overdrive's Final Fantasy Adventure review

Ha, I remember this game. I tried it out on a GB emulator and thought it was charming, as you say. That was years ago, but I think even then, your score/review would have been appropriate.

The Game Boy didn't have enough memory to handle a War and Peace-sized script, so the game winds up flowing almost as smoothly as my writing.

WIN

While I agree with everything highlighted in the review, I don't like how it's structured. You start by more or less arguing how it's far too superior to its remake, yet the last half of the review is mostly a negative slant.

I realize it's a decent game with a few annoying flaws, but I think your review would work better if you didn't spend so much time trying to contrast this to the remake.

Otherwise, having played through this game several times back in the day, I pretty much agree with everything you pointed out. However, I think you could've worked in the unique (at the time, anyway) level up system that lets you pick between strength, magic, will power, and annother attribute. Not sure if I have those right, but I thought letting you customize your own character was kind of cool and really handy because you could cater to your own playing style.

I see what you're saying Rand, but I also get why he structured the review that way. To me it reads like, wow Square used to make quaint fun--if flawed--RPG 'romps' and now they make bloated, self-important messes. Which didn't lead me to believe this game was great, just that simpler is better.

now they make bloated, self-important messes.

True that.

Although I'm skeptical the remake of Final Fantasy Adventure can be any worse than Dawn of Mana (Ironically part of the same series. Maybe Square just hates this series.) for the PS2.

I love how we're discussing OD's review in here and he hasn't shown up.

I've purchased the rights to all of OD's reviews for a six-pack of Natty Ice. Natty Ice! Direct further complaints/compliments toward me. Thanks.

-The owner of OD's reviews

WTF is natty ice?

1. Felix. You have to make a better offer than that. Natty Ice? I might give you the GameFAQ reviews that didn't make the cut to be moved over here (except for Captain Commando) for that, but not the ones I like! Oh, Marc, Natty Ice is the ice-beer version of Natural Light, which is one of our lovely cheap domestic pisswater beers.

2. I was just in shock and awe that people had so much to say about my review it took awhile for my heart to settle down so I could respond. And now I shall.

Rand, I'd say Marc essentially said what needs to be said as far as why I wrote the review how I did. FFA is a decent game that's not great. If you're a retro-game player and you haven't played this game, you're not missing out on some old-school sensational work of art. As the first Seiken Densetsu (Mana) game, it has that going for it as far as nostalgia goes, but I wouldn't call it an essential, must-play game for fans of retro stuff.

It is a reasonably fun game, though, and a big part of that is simply because you're essentially just playing it instead of having to sit through bloated story-telling followed by a dungeon here or there. When Square remade the game for the GBA (Sword of Mana), they did one really good thing in that they made the dungeons look good (as opposed to the FFA Zelda-style strings of identical square rooms). They also added roughly a billion side quests (many of which were along the lines of "find me this item and I'll give you that item") and what seems to be a 100,000-word manuscript. That was sort of the main point I was going with. As a simple GB game, FFA flows well and is pretty fun. As a convoluted GBA game, it's bloated and dull. I'll have to play all the way through Sword of Mana (I think I lost my patience around when going after Medusa) and review it sometime. I think my FFA review might read a bit more clearly as a companion piece to that potential Sword of Mana one after I skewer the crap out of it.

3. Thanks for mentioning the "flows as smooth as my writing" line, Marc. I was hoping someone would notice that! ;)

Well well well! Look who's here! :P

So Natty Ice, then, has got to be the worst name ever, for any product, ever.

Ha, I remember judging you in some competition and saying how you're the one of the Original Kings of Flow--one of the smoothest reviewers going--so I'm gonna take credit for you saying it now. =D

Just to chime in here, this is one of my favorite OD reviews. I have a personal connection to the game, as my ex loved the original and was always trying to get me to play it, and also because of a musical mishap that led to me loving the music from the game (I bought the orchestrated CD from some strange Japanese vendor who assured me it was for Secret of Mana. He wasn't aware of the fact that here, Secret of Mana was the SECOND Secret of Mana.)

My favorite thing about this review is that it captures that SE and other companies apparently think the best way to "remake" a game is to add tons of dialogue and emotion. It's why I'm not clamoring for an FF7 remake.