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Do you like classic Final Fantasy? Do you wish said were more balanced and less obtuse?

If you answered yes to either or both of these questions, then Final Fantasy Restored is the answer.

I myself had never played the NES version because of how poorly it has aged, but FF Restored does much to modernize this classic and make it more palatable, with a wealth of optional patches that can be used to further customize the experience.

It also addresses glaring flaws related to class balancing that make single class teams or unusual/suboptimal setups not only viable, but actually fun to use, so it is a great base patch for challenge runs.

Besides having options directly tied to it, Restored is also compatible with a wide range of other mechanical and graphical modifications that complement it well, many of which are wholeheartedly recommended by me (I had compiled a list, but sadly I cannot include it in a review), but you are sure to find if you do a bit of searching on RHDN itself.

If you never played FF1 NES before or need to de-dust and freshen up this classic to be able to enjoy it again, this is the way to do it.

This ROM captures a lot of the functionality of Final Fantasy Origins: Final Fantasy 1. Some new music was added, updated sprites, the battle screen was overhauled and for the better. More characters can be used for names as well, I believe 6 over 4. The potion shop now has the ability to buy 10 at a time; which was a major game improvement. 2 early changes to the game do have a significant impact on the early grind.

Elfiem's weapon shop removed the silver sword and replaced it with a long sword.

The peninsula of power was removed. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's the peninsula where you can fight a random combination of Zombulls, frWolf, Giants, T-rex, and wyverns. This area is located near Pravoca. Personally, I miss having that, but that's my only complaint about the ROM, which is minor and most people don't know of it.

Spells, item names, and enemy names were updated, along with translations.

Some other improvements include: Poison doesn't change party formation. Armor and weapons have icons next to their names to represent armor or rings etc.

I'd say 9.5/10 due to the removal of the peninsula of power.

If I were to suggest additions: Music for Chaos fight, and a timer/reward system for the ship game. Maybe an option for showing magical affects on armor and items. Like pressing select over the gear to have a new screen display the stats etc.

An excellent experience. I wish there were a options to keep the original NPC dialogue and/or item/spell names, but overall this is the definitive way to play the original game.

There's a bug in Onrac in which one of the NPCs (looks like a wizard, by the submarine) has his post-water orb dialogue before defeating Kraken.

This hack might seem like it has it all: better RNG, better challenge, bugfixes, the b-button dash, it's an overall better version of Final Fantasy on the NES. That being said, there are some things added that take away some of the charm of the original, and the game still isn't where it needs to be.

First, the b-button dash. For towns and dungeons, this is fine, but it also applies to the world map. As far as I know, no 2D Final Fantasy game lets you run on the overworld, even in re-releases where they add the dash, so this makes getting around the world map easier than it should be. It also looks really silly.

Second, the removal of the Peninsula of Power. May I ask why? Not only is it an iconic part of the original game, but it's pretty much essential for cutting down on the gratuitous amount of grinding the game expects you to do. It's an aspect of the original game that's been kept for every re-release, because Square knows how helpful it is. It perplexes me why the maker of this hack decided to keep Garland's "knock you all down" line, but didn't keep the Peninsula of Power. I don't care if it's technically a glitch and an exploit: part of the game's legacy is missing here, so it takes away from what should be the definitive NES version. It's like if an SMB1 hack decided to patch out the infinite 1-up trick. It's soulless.

If this was going to be removed, I would've at least accepted the ship minigame reward being beefed up to what it is in Origins or Dawn of Souls, but that's not here either. All this means that you are now forced to grind, and grind, and grind, and grind for the cash you need to buy the game's infamously-expensive gear and spells.

Finally, here's probably the stupidest, most embarrassing change in this hack: your original battle menu options were "Fight, Magic, Drink, Item, and Run". Now your options are "Attack, Magic, Item, Equip, and Run". At first, I thought that meant you could now swap weapons and armor during battle. That'd be unnecessary, but kinda neat. But no, turns out you can't do that. They have the exact same functionality as in the original, only now it's more confusing. It was called "Drink" because you can only consume potions, antidotes or any other liquid items during battle. You can't use Gold Needles or anything like that, unlike what this implies. And it was called "Item" because some weapons and armor act as items that cast magic. You can't equip stuff during battle.

You might call this a nitpick, but I just can't get over how foolish this change is. The hacker obviously looked at Dawn of Souls's battle menu without realizing that game changes the entire battle menu mechanics, since Dawn of Souls DOES let you swap weapons and armor.

I also must point out the new music. Tracks composed by Nobuo Uematsu for the Wonderswan Color are converted to NSF by LeviathanMist. It's hard to explain, but these conversions clash with Uematsu's original work and don't quite match his style. Some of these tracks sound either really weak, like the boss themes, or ear-grating, like the church theme. Of course you can patch the new music out, but it's disappointing nonetheless.

This hack and Grond's hack add a lot of things, but they still don't actually fix the core issues of FF1 to begin with: the game is still too grindy, items are still too expensive, ineffective attacks are still a thing, and it's impossible to tell what weapons and armor are better than others, or whether your party members can even equip them, before you buy them. All of these make the NES version really difficult to go back to.

Is it the best FF1NES "improvement" hack? Maybe. The translation is certainly the best out there, and the changes aren't as drastic as Grond's hack. But if you want a good translation, more music, less grinding, all these flaws fixed AND better graphics with cutscenes? Get Dawn of Souls and apply the Vancian Magic patch by Kea. There isn't a "definitive" version of FF1 right now and I don't know if there ever will be, but if it's your first time, that would be the route I recommend.

This is the greatest hack of FF, and probably of any NES game. It fixes every bug, it uses full, proper names for every spell, monster, and item. It has better-translated dialog. It allows optional boss music and doubling the HP of all bosses. Playing it is a wonderful experience. All the nostalgia of the original, but without the annoying shortcomings like the bad names and bugged spells. I put it on my NES Classic to replace the pre-loaded version, and it's awesome. Just beat it. No doubt I will play it again eventually.

With old school rpgs, I'm pretty obsessive about getting a product very close to the original experience where everything works the way it should have originally. This version is leaps and bounds above other fan mods and the numerous official releases in this regard.

Only with FF Restored can we experience the original iconic look of the game, superior difficulty, and have a fully functioning game. The thing I appreciate most about Astralesper's work here is the modesty applied in making adjustments. While most fan mods go to wild extremes in making elements overpowered / dummied / overly easy or impossible, everything here is fine tuned subtly. The application of int's function is the best example. Mages were already good in the original so they didn't need a huge int based damage buff but they did feel progressively lacking in the game's final third. What we get here makes the mages more end game viable based on the brilliantly subtle spell accuracy adjustment applied.

Minor nitpicks: if we are ever gifted with a revision to this project, I would love to see an optional patch for using the original battle screen graphics and font style. Also, I would love an another option for adjusting the thief / ninja's accuracy growth per level from 2 to 3. This would finally make him better than the red mage in a measure other than running while still lagging the fighter due to lower strength.

Nevertheless, this mod gets my highest recommendation and I'll be continuing to play it once a year or so.

While the original was not my first Final Fantasy (I cut my FF teeth on the SNES Final Fantasy II), I did eventually try out the NES classic back in the mid 1990s. Perhaps it was my experience with the more advanced 16-bit game, but I was never quite as enthralled or as impressed with it as I thought that I should have been, even though I did play the game to completion.

Now I must wonder if the game's numerous design problems and bugs were an influencing factor. After loading up the modified version of the game I found myself engrossed in the task of seeing it through, even taking a break from the recently released Breath of the Wild to do so.

I remember the original game being frustratingly difficult at times, and now I suspect that the numerous bugged mechanics were to blame for that. While the game was still by no means easy, the challenge that the Restored mod added felt fair and even fun.

I used the optional fiend and final boss music patches and also the improved RNG patch; I recommend both (unless you are absolutely insistent upon having the sliding block puzzle).

The only real downside is the absence of the Peninsula of Power. While I understand its classification as a "bug" and thus its removal, I would have hoped that its intentional presence in subsequent official remakes would at least have warranted an option to re-add it for those who wished it. However, this is only a minor complaint for an otherwise outstanding work.

While newer versions released on other consoles is nice, there's a sense of nostalgia with the NES version. This hack fixes all the problems I had with the US release (ugly looking battle screen, not a real title screen, unneeded censorship, etc) and cleaned up the translation nicely. I love the B Button dash as well as the increased battle speed.

My only gripe with this is the font. I would have preferred something closer to the original within space constraints, plus the gray shadows make it hard to read sometimes. Also, it may be me, but I do notice that the characters miss a lot more often in battle then in the original, but that could be just me.

I do recommend this for anyone who wants to play the NES version of Final Fantasy as its intended.