Final Fantasy’s Pixel Remaster series is a modernistic and renewed take on the vintage version of the games. In point of fact, these games have been remastered several times already.
But now, the latest revision by Square Enix grants a way to relish and experience the first six games of the series in a single collection, removing the agonizing endeavor of attempting to sort through all the preceding remasters across multiple platforms by yourself.
The Final Fantasy series has been thriving since its release in 1987, and although newer games in the franchise look and sound quite new age, many game enthusiasts still assert that the earlier releases are the best.
Here’s our comparison between the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster and the original game on several fronts:
Reinvigorated Graphics
The most prominent difference between the original game and this remaster is the graphics update. Even though the original sprites are exemplary, the completely new graphics in Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster manage to pull off a refreshed look with vintage vibes.
To ensure this, Square Enix called upon Kazuko Shibuya, a pixel artist who worked on the original release, to direct and helm the remastering of the characters, ensuring these pixels breathed a new life into the original characters without sacrificing their originality.
The result is high definition and widescreen-compatible graphics, alongside the quintessential Square Enix pixel art, beautifully staying true to its source substance.
Enriched Music: Masterworks brushed up
Back in the ’80s, when the first Final Fantasy game was being developed on the Nintendo Entertainment System, melodist maestro Nobuo Uematsu was restricted by the system hardware Square Enix provided but still composed exceptional songs that would inspire gamers for generations to come.
Nearly three and a half decades later, Uematsu oversaw the full-scale brushing up of those masterpieces. The renewed music is a feather in the cap of the new collection and lives up to the incessant glister of Final Fantasy’s music.
Quick Save Privilege
The quaint Japanese RPGs can be a little unforgiving in making you pay in critical parts of the game when you don’t know what to expect. If you get into a dungeon and die, you may need to restart from a pretty old checkpoint.
However, with introducing an in-menu quicksave option, you can now save your progress anywhere in the Final Fantasy games! Meaning no more of taking long trips multiple times to reach that tough location in Final Fantasy III where you continuously flatline. This feature is a godsend!
Attack Redirection Feature
The first two games of the Final Fantasy series had awkward logistics that rendered many hits useless. If you picked two characters to hit the same enemy, and the first one managed to kill it, the second character would always clumsily swing and miss at the air.
With the Pixel Remaster series, you won’t experience any more wasted hit attempts, as it enacts attack redirection — an important gameplay technicality that allows characters who were originally chosen to attack a now-slain enemy to aim at another foe. Thereby, the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series make sure no one wastes a swing of their sword and look incredibly foolish while doing so.
The Luxury of Maps — Unavailable in Original Final Fantasy
Players on their 30th gameplay may know the Final Fantasy dungeons by heart, but if you are playing after a considerable stretch of time or if you are a first-timer, keep in mind that the Final Fantasy world is HUGE!
One of the most invaluable features is a map for a series with an in-game world as oversized as Final Fantasy. However, even the games like Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III don’t have the luxury of this feature. The introduction of a map in the Pixel Remaster series is considered the most treasured addition by many Final Fantasy fans. The top right corner of your screen will display a map of your current location, so you never get lost again.
Nevertheless, if you are an old-school gamer who prefers playing without a map, you can toggle off its display at any time.
Bad Fonts
Alongside all the great additions, the Pixel Remaster version of Final Fantasy has effortlessly managed to find a way to ruin the original games’ cherished font.
In fact, one of the first and biggest grievances the fans had about the Pixel Remaster was the font used in the new version. Selecting a fitting font is all-important for a game driven by a timeless story that doesn’t have voiceovers. Square Enix clearly didn’t get the memo, though.
The default font is really tiny, narrow, and weirdly “clean” compared to the rest of the visuals. This can be really jarring, especially when you’re used to a certain type of font, and even more so when you spend time playing games that barely use text, such as no minimum deposit casino games.
Resolved Coding Issues
Because of a little coding inconsistency in the original Final Fantasy games, players came across the northeast continent named Peninsula of Power early in the game.
The random encounter mechanism of the original games splits the world map into grids due to which players have their own journey and face random sets of monsters depending on where they travel to. This mechanism only makes you encounter the monsters whose difficulty level is comparable to your level. Still, the peninsula northeast of Pravoka that is home to some strong monsters randomly appeared too early in some playthroughs.
The Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster has fixed this, and to face tougher monsters, you will have to grind for level-ups the old-fashioned way.
Ability to Move Diagonally
Something you will notice rather promptly while playing Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster is the capability to move diagonally when in dungeons or traversing across the map. Throughout gaming history, most 2D role-playing games only provide you with the choice to move either vertically and horizontally. Previously re-released versions of Final Fantasy do not even support such movements.
If it seems like a quite simple change that should not make a big impact on how you play the game, you might be surprised to learn the benefits. If you are poisoned, you can move diagonally to reduce the number of steps you take to keep your health up a little longer. Gamers who play speed runners will especially find this addition useful, as they may be able to save a few precious seconds off their time moving diagonally.
Removal of the Final Fantasy III Penalty
Final Fantasy III was an exemplar in the game’s job system. Even though the first Final Fantasy allowed you to select a class for each of your characters when you start the game, Final Fantasy III was the first release in the series to enable gamers to switch their characters’ classes in the job system whenever they wanted.
However, while changing jobs was provided as an option, it came at a cost. To switch your character’s job, you needed to use capacity points as a penalty. That is no longer the case in the Pixel Remaster. You can feel free to swap the job classes of your characters whenever you want, without having to spend capacity points!
Another thing to note; a non-playable character called the “invisible woman of Cornelia” in Cornelia Castle that you could interact with but not see is removed from the Pixel Remaster series. Actually, a bug in her coding made the game put her in another room when you encountered her.
We don’t know whether to congratulate the developers for “fixing” this glitch or feel bummed that a significant figure is not in the revamped series. Minor shortcomings aside, the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster is certainly a work of art and worth your time!
