The original was a progenitor to some of the RPG elements that are common place today or used to a greater effect in other franchises later – live action combat rather than turn-based or the ATB-gauge style combat; setting up AI commands for your colleagues during combat (which the Final Fantasy franchise used extensively under the "Gambit System" for Final Fantasy IX).
The main story centers around the goal to restore Mana to the world and prevent its' death… your team is going to complete the quest to save the world against not only the people who would see you fail, the legion of powerful enemies standing in your way, and as the story progresses the spectre of destroying an alternate dimension that has the exact same problems that your world does. The story while told simply, shows a great detail of depth and the characters all work to bring a level of charm that is not always found in your typical RPG characters. Be prepared for your typical level of intrigue, back-stabbing, lying, and deception that you can only find in a JRPG. The side-moments with the teammates told in a series of "sketches" are some of the best examples of fully-developed character writing that you will experience; rather than just having your characters only dialogue during high points, they will now chatter amongst themselves even about the banalities of life or whatever. You will get the feeling that you are travelling with personalities, not just shallow character studies.
The in-game combat is pretty decent – you'll end up macro-ing a few power moves to your controller for your character, and then set up basic combat rules for your party members (so that they will fight and support you to your preferences). Due to the "free-for-all" nature of the combat, you'll quickly find that position and co-ordination of attacks is just if not more important than attacking your enemies in the correct order. The battlefield is 3-dimensional (although you see the battle from a side-perspective) however, your character moves in a straight line with respect to the enemy that they are targeting. So while you are moving in on a specific enemy, you can be leaving yourself up to be flanked or attacked from the side if you focus on an enemy too far away. It will definitely take some getting used to, especially if you're used to modern RPGs.
Now to the tough question: if you own the originals, is it worth picking up this collection?
Short answer: no. Long drawn out answer: only if you are so desperate for replaying the game that buying a new copy is more time effective than digging out your old equipment or you have an emotional attachment that a few extras are worth the price of the disk… go for it. After re-playing the game on the PS3 I really didn't find any significant difference visually other than I thought some of the black lines on the edges of the character designs have been removed and the colours a little better blended. Other than that, I felt like I was playing a port of a GameCube and a Wii game on my PS3.
As an interesting piece of gaming history, I recommend half of the title; or if someone is desperate for a good RPG fix it's worth a pick up.
- Tazman
The Good:
- One of the better JRPGs to come out in the last 15 years
- Interesting early adopter of combining RPG and action elements
The Bad:
- Not every game needs an HD Re-master, especially when the visuals don't particularly support it
Score: 7.0 / 10
