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Wow, they really love releasing Final Fantasy 1 & 2 together, don't they? If you've read the sections for previous versions of FF1, you know that Final Fantasy 1 & 2 first got paired up together on one cart for the Famicom. A few years ago, they both got remade for the WonderSwan Color with brand new graphics and sounds. Then they stuck 'em both together with a few more updates for the Playstation and called it Final Fantasy Origins. Well, either they decided they didn't have quite enough of my money, or they wanted to make up for America missing out on portable FF1 goodness by using a system that actually made it out of Japan: the GameBoy Advance. Final Fantasy 1 & 2 have once again been rereleased together, bearing the subtitle Dawn of Souls.
Dawn of Souls refers to the new features implemented in both games. Final Fantasy 1 has four new bonus dungeons called Soul of Chaos. Final Fantasy 2 has a new storyline called Soul of Rebirth. As with my Playstation section I won't go into what's new about FF2 since I haven't gotten around to playing it yet. From what I've read, the changes aren't as drastic as those made to FF1.
Final Fantasy I&II: Dawn of Souls
Final Fantasy I
New Stuff:
Well first of all, the game acts like FF Origins' easy mode, so the levels go up to 99 and everything is cheaper than other versions. Then you've got a common pool of MP instead of spell charges for each level. This makes magic a lot more useful than it used to be.
The usual assortment of items from the FF series have been added to the game. Things like Phoenix Downs & Ethers are a nice addition, and things like Eyedrops & Echo Grass are... a great wazy to make your item list a little more cozy. All the wacky and often unnecessary spellcasting items like the variety of Fangs & Curtains, Spider's Thread, and Hermes' Shoes are all over the place. There's also a full assortment of both temporary and permanent stat boosting items, like Golden Apples.
In addition to traditional items, there is a lot of new equipment. Many series mainstays like the Genji and Crystal equipment can be found. The Masamune meets its partner the Murasama, and is also joined by favorites like the Ragnarok and Ultima Weapon. You can even score a 4th Ribbon. Oh, and there's equipment that casts some of the more powerful spells like Flare and Holy.
Of course then there's the 4 bonus dungeons called Soul of Chaos. Each one is unlocked after you defeat one of the Fiends. The Earth SoC dungeon has 4 bosses from FF3, the Fire one has 4 from FF4, Water has 4 from FF5, and Wind has 4 from FF6. These dungeons consist of floors that are selected in a random order, with randomly appearing chests containing random items. There are lots of new monsters, mostly from other games in the series. Most floors resemble previous dungeons in the game, some seem to be modeled after other FF games, and there are some more interesting ones, like overworlds, a flooded town, and a town whose citizens have been zombified and the Game Over music plays in the background. A few floors have interesting puzzles, such as trading with dwarves, herding beavers, and helping a robot find parts to repair his friend.
There's also a nice little feature where the game will randomly pick names for your characters if you want. For each class there are 10 possible names, 1 being more rare than the others. Most of them are series references.
Graphics: 8/10
Most everything that isn't new looks the same as the WSC version, other than some minor color differences. However, the GBA's screen makes everything looks so bright and beautiful. Flying in the airship looks even better than on the Playstation. In fact it may be the best-looking airship mode I've ever seen. The new bosses have more colors and look better than they did on the NES/SNES. The ones from FF3 are especially improved, on the same level as the graphic upgrades of FF1&2's bosses. Everything else in the new dungeons is basically just a palette swap of something else. All the new non-boss monsters are palette swaps of regular monsters. One interesting use of this was turning the water background into a lava background.
Sound: 7/10
Sounds do what they're supposed to. Nothing impressive though. They lack some of the extra oomph of the Playstation version, and that clang of the Power Staff the WSC version had didn't come back.
Music: 10/10
Wow, the music sounds almost as good as the Playstation version. Who knew the GBA could pull that off?
Story: 5/10
As I said of FF Origins, the story doesn't hold up by today's standards. More dialog was added so it comes off a little better, and Cid is mentioned! The SoC dungeons are just a jumble of nonsense and series references though.
Translation: 9/10
Probably because of all the new stuff, they gave the game a new translation. The dialog is fuller than ever and makes more sense. Many of the names changed for origins were put back, and a lot of things have their correct name for the first time ever. I'm sure this is partly due to even more letters being allowed than Origins had (how did that happen?), and Origins' 6-letter names for your characters were carried over as well. They even brought back Garland's famous line from the original! All this adds up to what is by far the best translation yet of FF1.
About this new stuff, almost everything is translated accurately. Some things that aren't are given the same name they had in another game in the series. Yeah holy crap, a translation team that actually played other games in the series. They even did that with the auto-selected names (for example Jeff/Gerad of FF6).
I really could've done without the horrible Scottish accents for the Dwarves. Not that I mind them having Scottish accents, but dea thee hae ta goo aght af therr wee ta mek thee text completely unreadable?
Gameplay: 7/10
While the WSC and Playstation versions of FF1 were basically the original game in new clothes, this one is more like a new game in those same no-longer-new clothes. Or maybe a creepier analogy: It has the previously new clothes, the same skeleton it's always had, and a new set of organs and skin. (Icky.) I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.
It's still the same turned-based RPG dungeon crawl/item hunt. Though the usefulness of the classes has been shifted around. The Black Mage is now the best magic user in town since the Int stat is directly related to the amount of damage (or healing) a spell does, even for spell-casting items like the Heal Staff and Thor's Hammer. The Monk is even more of a killing machine, and all his armor affects him separately so he can keep a high defense rating from not wearing body armor and still receive the Ribbon bonus. The Thief is no longer a useless lump. He gets more hits and can often do more damage than the Warrior. The Red Mage suffers at the expense of his comrades' good fortune. Low HP and lack of late game options bring him down. At least he's not the complete waste that FF5's Red Mages are.
Magic is much more useful now with MP invovled. Your LV2 spell charges will no longer go to waste, and the Red Mage can use his Firaga freely without worrying about needing to save for a Life spell. Especially with Phoenix Downs lying around, death isn't even a concern anymore. It's little more nuisance than Poison. You'll cast Temper more often than Haste since Haste only works once and Temper stacks. And I always thought of Temper as a weaker version of Haste. Heh.
The encounter rate is questionable. I wasn't thrilled with it in Origins, but now it's worse. Some SoC floors have encounter rates so high I wanted to throw my GameBoy on the floor and stomp on it, while it seems like you can sail around in the sea forever before fighting anything. It was taking me so long to find a Sahagin Chief for my monster list that I just gave up and waited until the Sunken Shrine.
Difficulty: 3/10
Ug, it's even easier than the easy mode in Origins. The new MP system makes magic more useful, the classes are stronger, and all the new items are really helpful. The only thing saving it from being a total pushover is an increase in boss HP. If you play through without visiting the SoC dungeons and without purposely leveling, the final boss will actually be a challenge. If you go through even half of the SoC dungeons you'll end up so strong and well equipped nothing will stop you.
Control: 10/10
It's a turn-based RPG, there's not much you can do to screw it up. (Though FFO managed it.) They even added the ability to make everyone run by pressing L+R together.
Click for FF1 screen shots.
Final Fantasy I&II: Dawn of Souls
Official Strategy Guide from Nintendo
This is a good guide, but it's not perfect. There's a complete bestiary, maps for all the old and new dungeons, decent layout, shared chests are covered. Some of the Soul of Chaos maps are mistakenly unlabeled, and there are errors sprinkled about. It really could use a complete item list. Some of those rare items are hard to find, and the guide doesn't even mention them, let alone help you locate them. So yeah, it's good, but it could be better.
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