Part 1: Part One: Falling Into a Hole

Part One: Falling Into a Hole

Before we get started, the game shows an opening before anything else. That's not my video, since it's technically the opening of the PSP port of this same game, but it's the same video. Same music and everything, too.


After the opening, you get a white-on-black version of the game's title.


Then it goes to full colour and adds in the warrior art. It's the same guy who was on the Famicom box art, as far as I can tell.

At the title screen, the game also plays its version of the series standby prelude music:



While the logo shows, there's a little story on the bottom screen. Each part of it has a different background, but some of them make it hard to read, so I'll be transcribing the text below each of them.


The Gulgan thus prophesied: "The earthquake was only the beginning.


The great tremors that swallowed the crystals, the light of our world, only to spawn monsters from the depths of the scarred land,


are nothing but harbingers of what has yet to come.


Something is coming...fathomless, ominous, and full of sorrow... But hope is not yet lost.


That's the end of the story, so let's start this up.


This is the first screen of a new game. A light shining in the darkness.


A light that vomits people right at ya.


Whoever it is that was falling, they're not ground pizza, so I guess they're okay.


If a bit worse for wear.


What were you doing that you missed a person-sized hole in the ground?


And now we get a chance to rename the kid. The default is Luneth.


But goons voted to name him Sephy, so that's what we're going with here. At 14, he's pretty much exactly the right age to have been named after a game character by his horrible nerd parents, too.



Once he dusts himself off, Sephy decides to take a look around.


He heads around this corner, where...


BAM! Goblin!


This is the first battle of the game, and I think it's on rails of a sort. You can see the menu at the bottom. All fairly standard commands on the first page. Attack is a physical attack, Magic is used to cast spells, Guard reduces the damage you take that round, Item uses items. Nothing special there.


Scrolling down shows off the other three commands. Equipment lets you change your equipment, Rear switches the character to the back row (it's Front if you're already there), and Run Away makes your character start chain smoking.


Here we have a basic damage display. Sephy smacked a goblin for 7 damage. You can see the hit counter over Sephy's head, there. More hits means more damage, and that number can be increased in a few ways, which I'll go over as we get there.


This is what I meant about the battle being on rails. I've had to play this portion a few times recently, and I've never seen this hit not be critical.


The goblins do hit back, so this battle isn't completely one-sided. They're not very strong, and they only take one hit each to kill, so it's not a problem.



A couple more rounds of traded blows, and I win the fight. Enemies drop gil (cash money) and EXP (experience points).


Looks like the fight winded our hero a little. I suppose monsters probably aren't something a kid like him sees every day.


Probably because it's a cave at the bottom of a hole that's full of monsters? That's just a guess.


After that little scene, I get control! As a general rule, the top screen is just empty black, so I won't be showing it off unless something happens up there.


The first thing I do is zoom in on the kid making a sassy pose. You can zoom the screen by hitting the L button in the field. It's useful in some situations, but you'll probably be generally better off with the wider field of vision.


Next, I hit up the menu. Let's check out our situation, shall we?



Jack shit in the inventory! Not even a single potion or mysterious pendant. This is bullshit. This game is bullshit.


Sephy also doesn't know any spells, but that's expected of a first-level RPG character.


At least he brought a knife and a vest with him on his adventure. More equipment than some heroes get.


And now, our stats!

Stats are pretty basic in this game. They're also all tied to your character class and level, rather than varying between characters. Let me break it down:

Strength is how hard a character hits. That's it, really, it's just used in attack damage calculation.
Agility is how fast a character is. It's used for determining turn order, hit rate, and the number of hits in an attack.
Vitality is how resilient a character is. It affects how much health you get from healing magic and how much HP you gain at level up. HP is the only stat that doesn't change when you switch jobs, which makes a high Vitality that much more important.
Intellect determines how strong your offensive magic is, like the magical version of Strength.
Mind determines how strong your healing magic is, like the healing magical version of Strength.


Carrying on, I also set the game to auto-run because there's no way I'm walking around at this game's slow walk speed. I don't have all day.

While we're in this cave, have the cave music:




Look at these spooky bones I found! Are these goblin bones?


Over here to the right is...absolutely nothing! I'm just having some fun.



Further into the cave, I found a shield and a Potion. Now I can defend myself and heal some damage.


At the end of this passage is this rock. I have no idea how he knows it is a special rock, but I'll just roll with it.


Zooming in on the rock shows that it sparkles. That means it's a hidden switch!





Hitting the rock switch makes the nearby wall sink into the ground, opening up a passage. Now, who built that? Fuckin' goblins? I don't think so.


On my way to walk ten feet to the right, I get into another fight, and at the end of this one, Sephy gains a job level. Job levels affect a bunch of things; number of hits, damage dealt, critical chance, and ability effectiveness. If you get your job level up to 99, you can also get a special class-specific item. It is very rare to get a job up to level 99 in regular play.


Past the wall, I find a shiny new Longsword.


Remember that shield I picked up earlier? I could equip it now for a 2-point increase to defense (and immunity to some status ailments).


Instead, though, I equip the longsword in one hand and the knife in the other for a 10-point increase to attack. Nothing in here is a threat, anyway.


Even though it's a critical, you can see how much dual-wielding adds to my damage. Not only do I get a second hit, but each hit is worth more. As long as I land both strikes, I can one-shot any regular enemy in this cave.


Speaking of enemies, I find a pair of new ones upstairs. The one on the left is a Carbuncle, and the blue wispy thing on the right is a Blue Wisp.


I kill them both handily. Originally, I whiffed a couple of attacks and that caused me to gain a job level. I figured I wouldn't do the same when I had to come back for the rename, but it still happened. Since my accuracy was shit, my health is low, too.


So I pop this chest for an Antarctic Wind. This is a battle item that deals a small amount of ice damage to one target. It'll be very handy in a little while.


Originally, my health was at 9 here, so I had to use a Potion. This image is a little before that, because I had to actually press a button to sort my inventory. I've been spoilt by other RPGs, and I'm not used to this intense workload.


Over to the right, I find another Potion.


If you were desperate, you can use this to compare the damage between one weapon and two. Carbuncles are a little tougher than Goblins, but you still get the picture.


After I kill that enemy, I gain a level, too.


It only changes my HP and MP. HP gains are somewhat randomised, but it's not a big difference right now (it could be about 2 points higher). Everything else is on strict job-based advancement.


As I wander through the cave, I find a fourth enemy type, the Eye Fang. They hit a little bit harder than goblins, but they're still nothing to worry about.


Once I'm done with them (and with picking up a Potion and an Antarctic Wind from chests), I come over to this nice-looking spring.


Sephy gets there after a panning shot of the water.

: A wellspring... What mystifying colors...



Wellsprings are a free heal. If I really wanted to, I could grind out a few levels fighting the mooks in this cave, but I don't, so let's get a move on.


Over to the other side of the cave, where I find stairs leading to a door! I'm beginning to think this cave isn't entirely natural. Hmm...


On the other side of the door, the architecture changes entirely. This is definitely not natural.


After a couple of steps, the game takes over.



The kid takes a gander at his new environs, and then...



Monster attack!


Monster turtle!

This is the Land Turtle, the first "boss" of the game. It's nothing much to worry about, even if you don't do any grinding or anything. It might be a bad idea to come into this fight with really low health, but I think that goes without saying.




The Land Turtle isn't weak to ice, per se, but it takes more damage from the hit, so I chuck my Antarctic Wind collection at it. The turtle has 111 HP, and each Wind takes off about 40.


He hits harder than the other enemies, but it's still not enough to stop a 14-year-old with two sharp things.


And after a couple more hits, I turn his face inside out.

This is a thing that happens as monsters fade away in this game - random parts of their anatomy disappear.


Pretty rich, for a turtle. I also pick up a level and a job level for beating the boss. Not too shabby, eh?




Sephy takes a second to catch his breath after dealing with that fearsome opponent.


And then the top screen starts talking to him! About time something happened up there!


Nothing is shown to us yet, of course, but Sephy is a little freaked out at hearing voices all of a sudden.

: Warrior from the land of darkness... You have been chosen as the bringer of hope.


After the little exchange, he takes a couple of steps forward, and we're treated to actually being able to see the crystal.

: Darkness is threatening to engulf the world... When light is lost, the equilibrium will be no more.
: Wh-what are you talking about?

Yeah, you stupid magic rock! Be straight with me!

: There are others who share your destiny. You must seek them out. Once you find them, I will bestow upon you our last light...our last hope.

Great idea. Where should I start?

: Now, go!

No? Not even a hint? Alright, then.


Sephy tries to protest this rock's cryptic nonsense, but it just hits him with some magic. Jerk.


Pretty nice field.


Bam! Child outta nowhere!

: ... ......



: What was that...? Light? Darkness? Our last hope? What was that all about?

No clue, kid, but I think you're about to find out.


The crystal warped us onto the world map. There's one really important thing you can do on the world map, but first:


Stats! Don't worry, I won't be doing this every level, but you can see that our stats still haven't changed outside of HP and MP. You can also see that the amount of EXP to the next level is increasing pretty quickly.


Anyway, the important thing you can do on the world map is save. The only place to save is on the world map. This isn't so bad right now, but it gets shitty later on.


Since I have the chance, I save the game! Next time, we'll start our quest to find other people!