When I first heard about Final Fantasy Legends, I wasn’t at Tokyo Game Show. I was on the train. There was a little billboard for the game, which sort of blew my mind. I’m sure that sort of thing is normal for citizens of Tokyo, but I’m still getting used to seeing advertising for cell phone games in public places.
As for the game, it looks a lot like Final Fantasy 4: The After. It’s SNES-era Final Fantasy sprite work on an oblong screen, with some frame rate issues depending on how powerful your phone is. From a gameplay perspective, it’s old-school Final Fantasy. You start this off as a teenage-looking boy, walking through the woods. Then some man jumps out of the bushes at you, and before you can say “discrete encounter”, you get into a standard turn-based Final Fantasy 4-style battle. Exchange a few blows, and then a cute girl shows up, and the three of you form a traveling party. From there, it’s off to the over-world, where you get in more fights (mostly with bees) and head off to public attractions such as the local castle and its ajoining towns.
If you’re not burnt of retro Final Fantasy yet, you could do a lot worse than Final Fantasy Legends, especially if you’re into the job system stuff. The game is said to have it in droves. Lets hope this one makes it outside of Japan in some form or another.
