Games Week – Final Fantasy (NES)

This week, our staff bravely dusted off the pixelated corpses of classic video games for a series of retro reviews nobody asked for.

Final Fantasy for the NES is the tale of four nameless warriors bravely setting out to save a world that’s already fallen apart—because the prophecy said so, and prophecies are never wrong, right? You’ll fight imps, pirates, and the creeping dread of wasting your youth grinding for gold to buy a slightly better sword. The plot is a Möbius strip of time travel and disappointment, culminating in the realization that evil is eternal and you’ve been duped into doing cosmic janitorial work. Classic, yes—but mostly in the way a recurring nightmare is classic.

Final Fantasy II bravely asks: What if your childhood friends died horribly in the first five minutes, and you had to emotionally recover while fighting possessed beavers and genocidal emperors? Gone are experience points—replaced by a masochistic “get hit to get strong” system, ensuring you punch your own party more than enemies. The plot is Shakespearean, if Shakespeare hated you and wanted you lost in a dungeon for six hours. Characters come and go like Tinder matches with death wishes. It’s ambitious, tragic, and confusing—a role-playing fever dream you’ll barely survive, but never forget. Therapy sold separately.

Final Fantasy III for the NES is what happens when game designers look at your childhood joy and say, “Let’s complicate that with spreadsheets.” This time, the gods (read: developers) gift you with a job system that feels more like corporate punishment than heroic progression. Want to be a Viking? Too bad—you’re now a turn-based bureaucrat grinding goblins to pay off your pixelated student loans. The plot is standard fare: crystals, darkness, prophecy. But the real prophecy is you weeping in a cave because you forgot to bring a White Mage. FFIII: where ambition meets masochism.

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