The Final Fantasy Retrospective 

I would like to ask how a hexagram would denote evil at its centre?

Square choosing Yoshitaka Amano as the concept artist was the best decision they ever made

I completely loved this honey, and I am so proud of you. You're doing so well with these videos and I really hope that things to go well for you love.

Chaos grows stronger with each remaster/remake!!!? THAT is awesome! As far as I’m concerned, that’s canon!

When I started this video on a whim-I was searching for the GameTrailers retrospective which is a favorite of mine, decided I'd try something new when I saw this-I was expecting this 100 minute video to cover the whole series. I'm absolutely blown away by the level of detail, all the stories I *did not* know, and incredibly excited to see this is a continuing series. Really looking forward to diving into the other episodes!

57:08 This small detail regarding the mountains and why they're colored white is so charming to me. It's probably my absolute favorite artistic decision made in regards to technological limitations of the time, these developers were geniuses! I only wish this artistic vision was kept in future remakes/emulation

White mage plus Bane Sword and Heal Helmet = greatness! As a kid I beat FF1 in so many different ways. When you only have one game you get the best out of it

Arguably the best Final Fantasy retrospective on RU-vid - and I have seen several of them. I love your in-depth analysis, and historical inserts. I'd like to share a piece of my gaming life. Been "gaming" for over 36 years or so. Co-created a gaming podcast, two tattoo sleeves adorned with my gaming legacy of sorts, and have watched far, far more youtube gaming content than combined "TV". I live for the stuff. Saying all that to set this up a bit: So it's sometime early 90s, not sure exactly when or how old was - let's just say I was a kid. It's a birthday of mine, and my babysitter says she wants to take me into town to buy some birthday presents. My parents agree and off we go. We went somewhere and she bought me Nickelodeon Gak, because I was CRAZY for that stuff but my parents never bought me any. (given Gak dates, I might have been 10/11, 1992/1993, but ran to 1999 so who knows..). So she pulls into this mom n pop movie rental place. There's a big bin of NES games for sale at the front. She says I can pick one game from the bin and she'll buy it for me for my Bday. Awesome! there's like.... 40 games in this bin. All with their case/manual. Guess they were selling excess copies, or all who knows. Anyway, I'm at the age where I've been playing games everywhere I could, any way I could, but I didn't have like.... my "genre/style" down, ya know? I played whatever. More importantly, I DEFINITELY didn't know how to choose games - as in, pick good from bad. So, I'm sifting through all these cases. "Played that, played that, own that, played that, that looks dumb, played that, not interested in that..." I'm losing hope. I saw the box art for FF1 and thought it looked cool. Read the back of the box, thought that was interesting. So I put it aside as a Maybe. Kept sifting through, and I saw a box for the Terminator 2 game. I had seen that movie, so I knew that T2 was. Put THAT one as a maybe also. Kept on through the box, didn't pick anything else. So there I am. Some barely double digit game loving kid on his birthday trip with an awesome babysitter girl... and in one hand I have FF1, and in the other I have T2. I thought the box/writing for FF1 was so interesting so I figured I'd "take a gamble" and picked FF1. Let me tell you, I played that game all the rest of that day, all my free time for the rest of the next days until I beat it. Fell in love with FF and RPGs that day. I don't even think I played with my Gak anymore that day, lol. Years later, a local rental store has T2 for rent, so I payed the $2 and rented it. WHEW, did I EVER make a great decision, because turns out T2 for the NES is hot garbage!!!! So anyway, that's my eternal FF1 story. Hope it was worth a read, lol. Thank YOU for the video/content, and I look forward to you doing the rest of the entire series!!!!!!!!!

Honestly some the limitations in the original actually enhance the experience for me, the lack of retargeting require you to put more thought into encounters rather than mashing the a button. Also Garland backing away as he explains his time loop actually seems to add tension as if he is backing away before before stuck at the end of the room with nowhere left to run and his transformation into Chaos almost seeming like a last ditch effort to preserve the loop. Also never knew the mountains were white for a specific reason and never knew the 12 sages were there to explain everything while getting around limitations. Overall great video.

absolutely excellently done!! so well researched, well-edited, well written, everything about it is perfect! i especially liked the in-depth profile of Sakeguchi, so much information that fleshes out his story and background that i've never seen anywhere else. this is a masterwork that should honestly be the definitive story of FF1, and I cannot wait for more!

Recently decided to play all the Final Fantasy games, and just finished FF1 last weekend (WAR, THF, BLM, WHM). I loved every minute of it, it was charming, and the last boss was an epic showdown for the ages that had me on the edge of my seat, I will definitely replay it sometime with a different comp. It aged extremely well, you can't say that for every games made in the '80s.

Great video! I just wanna note that Matoya's theme is used heavily in FF14 and lots of new fans know it and love it ^^

High quality stuff (For all 3 FF retrospectives done thus far), Can't wait for the others.

This is one of my favorite games ever. I still have my NES cartridge and Ive pretty much played/bought ever rerelease thats ever come to this shore. No matter how basic it is, I find it a joy to play through

Being of fan of the series for over 20 years, i gotta say, your work is the first convince me to play FFI. Will be looking for it later! Thanks and keep up the great work!

I really enjoy the different video game documentarians preserving/contextualizing culture in various ways. Thank you.

13 year old me was blown away by this game. Dragon "Warrior" was great, but this game was the next step. Great review. Lots of details I didn't know.

Found this video after first getting really disappointed by some very shallow other videos on early FF and was bracing myself with yours, only to be absolutely blown away. I'm a huge series enthusiast with an interest in JRPG historiography, so your video was a real breath of fresh air. The way you dedicatedly stick to the famicom version even over the english NES version was really impressive to me-- i'd never seen the original manual before and it was just beautiful to see it here. Finding out Sakaguchi was into Moorcock too, that I honestly did not know and it makes *so much* about final fantasy make sense to me on a tonal and aesthetic level. Love that you gave proper context to the 'and that's why it's final fantasy' story too. Was genuinely shocked watching when you mentioned you're relatively new to the series-- your work's got a level of detail and respect that is really uncommon. Can't wait to watch the rest, and maybe get pedantic a little in the comments for your video about 3-- don't mind me if I do, I'm like the one north american fan of the famicom version, I had a lot of free time in electronics class in high school haha. Really appreciated the video!!

32:30 Props, you're the first person I've seen actually mention game manuals for NES games when talking about how they were designed. Too many retrospectives I see talk about how these games were designed to be impossibly confusing on initial playthroughs, clearly being done by a younger generation who didn't have the benefit of touching these games while they were new, probably largely done on emulator without ever experiencing them physically. Great video overall though. Plenty I didn't know, very informative. Keep it up.

This channel is so underrated its criminal man. If it wasnt for tiktok destroying peoples attention span. these are amazing videos highly recommended for any RPG Enthusiast. I would absolutely love if you covered Octopath Traveller and newer games too. love you dude

As everyone is saying, these retrospectives are excellent! Just doing my bit to encourage the algorithm to show them to more people

Is it wrong that I keep on binging this? Because honestly, I'm inspired to make my own retrospective but I'm more of a written type of person because writing has been my strong suit. I keep watching it because of two reasons. One because I love the narration that is done so well and two, it's so massively detailed it's not funny. I've checked out other retrospectives but this surpasses it all. I love it. I saw the recent one, FF4 and I can't wait for FF5. It has a lot of symbolism for me personally.

Still waiting for the Stranger of Paradise Retrospective. Because I know you, like myself, are just here to kill Chaos.

Great video. I was too young in 1990 to really understand how to play the game that friends and I used to pound on the A B buttons quickly during battles!

i was expecting a mediocre video with what your views but what i got was amazing this needs to be seen by more people

Well, yeah, it does feel like an unlicensed Dungeons & Dragons game, and that's what made it so awesome to those of us who grew up with THAC0. At the time, I had yet to either play or read the Temple of Elemental Evil module, but merely being aware of it, and knowing the elementals in the Monster Manual, the whole thing made sense. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks left the Sky Palace feeling right at home amid swords and sorcery. Even the progression of Level 1 Save Kitten (Princess) to Level 36 Kill God (embodiment of Chaos itself), and having to use an easily-missed item obtained in the first quest during the final dungeon, coupled with the Vancian magic system, buying spells for your spellbooks, even feeding Adamantium to a Dwarven smith- it just screamed "this is the epic adventure a DM should aspire to craft." Revive the Orbs found its way into several of my youthful campaigns after playing this. Just a correction- Chaos wasn't changed for the ports. He had all those attacks in the original, albeit with different names (Inferno, Swirl, Crack, Tornado instead of Blaze, Tsunami, Earthquake, Cyclone). Those of us who have done challenge runs planned to kill Chaos either before CUR4 or after, since his combat script was linear, with the only random element being whether he was doing a physical, special, or spell- specials followed one order, spells another. Later ports changed the order of Specials, later randomizing their order, but the abilities of Chaos are the same. As for the aesthetics of the Sky Palace, it looks more like you're in low orbit in the remakes. You're above the clouds blotting out the sun instead of some reverse gravity base pointing to the stars. Like you're overlooking the planet. Though I do feel something was lost changing from sterile metal walls to marble- feels more pulled from dwarven flying fortresses than technological advancement. As for the bonus dungeons, they bored me to death. Ruse up, Fast, then smash, over and over. Blink, Invis, Haste, Saber (Giant Gauntlet), and Temper are all you need and it's done. You could handicap yourself using damaging spells for a challenge, considering how much more powerful buffed melee has always been, even in the buggy NES port (where Saber and Temper didn't work, leaving FAST as your only option offensively). Whereas the brevity of the original content didn't have the tactic feel repetitive, it really wears on you during the bonus dungeons.

Only an hour in and I love this video. Huge FF fan, so it's great to learn all the behind-the-scenes stuff along with all the research you've put into this. You've earned a subscriber!

I love retrospectives especially in series like this. So can't wait.

These are some History Channel quality videos, and absolutely the best retrospectives of anything I’ve ever seen. Keep going!!!!

I just started watching this and I can tell you’re one of the the most thorough video essay makers I’ve seen on RU-vid. U deserve more subs fr

Great video sir! The original Final Fantasy has some serious nostalgia for me.

i am a 42 yo man and cherished that game deeply. I must have completed over 20 teams ..... my favorite team that make the game easy was a Warrior , Red Black and white mage. But the team i would always remember , was playing with my cousins and each of us choose 1 character without saying what we would choose. We finish with 1 Warrior , 1 Thief , 1 Red Mage and 1 Black Mage. Games were simpler before but i feel that they were more unique .... i am still a gamer and i feel all the game are similar.

Thank you for giving me the label of Dapper that I deserve. In all seriousness, echoing the sentiment that this is an extremely well done and thorough retrospective. I’m looking forward to watching all of the ones you do for the series I’m learning to genuinely love as I play through it currently.

Final Fantasy 1 is one the few games that made me WANT to play it again right away, mind you I was playing the PSP version but still I like this game.

I've learned quite a bit about Final Fantasy and makers behind it over the decades, so it's pretty rare for me to come across new information, but I learned several new pieces of lore in your retrospective. Well done. 👍

this was brilliantly well done... well written and narrated! as final fantasy is my favorite game series of all time i was really excited to see your take and perspective on things from the beginning to the later years and watch your opinion change as the heart of the series did as well..very interesting perspective and your historical facts were on point.. all around great work brother, i'll end up watching this 3-4 more times before you release the next episode

I'm only 25 minutes in, but this is amazing so far. So much more in depth than a lot of other vids. And with a bibliography

Found your FF4 retrospective through the grace of the algorithm and I’m so glad I did! These are the kinds of gaming deep dives I’ve been wanting. Smart, interesting, effective! Just subbed and will look forward to any future releases.

the MSX OST of final fantasy 1 is something I have only learned about rescently, but it is criminally underrated, it sounds amazing

Oh I love retrospectives and have played through all the mainline FF games so looking forward to more episodes of this. Subscribed!

Now for all you ffxiv fans out there you know where the time loop came from in endwalker. As well as the theme for the city of Eulmore and let's not forget Montoya's cave. So many eastern eggs from past games are inserted into 14 which is a true tribute to the franchise as a whole Great video too! Gonna go back a give your others a watch

This video was so good! I'm so glad I found it. My family and I are going through a rough time right now and I want you to know that these videos make me truly happy in a time where it is sometimes hard to remain so. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the series. This was incredibly detailed, and extremely well written, presented and produced. I consider myself a huge Final Fantasy fan, and you had stuff in here I never knew, like the crystals in the mountains and some of the finer details of the development. I especially loved that you went into some detail on the remakes and what made them different. That was truly the icing on the cake in an already wonderful video. Thank you for making this, and I hope reading this comment gives you some of the happiness that you've given me.

I’ve crushed all the retrospectives you’ve done up to this point over the last twelve hours and just wanted to say, you do phenomenal work

Bro, this is top shelf content. You deserve more views.

Came here after relistening to the Game Trailers one for the Umteth time. Really enjoying the depth, quality and pace of this! Subbed!

This is the best video on Final Fantasy 1 I’ve ever seen. Thank you so much for making this!

These retrospectives are incredibly well made. Instant fan

I'm not sure why I was just recommended this video today, but I have to say you did a great job there. I'm going to sub and hope that you upload more content just like this. Also the fact that your mom was so proud of your video was adorable.

Damn this is a professional level documentary. Interesting information, well edited, well spoken. Good job, earned a sub.

This is the best retrospective I've seen on the game. By the way I really appreciate you posting your sources in the description.

I've watched a lot of retrospective videos on Final Fantasy and this one is one of the best.

Great content man, this level of quality is hard to come by. 👍

Great video I can’t wait for the rest in the series!

This is so incredibly well done. Absolutely beautiful work. Far and away the best Final Fantasy retrospective I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot.

A small correction: there are "only" 126 possible party configurations, not 1,296. Because you can reorder your party mid-playthrough, it doesn't make sense to allow class order to count as a differentiating factor between possible party lineups.

This is fantastic. I am so happy to have found your channel. I can't imagine the work that went into making this video. Really wonderful job!

My dude made it into the algorithm, He bouta blow up. Great vid

Absolutely fantastic retrospective! Very well done 👍

this deserves so many views. cant wait for more!!

Final Fantasies artwork is my all time favorite. especially the FF crystal chronicles and FF tactics type art. Or Braverly default especially.

Gosh dang this was so good, so many details and thoroughness. Keep this up and you’ll cement yourself into RU-vid

woke up put this on to listen to while I work so I could finish it and noticed you uploaded the second one, always love to watch these hour long videos, keep it up

there needs to be a movie about how final fantasy series was made just like the tetris movie coming up

An incredible in-depth review! Keep up the amazing work 🥳

You deserve many more views and attention, your hard work shines through, can't wait to watch your other vids

Well done retrospective, ready to kill Chaos?

Great video! Keep them coming!!!

This is a fantastic video, well produced and informative. Almost feels like a NoClip documentary. Keep up the good work, you've earned a sub mate.

This is wildly well done!

Awesome work on this. I have your Final Fantasy retrospectives playlist saved, and can't wait to hear your perspectives on the rest of the entries

I am very glad you included history about Sakaguchi himself in this retrospective because so much of that reflects in early FF, especially when the PS1 era rolls in

Amazing, AMAZING video. Subscribed, can't wait for more.

In late middle school out of curiosity of the Final Fantasy franchise I bought the NES version on the Wii Virtual Console. I would play it for hours, getting my butt beat and exploring the world. Restarting plenty of times to try and figure out what all the jobs did and got. It really was something special and felt like a grand adventure even compared to games like TES V being out by then. I've yet to get far in any of the other games before my attention is lost. Oh well.

This retrospective is outstanding - it is a lot more detailed than most other FF retros

An amazing piece of research, by far the best I have seen on the subject. I greatly appreciated the care with which it was done and the attention to detail. I admire you for finally allowing me to see the effect of white mountains on a CRT screen! You've made a really comprehensive and huge video, devoting time to many aspects that I've too often seen to be overlooked or not sufficiently explored elsewhere, such as the evocative implications of the setting, the spectacular uniqueness of the Flying Fortress, and the references to "Laputa" (perhaps among the similarities I would have added the robot falling from the sky and the stone that can make objects fly). There is only one thing I feel I must point out: deep in the four dungeons there are no Crystals but only the Altars, from which the elemental energies come (the Sages also mention this). The four Great Crystals were added in the remakes, so in the original game the only Crystals that exist are those that the Warriors of Light carry with them.

This is one of the best retrospectives of any game I've ever listened to. You killed it 👏

Damn, this was awesome, makes me want a biopic about Sakaguchi and Final Fantasy 1

Truly great video! But, I would have to disagree about the Circle of Sages and Garland walking backwards being clumsy workarounds. Even if they were driven by technical necessity, from the player's standpoint they can be experienced as mythic allusions, dramatic pacing, etc. even if they didn't originate from those intentions. Basically I think the default for the player is to take EVERYTHING as being the result of artistic intention unless it's something that glaringly, obviously isn't - like an obvious glitch, but neither of these come across as glitches. And in these cases I'd say the limitation may have been a blessing in disguise that resulted in richer experiences than if the developers had been free to do the most obvious thing (have Garland just stand in one place - as opposed to him drawing you gradually in, compelling you to follow him...), or having a single Sage just standing there, as opposed to uniting spatial exploration by movement (visiting the sages in turn) with exploration of the lore they divulge.

Absolutely loved the video. Whatever amount of time you spent to make it, Worth it brother. Genuinely one of the best retrospectives I have watched. Subbed

This is great, this series deserves more views! Keep at it!

Oh boy, I LOVE videos like this. I've subbed before I've even watched it. Please keep doing these if they're fun for you!

Great work. Always enjoy these. Looking fwd to ur future retrospectives

Amazing work, this will get hundreds of thousands of views in the long run!

Oh that was fascinating, especially as someone relatively new to the whole series.

This was incredibly well researched, written, and put together. I love the Final Fantasy franchise and have a soft spot for the original as it was my first FF. I very much enjoyed this and look forward to seeing the rest of the series.

It will always feel a little strange to me that the science fantasy imagining of the flying fortress would be stripped back somewhat, visually and audially, in the later renditions of this game to something more purely fantasy, given the later entries in the series leaning fully into it

Watching all three (so far), I think I know what I'm going to put on my channel when the arrive. The Pixel Remasters of 1 through 6. I can't wait! Loads of content here and very informative. Good job! Keep them coming!

24:57 I immediately recognized that from the back of the box of dawn of souls

This hands down the BEST FF1 retrospective I've ever seen! Well done! I subscribed so I don't miss the next one. I own a complete boxed FF1 for NES, but I'm kinda jealous of that Famicom one you showed. P.S. Marzgurl brought me here.

I like to think that the whole "You saved the princess, but the story isn't over," is a bit of a jab at Dragon Quest 1, where the "save the princess" is part of the story, and only ends up with the culmination at the end of the Princess being saved after you defeat the big boss.

Haven't watched much of this yet, but the presentation so far is fantastic. Hopefully the algorithm is kind to you! If it gets enough traction especially around a big release, it should get a ton more views. Congrats, and thanks for the content :)

Great video, thanks for your work.

Love retrospective videos and you're are great. One thing to point out is that you got the chaos shrine and final dungeon themes mixed up but doesn't change that I loved watching this and now want to replay these games again

Great video. Wild that you played this game for the first time before making the review, this was a fountain of knowledge, equivalent to someone who has known the game since its release date.

Final Fantasy

Wow- great job on this! Really brought me back to my childhood discovering FF on the NES and being blown away at the time. Can't wait to see the rest - especially "II" (IV) and "III" (VI) on SNES.

you have a great speaking voice, makes your video a very easy watch. and i really like how its all stock footage put together instead of someone's face telling us the story.

Congrats on the 7k subs!

What a well done video!

Awsome videos dude. I still have with me my Final Fantasy I USA version NES cartridge and working! Greetings from Monterrey, México.