As the review title says, this is not really a Final Fantasy game - when Square decided to release it in America, they changed the name to cash in on the popularity of Final Fantasy. Now that that's out of the way, let us judge this not as a Final Fantasy, but as just another RPG.
You start your adventure as a young man, woman or thing. It is important to get straight what exactly the different options here are, to avoid frustration - fortunately, I used to own a physical copy of this game and also the instruction manual:
Races
Humans will pick up statistics relatively quickly, though luck will factor heavily in determining just how quickly. HP is gained randomly, but you can direct the development of other stats by using the appropriate equipment. If you want someone to gain strength, use weapons that base their damage off of strength: hammers, long swords and the like. For agility, the martial arts 'punch', bows and rapiers. Mana is the one biggest weakness of humans, but even that you can learn in time if you buy a lot of magic spells to practice with.
Mutants are similar to humans, only they learn up to four innate magical abilities. Not all of these are good, you may pick up a weakness to fire if I recall correctly. This does hamper their ability to equip a lot of items, since the game does not differentiate between inventory space and abilities - worse, their rate of growth is generally slower. At least they have no trouble working on Mana since they will almost always have a direct damage ability... almost. It is entirely possible for your mutant to lose a useful attack ability in exchange for something else.
Robots are unusual, they do not gain stats as they fight. Instead, whatever you equip to a robot directly impacts its stats. More on items later, but it is important to note that unlike humans, robots will recover weapon uses by staying at an inn... but they permanently reduce the current durability of any item equipped or unequipped by half.
Monsters are even more unusual. If left to their own devices, a monster will never improve - ever. Nor can they get better equipment. Where a monster does change and grow is when enemy monsters drop meat. I do not have a handy guide to point to, just remember that in general a monster gets stronger by eating the meat of strong monsters.
Items
Because it was brought up in the robot paragraph, let's talk about items before moving on. All non-armor items have a limited durability, and this is displayed to the right of the item. This includes shields. Every time you use an item, even if it is a weapon and you miss, the durability will go down by one. There is no way to repair items, so if you have something powerful you'd better save it and use replaceable equipment instead for normal fights. Abilities of all kinds will recover to full even if used up entirely, but items get worn out and destroyed. A very important thing to note: martial arts moves like Punch and Kick become more powerful as their durability goes down. Do not get rid of them just because they seem to do no damage at first.
Story
Okay, now we can get on with the story. You are the son/daughter/adopted thing of a man who vanishes one day to seek Magi. These are stones said to grant their bearers mysterious powers. You set out to follow him eventually, and are told to stop by your school to tell your teacher. He in turn informs you that you need to take along three of your classmates - bear in mind, classmate humans/mutants are not as well equipped as you are at first, and classmate monsters are weaker. As you search for your missing (possibly adoptive) father, you will find yourself enmeshed in the search for Magi and even the fate of the world.... multiple worlds, in fact. But that would be far too much to go into in a review. Just play the game!
As the review title says, this is not really a Final Fantasy game - when Square decided to release it in America, they changed the name to cash in on the popularity of Final Fantasy. Now that that's out of the way, let us judge this not as a Final Fantasy, but as just another RPG.
You start your adventure as a young man, woman or thing. It is important to get straight what exactly the different options here are, to avoid frustration - fortunately, I used to own a physical copy of this game and also the instruction manual:
Races
Humans will pick up statistics relatively quickly, though luck will factor heavily in determining just how quickly. HP is gained randomly, but you can direct the development of other stats by using the appropriate equipment. If you want someone to gain strength, use weapons that base their damage off of strength: hammers, long swords and the like. For agility, the martial arts 'punch', bows and rapiers. Mana is the one biggest weakness of humans, but even that you can learn in time if you buy a lot of magic spells to practice with.
Mutants are similar to humans, only they learn up to four innate magical abilities. Not all of these are good, you may pick up a weakness to fire if I recall correctly. This does hamper their ability to equip a lot of items, since the game does not differentiate between inventory space and abilities - worse, their rate of growth is generally slower. At least they have no trouble working on Mana since they will almost always have a direct damage ability... almost. It is entirely possible for your mutant to lose a useful attack ability in exchange for something else.
Robots are unusual, they do not gain stats as they fight. Instead, whatever you equip to a robot directly impacts its stats. More on items later, but it is important to note that unlike humans, robots will recover weapon uses by staying at an inn... but they permanently reduce the current durability of any item equipped or unequipped by half.
Monsters are even more unusual. If left to their own devices, a monster will never improve - ever. Nor can they get better equipment. Where a monster does change and grow is when enemy monsters drop meat. I do not have a handy guide to point to, just remember that in general a monster gets stronger by eating the meat of strong monsters.
Items
Because it was brought up in the robot paragraph, let's talk about items before moving on. All non-armor items have a limited durability, and this is displayed to the right of the item. This includes shields. Every time you use an item, even if it is a weapon and you miss, the durability will go down by one. There is no way to repair items, so if you have something powerful you'd better save it and use replaceable equipment instead for normal fights. Abilities of all kinds will recover to full even if used up entirely, but items get worn out and destroyed. A very important thing to note: martial arts moves like Punch and Kick become more powerful as their durability goes down. Do not get rid of them just because they seem to do no damage at first.
Story
Okay, now we can get on with the story. You are the son/daughter/adopted thing of a man who vanishes one day to seek Magi. These are stones said to grant their bearers mysterious powers. You set out to follow him eventually, and are told to stop by your school to tell your teacher. He in turn informs you that you need to take along three of your classmates - bear in mind, classmate humans/mutants are not as well equipped as you are at first, and classmate monsters are weaker. As you search for your missing (possibly adoptive) father, you will find yourself enmeshed in the search for Magi and even the fate of the world.... multiple worlds, in fact. But that would be far too much to go into in a review. Just play the game!
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