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Title: Final Fantasy Adventure
Author:Sunsoft
Rom Player: Nothing Entered
Reviewer: Tawna Evans
Synopsis: When you see the title, Final Fantasy, what comes to mind? Do you visualize an RPG game with turn-based battles and menus to control battle commands? If so, then you will find this title highly misleading. Final Fantasy Adventure has more in common with adventure games that look like Zelda than RPGs like Final Fantasy. In Final Fantasy Adventure, a young man wanders around the place attacking enemies and dodging them with the same manner that Links does in a Zelda game. The hero in this game fights with an arsenal of weaponry and uses a vast assortment of items and spells. It's still a pretty fun game, but the play-control is a little off. At first, you might accidentally walk a little too far, and bumping into enemies, but after a while, you get used to it.
Another not-so-great aspect of this game is the manner with which you speak to people. You do so by walking up to them. The text runs across the screen pretty slowly, and there isn't an option to cancel the rest of it from appearing. I wish Final Fantasy Adventure had that option, because sometimes I find myself repeatedly bumping into people while trying to move around them. Seeing the same speech repeatedly when it isn't warranted isn't the most entertaining thing in the world to deal with.
Aside from that, the adventure element of the game keeps me hooked. There are various places to explore, and you cannot reach certain areas of the game until you accomplish this task, or that task. According to the story, you play as the last of the Gemma knights, whose mission is to protect the Mana Tree. This tree is the source of life and grants enormous power to whoever touches it. If someone evil touches it, the tree becomes evil, which taints the entire land, making it evil. The only way to end the vicious cycle would be to destroy the tree. The women of the Mana Tribe become seeds of the Mana Tree. Once a Mana Tree dies, someone else takes its place, becoming another Mana Tree. According to this game, the Mana Tribe is a dying breed, and so the duty of the Gemma knights must not fail.
The Super Nintendo game called the Secret of Mana borrows numerous elements from Final Fantasy Adventure. Many of the enemies in this game appear in the Secret of Mana, plus the Mana Tribe is the focus of the story in the Secret of Mana. Final Fantasy Adventure more clearly explains the role of the Mana Tribe and the Gemma knights, but the play-control in this game is awful in comparison to the control of the Secret of Mana. In the Secret of Mana, Emperor Vandole seeks to take control of Mana. In Final Fantasy Adventure, Emperor Vandole brought destruction to the land a generation ago. It looks as though the Secret of Mana serves as a prequel to Final Fantasy Adventure, though the coherency between the two games feels pretty awkward. There are no sprite child or Mana beasts flying through the air in Final Fantasy Adventure. Plus, Mana is destroyed (turned into snow) in the Secret of Mana. In Final Fantasy adventure, Mana still exists, but it is dying out. I wonder what would happen once the last member of the Mana Tribe dies? Will all life come to an end? Or would it simply be the end of humanity's ability to control magic?
Oh yeah... I almost forgot about the music. I think that some aspects of the music in Final Fantasy Adventure is way better than that of the Super NES game Secret of Mana. At least, the music isn't as juvenile. You can also hear the same song of riding on a chokobo that gets played when you ride a chokobo in the Super NES game Final Fantasy III. That's pretty impressive for a Game Boy game.
Best Cheats: Nothing Entered
Game Play: 6
Graphics: 5
Music/Sound: 8
Originality: 3
Overall Rating: 6
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