The Four Light Warriors Shall Come….

(As a note of disclosure, I intend to replay Final Fantasy I and II via the Playstation One “Anthologies” re-release).

Ah yes, what arrangement of talents do I select to comprise my party for the long journey that lies ahead? In case you are wondering what I am referring to, I am referring to the character-select screen where the player is presented the ability to hand-pick the class of each character that is to make up his party of four as well as to name each of those characters.

I have started and re-started the game a few times, experimenting with different permutations for my starting team; finally, though, I think I have a solid foot-hold with my party initialization, electing to go with a Warrior (skillful with attacks), a Red Mage (skilled in both “white” [healing] as well as “black” [combative] magic), a White Mage (specializing in “white” magic) and Black Mage (specializing in “black” magic).  So far as nomenclature is concerned, I figured that I would draw upon the great men and women of science with my warrior as Godel (and unfortunately an umlaut was not selectable amongst the alphabet of symbols at my disposal, so “Godel,” with an English “o,” it is), Newton, Curie (for Madame Curie, just to disambiguate amongst the couple, as my White Mage is a female character) and Euclid (my Black Mage).

My party so far has been met with much hope and expectation, as prophecy has foretold that “four warriors of light shall come”—and that we are those warriors-- according to His Majesty who was in much distress when we visited him due to his daughter having been kidnapped and held in a fortress up north by the mad knight Garland.  It should also be noted that each of us in my party holds a special crystal endowed with some sort of special and mystic significance as we were each shown beside such a shining artifact when introduced by His Majesty as the fateful four of whom legend had foretold.

Amidst the beginning of my game-playing experience with this first Final Fantasy I am thoroughly enjoying the game’s aesthetic and am especially impressed at how well the game’s characters are articulated in its 2D, sprite-based realm. I am also impressed by how well the various tutorials interspersed throughout the game’s opening village of Cornelia are able to acquaint one with the gameplay mechanics.  The townsfolk are plenty helpful in explaining inventory basics as well as the magic system.

Now for a bit of grinding, as my various restarts weren’t just due to a desire for team reformation but were also necessitated by the quick demise of my party on multiple occasions due to venturing out into that great wilderness of random battle encounters and save-point scarcity before I was properly leveled up.