Now when I say slightly enhanced I mean slightly, the first Final Fantasy (enter joke about oxymoron here) looks more like a 16 bit game rather than the original 8 bit game that game out for the NES. However, the graphics still look dated, even for a PlayStation title. But even with that being said, the first Final Fantasy has never looked so good. The battle backgrounds have life and color to them; while the character and monster models look relatively the same, and unfortunately without any extra animations to spice up the battles a bit; spell effects, damage effects also remain largely unchanged. And again, there are really no real changes to the overhead view world map as well. Final Fantasy II looks very similar to the first FF. With simple animations, spell effects and character models, you can see that this version of Final Fantasy II is the true sequel to the first incarnation of Final Fantasy that came out for the NES so many years ago.

Both Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II are traditional RPGs. Meaning, both have turn-based combat systems, a lot of exploration, and are story driven, linear games. The major differences between the two titles are how you get your party and how your party levels up during the game. In the first Final Fantasy you get to create your party of four from a list of six character types. Warrior, thief, monk, red mage, white mage, and black mage complete the list of character classes in Final Fantasy. Of course each class has its strengths and weaknesses. For example, the warrior class is the most powerful fighter in the game but has no magic, while the red mage can fight fairly well and can use both healing magic and battle magic. Now the way that you level in Final Fantasy is quite simple, you defeat monsters and receive experience for doing so. Once your characters have accumulated enough experience points, they will graduate to the next level. Now what that means for the characters of Final Fantasy is they become more proficient at what their class does best. In this system a black mage is going to get better at casting battle magic, while a warrior is going to get better at fighting, and so on.

Now Final Fantasy II is a little different in these two areas. Your party is already predetermined for you, but, you do get to name them. However, not all is lost; there is still a lot of customization in FFII. The characters in FFII develop from the events that happen in combat. Actions like attacking increases your strength attribute, while using black magic increases your intelligence rating. However, increasing your attributes doesn’t come exactly for free. Some attributes have a counter-attribute that is affected when it increases. The attribute, strength for example, directly affects the intelligence attribute; decreasing your ability to use black magic, while increasing your ability to fight better. Weapons also have a proficiency rating in Final Fantasy II, which works pretty much the same as your attribute ratings; it’s simple, the more you use a weapon or an attribute the better you get at using it.

If you can get pass the obvious dated graphics then you will be in for a serious treat. For people that has never played a Final Fantasy game from the NES days or even the SNES days will quickly realize how brutal the games of old can be. With no save points in dungeons, and no pity for you if your party happens to wander into the wrong area of the map; people might find themselves quickly restarting their game in the easy mode that Square-Enix kindly added to this version of Final Fantasy I & II. However with that being said, Final Fantasy Origins does almost everything you would want from a classic, traditional RPG; really the only thing that Origins doesn’t do is disappoint.