PIX3LED # 3 FINAL FANTASY
This was one of the most misunderstood titles in the early NES days by my experience. When it was first covered in Nintendo Power, I was really turned off by the game - I did not have a good reason why. I suppose that the biggest thing that bothered me was that this game was displacing my favorite games on the Nintendo Power top 30. I remember being furious when I was sent the Strategy Guide instead of a regular issue of Nintendo Power that I’d been expecting. Granted, I was like 8 at the time, so these were sufficient reasons to hate a game i’d never even played.
Little did I know, that once I HAD played it, I would be completely sucked into the world of this final fantasy.
Square wasn’t doing well at the time of Final Fantasy. Legend has it that now-famous producer Hironobu Sakaguchi was on the way out the door, and had one last ditch effort to come up with a game that would make Squaresoft rich. It was his “Final Fantasy” to produce the tale of four Light Warriors bent on saving the world from Chaos. It made a splash in Japan in an uncrowded RPG market, and two years later was destined for the States, backed by Nintendo’s juggernaut distribution channels (not to mention article after article in Nintendo Power and a companion NP strategy guide). - http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/ff1/
The first Final Fantasy is still probably my favorite in the series for nostalgia’s sake. The magic, the weapons, the cool art [for the time] and the strategy all made this title stand out from anything I’d ever played. So once I rented this from the local video store, I wound up back at the same counter every week coughing up more money to rent the same cart that held my save file. After 4 weeks of rentals and $20 of weekly allowance, the clerk at the store allowed me to purchase the game for $5 more. Elated I brought my prize home - only to have my mom scold me for bringing home a tool of the occult. You see, at that time, D&D, Heavy Metal and now video games were the most popular scapegoats for luring youth over to the dark side. Anyway, I’d convinced my Mom to allow me to keep the game for the remainder of the “rental” [which she did not know was now owned] and went about my day. Weeks later, I came clean - explained that I owned the game - hoping for mercy and tolerance in exchange for my honesty. I didn’t get it - instead I was forced to return the game to the store.
SO, having returned the game made me want to play it even more. Years later, I did return the game to my collection and still admire all of the things that attracted me to it years prior. Of all the characters, I think that I liked the little black mage the best, so I couldn’t resist adding the mage to the PIX3LED gallery.
Hope you enjoy the prints below.
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