlike Fire Emblem, Dragon Quest, Pokemon, etc it isn't basically the same game with new paint or gimmicks. It sounds a bit dramatic too honestly, lol

I don't know what you mean, I prefer the III remake over the pixel remaster. It has named characters and awesome Chibi graphics! I really don't think it's as controversial as you make it out to be.

You really deserve more views. Your videos are both insightful and entertaining. Keep at it!

I can't wait for 6.

Two ended up much better than I thought it was going to be going in. The open world exploration part of it was unexpected and quite good. The main surprise with three is just that it was better than four

the original and "current" ff1 class change is really funny since everyone goes from cute lil sprites to buff 80s music video musclemen

monk especially looks like he just walked out of a glam workout vhs

Also while it's notable, Altair's destruction isn't that unique in Final Fantasy in particular, major important areas get nuked fairly frequently in this series. Mostly so you can't go back because that town was on a previous disc and we need to save enough room for the cg ending sequence.

I live for Beowulf analysis in video game essays. Seriously, great work as usual. Your ability to clearly articulate ambiguous concepts like literary themes and meaning without defaulting to shoring up ammunition to defend a hot take always feels egoless and enlightening. I've been playing through the FF games myself, just jumping around to the big ones so far (6, 9, 10, currently 7), but this has convinced me to try the NES games, which I was not so sure I wanted to bother with before. But I love the simplicity and gravitas of classic storytelling and the aesthetics in those games look amazing.

Wow I was not expecting such a literary analysis. I look forward to following you.
Also I lived in Kentucky (outside Lexington) for several chunks of my life so that was a neat coincidence too.

Phew so great hearing the comparisons to literature phew thats what I watch ya for!
Hearing your mind being blown at FFIII's map. Phew yeah I can see why you felt the need to play all the game at that point. Greatly looking forward to listening to the rest!

Just now got around to watching this because I've been playing the Pixel Remasters. Awesome video Bopper. Out of the NES games 1 was my favorite because it was the easiest lol

I only played the series from 7 onwards. We didn't get 1-6 in Europe.

This video series (plus wanting to work on my Japanese) inspired me to go back and replay the series in Japanese and... wow FFII is worse than I remember. Like I definitely appreciate the story more after hearing your take on it, but wow as a game it really tested my patience. The leveling system is bad, but it's not a death sentence--the dungeon design is just horrible and clearly the result of trying to pad out a game that had to have a quick turnaround. The leveling system just removes another way the game might be fun to play, but it's really not the horrific mechanic it's said to be. You can trivialize the battles or turn them off on the Pixel Remaster but the bad dungeon design isn't made much better even with a map lmao.

Onto 3, enjoying it so far.

Final Fantasy 1 kinda goes hard conceptionally maybe I should get Final Fantasy 20th Anniversary Edition 3DS

Played FF3 on DS and loved it! I think it's very charming with its cute 3D graphics and cutscenes, also the music is as great as ever, if not even better, in the new instrumentations.

They say the code for the fastest ship in FFIII couldn't be replicated. I forgot the name of the coder, but yeah.

Every time I hear you say "Final Fantasy is", I feel the need to correct it to "Final Fantasy was".

Final Fantasy II is pearls before swine.

I recently got the Pixel Remaster to relive the childhood days of the GBA remakes, and had a pretty great time. 3 wound up being one of my favorites too, and I really enjoyed your stance on it as a whole. The comparison to Beowulf is unexpected but very effective, and it puts a meaningful spin on the common complaints regarding Xande and Cloud of Darkness. Honestly, this deep dive into the narrative and structural intent of the games is refreshing. This might be the first legitimate praise I’ve ever heard for FF2, and you’re right, the constant changes to the map are really engaging, and the story can be a wild ride when you meet it where it’s at. Looking forward to more of this series, and especially to my personal favorite, FF12.

A quick note that I find cool, but might be a bit too far afield - the magic in D&D is based on Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, where spells are so complex and powerful that you can only hold maybe a couple in your brain at once. Layers of inspiration.

They cancelled the WonderSwan version of III pretty early in, if I had to surmise, it probably was a time issue, where they wanted to hurry up and get versions of IV, V, and VI. I can't see it being a technical hurdle or a localization issue since they managed to get II and V.

That said I love this video! Really love how you worded your defense of the early titles and scratch some brain itches on some possibly deeper metaphors you can draw

Haha you and i had similar upbringings in from indiana and was born in 1995, first console was the SNES my console library was jumbled around i didnt get to touch an NES til i was 13 and i loved playing the OG i was oblivious to the playstation 1 remakes for 1,2 and 4, ive played the first 10 games, 12 and 13, loved all of em. Havent played 11 or 14 onward, just couldnt afford it or have the time, but still im happy i grew up when i did. Kinda wish i was fluent in Japanese and i somehow grew up in Japan so i could have played all the games on their original consoles especially 2, 3 and 5.


Edit: now that i finished the video, 2 is actually pretty realistic cuz if ya dont practice your skills they wont improve and it plays on the nitzche quote "That which doesnt kill us makes us stronger" and 3 for the DS was a botched remake it just felt tedious to play and grind, every fight was a deathmatch.

I fell absolutely in love with the DS version of III, and I got really good use out of Scholar until Evoker/Summoner unlocked

I recently started my own journey to play through all of the final fantasy games in June last year. Here I am today in the midst of playing through FFXI (yea, that one). Throughout this journey, I have been obsessed with watching FF content and I love hearing the thoughts and analyses of other fans of the FF franchise. Looking forward to watching every video in this series, keep up the great work, you certainly add some unique insight in how to view these games! :)

I’m not happy with Pixel Remaster. I’d demand an HD-2D remake of the Final Fantasy NES and SNES trilogies, as it is already being done with Dragon Quest’s Erdrick trilogy.

Final fantasy is both big and long as a series. Perfect synopsis my friend 😊

I'll add: you've experienced something in less than a year that I did over 30 years. Slowly. I'm excited to see your thoughts.

I mean, I likes the DS version of FF3.
Also if you like FF3 just play bravely Default. Same game.

This popped up on my recommended and I'm pleasantly surprised by your video. I'm really looking forward to the to the other ones as I'm currently going through all the FF games myself and with some friends in our game club. I will offer a quick opinion, of the first five games FF2 is unironically my favorite of the series. I liked the leveling system and it felt very intuitive to me; sort of like a proto elder scrolls type of leveling. The story and characters were great and I was surprised at how tragic it was. I hope it gets more love because I feel the pixel remaster is a really good version of 2.

I finally finished the first 3 pixel remasters so i can finally watch this video!

These got me interested in reading the classics. Thank you

I'm not super familiar with 2 beyond its reputation, but I now have some interesting perspective on the Endwalker raid series (it's called Pandaemonium).