THE ENDGAME: Final Dungeons of the Final Fantasy Series Part I

Greetings all, ForceStealer here, over the next few weeks or so I’ll be going over the final dungeon of each FF and relaying my thoughts and impressions. For several of these I have save files right before them to refresh my memory of some of the feelings I had when I first entered them. I may also be getting people’s help for few dungeons I’m not as familiar with. Also, I’m pretty sure this goes without saying, but FFXI doesn’t count, so lets go!

Final Fantasy I: [Past] Chaos Shrine

Any stirring of feelings you get going to the Chaos Shrine, as well as anything else in FF1, takes a lot of involvement of your imagination. It has that cool little twist that it’s the first dungeon you ever went through but now you get to see it in the past in its glory. In the geographic center of the four fiends’ lairs, the shrine is where you must take out Chaos to bring an end to Garland’s time loop.

The music is serviceable, but again not quite as stirring as some of the later final dungeon tracks become. The difficulty is as inconsistent as the rest of the game (that is, certain battles are an absolute breeze, while others just a few steps away crush you and admonish you like the daring little child you are). Making you fight the Four Fiends again is a tad cheap but not something later Final Fantasies were above. Honestly, when you’re playing through this game, the biggest deal about this dungeon is it’s the most story you really get at one time. The object of FF1, after all, was more of an explorative affair than a sweeping plot anyway.

What? You want a minimap for that?

Admittedly, playing the rest of the games makes it a little difficult to give the first final dungeon a totally fair shake. But its not a particularly tough dungeon even by Final Fantasy I’s own standards – it is an endurance test however. It gets the job the done, but its mostly uphill from here.

Not that my opinion means anything, what do you guys think?

Next up, Pandaemonium!