Final Fantasy for Game Boy Advance
Final Fantasy was perhaps the game that cemented my love for the RPG genre. I got it when it first hit the shelves for the NES console, and limited as it was to one save game at a time, I played it and replayed it for two years without tiring of it. It is that good! Some will say that since its day, many more milestone RPGs have been created, and there are some aspects for which that's true. However, when I consider the sheer playability and re-playablility of any current or past RPG, the measuring stick I use is inexorably and unapologetically Final Fantasy.
Was it a game ahead of its time? I don't particularly think so. None of its features were thoroughly original, even the creation and promotion of characters (you could do that in Wizardry). However, the pacing of the game was almost flawlessly executed, though the Ice Cave was very challenging. The storyline didn't get in the way of exploration. Finding new items was exciting. The game played significantly different depending on your party. And the quest might take 20 to 30 hours to complete. I think that's one of the game's strong suits; it invites you to try different parties and strategies. And the characters are pre-generated and are not forced in and out of your party as the storyline develops, so you get to know each character as a strong protagonist. Essentially, the player is in charge of his experience of Final Fantasy.
And so, I had to play the new version on the Game Boy Advance system. I loved the facelift of my old favorite game, but the challenge was sorely lacking. Characters levelled much too quickly and characters gained far too many attacks early in the game; and then were capped at 8. A Ninja could gain his final attack at something like level 32!
These annoyances were the impetus for the "Mod of Balance" available at this site. I wanted to restore the difficulty of the NES version of the game to the GBA version, and make the characters more balanced and interesting in the meantime. If you feel as I do about Final Fantasy and want to enjoy the challenge of the NES version with all the modernized trappings of Dawn of Souls, download the Mod of Balance!
If you have any questions on the mod, or any suggestions for how to make this site better, feel free to contact me.
Mod of Balance— Info Pages
- Character Classes
- Experience Curve
- Weapon Listing
- Armor Listing
- Magic Listing
More Final Fantasy GBA content
- My FF1 GBA hacking notes
- I have shelved the FF1 Dawn of Souls "Hackster" project for the time being, as I have many other projects on the front burner right now. Sorry about that.
Copyright notice
The content in this portion of the website pertains to "software" known as "Final Fantasy" and "Final Fantasy Dawn of Souls", which is the property of Square Enix. The mod is completely unofficial, and was an amateur fan-made undertaking. I respect the intellectual property of Square Enix, and under no circumstances will I distribute the ROMs for either the NES or the GBA versions of Final Fantasy. The patch available for download is a derivative work and is completely my own. It is offered totally free of charge.