From: bdwest@lims02.lerc.nasa.gov (ALIS)
Subject: RPG review cont.
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: NASA Lewis Research Center
Date: 31 Dec 1992 12:10 EST  

Scale:

A - great, the best
B - good but not great
C - average/typical
D - bearly tolerable
F - Hated it

Things rated:

Graphics - colors, size, glicker, animation, clarity, variety of monsters,
	background
Sound - variety, enjoyability
Manuel - clarity, descriptiveness, helpfulness, errors
theme/story - story flow, explanation scenes, intro of new characters,
	ability to chose more than one route of progress.
Lenght of game - very long, long, medium, short, too short
level of difficulty - hard, medium, easy: maze difficulty, die alot 
Control of battle - control over the actions taking place during battle
Outstanding/Unique features - explained
View - overhead, 3-d, combination

Final Fantasy

Graphics - C

Clarity is good and variety of monsters is good and there's no flicker BUT.
There is no monster animation and character animation is limited. Can only 
see lead character in walk about mode (I like seeing all my characters as 
much a possible) Size is small could have been bigger.  

Sound - C-

a bit repeative but tolerable

 Manuel - B+

2 foldout sheets boths sides full and in color were warrented.
Includes a map of the world, complete list of monsters their stenghts 
and weakness, some of their special attacks,  Ave. hit points dished out
and needed to defeat.  Complete armor and weapons list and who can equip
but no prices and some of this stuff is very expensive. You do however find 
alot of weapons and some armour. A little hard to tell what weapons are 
more powerful without arming and using them.  

Some Dugeon/Maze maps. 

Manuel itself has complete list of all magic spells available and who can 
cast what when.  What it doesn't tell you is the price of magic which is 
horriblly high. AND you can only purchase 4 of the 5 magic spells per group 
available to you.  You can't trade either once you purchase your 4 your 
stuck with those 4 for that group. 

In general its descriptive and helpful until a little after you defeat the
second boss then your on your own.

theme/story - story flow ok, explanation scenes ok nothing spectacular.
No intro of new characters, you must choose your set of characters at the 
start and you can only change your group once near the very beginning when 
you don't know that much. No room for changing the route to progress, must 
stick with given progression.

Lenght of game - long

Haven't finished this one yet but I have put in a good amount of time.

Level of Difficulty - medium to hard.  Your players get killed off alot in 
certain dugeons and you can't warp out. You either have to shut off the 
machine and start at your last save location or hope you can get your 
remaining character(s) out.  This can be very frustating at times because 
you have go through the same dugeon many times to complete it
or spend alot of time character building.  Right now I'm stuck at the Ice
Cave, I'll probably have to build my characters up 2 more levels
which takes time, lots of time.  Mazes can be quite complex in that you
have to go through a certain route in the maze to get to the back of 1
room and then jump through a hole to get to where you really need to be.

Control of battle - B

Have control over who does what to whom.

Outstanding/Unique features - none I can think of

Things that ticked me off - Lack of a Life potion, if your white magic person 
gets killed or you don't have a white magic spell caster your SOL in maze.
Lack of warping out of maze considering no life potion.  Can't use soft 
potion (turn characters turned into stone back to flesh) during battle.
Lose health quickly if you walk around poisoned.  If your lead character 
gets poisoned he automatically gets swithed with the last person in line 
that not poisoned.  This is usually your weakest character, you can cure 
the person and then change the order back but its really annoying.
Lack of female characters.  There all male (even though the white mage 
looks rather girlish).  The extremely weak attack of the magic users except 
when they cast magic .  The small number of times your spellcasters can 
cast. The weak defense of the magic users.  If if weren't for the fact that 
they are very valuable when fighting undeads and boss monsters and for life 
magic I would start the game over with all fighters and warriors.
I think there is only 1 save spot so you lose your previous game if 
you decide to try a different set of characters or you don't ever save and 
leave your game on all weekend which means if you die your SOL and you will 
die at least once.

View - overhead

Next up - Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar and Dungeon Magic
Newsgroups: rec.games.video