Final Fantasy is the granddaddy of all adventure role playing games. Now the first part in the long running series is available for iPhone users to enjoy.
Final Fantasy sees you take control of a group of four young adventurers, known as the Light Warriors. Their job is to work together to save their world by completing a series of quests. The game is divided into four modes: the overworld map, town/area maps, a battle screen and a menu screen. The gist of Final Fantasy is to go around exploring, solving puzzles, acquiring weapons, and battling enemies in order to progress through the world.
The graphics and gameplay in the iPhone version of Final Fantasy are pretty faithful to the original NES version, which will please die hard fans. Newcomers may find the visuals to be a bit basic, but remember that this is part of the game's charm, and as you start exploring you'll soon forget about the Nineties look of the game. There are a couple of glitches in the presentation that spoil the experience a little, though. Firstly, the font rendering is a little wonky, making reading text a bit of a burden on your eyes. Also, the beeping noise that plays when you select an item is a bit too loud, drowning out the excellent soundtrack.
What will annoy people most about this version of Final Fantasy is the control system. For some reason the developer has chosen to slap a huge d-pad on the left of the screen. This is particularly fiddly to use if you're wearing headphones, because the cable gets in the way. I think it would've been far better to put the d-pad on the right, or do away with it completely and use a point-and-move approach.
Perhaps I'm nit-picking a bit too much though, because ultimately, Final Fantasy is still a joyous game that will keep your hand gripped to your iPhone for hours.
