I decided to type this up to help out people with questions, and to help me by (hopefully) reducing the number of questions I am asked by email. So click a question below.

FF1 Gameplay Questions

Questions About My Site

General FF1 NES Questions

FF1 WSC Questions

Why do you hate Black Belts?!



FF1 Gameplay Questions

Q: When do my characters change their classes/jobs?

A: There is no set time. You must complete a certain optional quest, and then your characters will change class. You can complete this quest any time after you have the Airship. I won't give the details here, so as not to spoil the game for anyone, but if you want detailed instructions, check my walkthrough, Chapter 6.

Q: How do I finish the Canal? How do I wake the Elf Prince? Where is Matoya's Crystal? etc...

A: This is the longest and most complicated quest in the game. Here are the steps to complete, in order, after leaving Pravoka, to complete the Canal. This is a VERY short summary.

1. Go to the Marsh Cave and get the Crown.

2. Give the Crown to the King of the Northwest Castle. Get the Crystal from him.

3. Give the Crystal to Matoya. Get the Herb from her.

4. Give the Herb to the Elf Prince. Get the Mystic Key from him.

5. Take the Key in Castle Coneria. Get the TNT from a chest behind a locked door.

6. Give the TNT to Nerrick the Dwarf in the Dwarf Cave.

For a longer, much more detailed description, see my walkthrough, Chapter 3

Q: I can't get past xxxxx. I'm too weak, the boss/enemies are too hard. What should I do?

A: Any time you get stuck, all you need to do is fight some random battles for awhile and level up your party. Raising your levels also raises your HP, the amount of damage you do, the amount of magic you can use without resting, and all your other stats. It also brings in quite a deal of G, which you can use to upgrade your equipment. Levelling up is the key to doing well in FF1. Any time you're having problems, just level up and things will be easier.

Q: I'm stuck somewhere. Help?

A: Pretty much every question I can answer, I did already in my Walkthrough. You ought to read there before emailing me. Saves us both a little time.

Q: Why can't I learn WARP / EXIT?

A: You can't learn those until after class change, that is, until your Red / White / Black Mage becomes a Red / White / Black Wizard. You can still learn just about all the other level 5 and 6 spells as a Mage, so make sure you leave a slot open so you can get WARP / EXIT later, because they're essential spells.

Q: How do I save my game?

A: Stay at the Inn, or use a House, Cabin or Tent. That's the only way to save in FF1.

Q: How do I recover my magic?

A: Stay at an Inn or use a House. That'll recharge all your magic. (SEE ALSO the question below about using a House...)

Q: Why do I lose all my magic when I use a House?

A: Due to a slight bug in FF1, when you use a House, it saves your game, THEN restores your magic. So if you use a house, turn off the game, and restart, you'll find that you haven't recovered any magic. Whenever you use a House to recover MP, ALWAYS use a Tent right after. That'll save your game normally. Thanks to Robert Jones for pointing out that I had this backwards.

Q: Are there monsters I can't run from?

A: Yeah, bosses are impossible to run from. So are certain other monsters, especially monsters like the Wizards that are bosses at one point in the game. There are also monsters that're just really hard to run from, like those worms in the ToF.

Q: Where is the "secret staircase" mentioned in the instruction booklet?

A: In the FF1 instruction booklet, a "secret staircase" is mentioned, that is supposedly on the first floor of the Earth Cave. It's not a reference to the Hall of Giants, because the Hall is also mentioned in the book. I really have no idea what the book is talking about. As far as I know, there is no secret staircase. I can only assume that it is an error in the book, or it is something that was cut out of the game.

Q: Can I forget magic once I learn it?

A: No. Once you learn three spells, you can never learn the fourth. So pick your spells wisely. (In the WSC, they did add an option to forget spells. Handy. Can't do it in the NES version though.)

Q: Why doesn't LIFE/LIF2/SOFT work in battle?

A: They just don't. The programmers programmed it that way, for some reason. Too bad. (They work in battle in the WSC version though, if you enable the option to make them work.)

Q: What's the best party to take?

A: There is no best party. Take a party that's fun for you. If you're new to the game, F/?/WM/BM is a good party; fill in whatever you want for the 4th character.

Q: Where is the Masmune?

A: Second to the last floor in the Temple of Fiends. The floor with Tiamat on it. The floor right before Chaos. It's in the bottom-right corner of that floor. See here.

Q: Where is the TREX?

A: In the desert around the Mirage Tower. They're very rare, so keep fighting. Because of the way the NES reads the random encounter tables, if you fight 255 battles in a row without turning off / resetting your NES, you're 100% likely to find at least one TREX. So try that. : )

Q: Where is the IRON GOLEM?

A: On the second to the last floor of the Temple of Fiends. The floor with Tiamat on it. As with the TREX, they're very rare. 255 battles in a row and you'll definitely find one, though.

Questions about my site

Q: What's up with Fileplanet?

A: I'm required by my host to use Fileplanet for all my downloads. I'm happy to oblige, too, because Gamespy is as good a host as I could ever find. That means if you want downloads from my site, you have to use Fileplanet. As of the last time I checked (July 19, 2003), to use it, you have to sign up for a free account. When you try to download something, Fileplanet lists a bunch of PAID servers, for people who pay to use the service, and below that, it lists FREE servers. A lot of people freak out and assume that they HAVE to pay to use Fileplanet. You don't have to pay. Paying gets you some benefits like using the faster servers and not having to wait for an hour to get a download, but the free service is still free.

Q: Can I affiliate with you?

A: No. I get too many emails about this. So let me repeat that: No.

Q: Can I help with your site?

A: No. If I needed help, I'd have asked. I started this page myself in 1999, and everything on this site was made from scratch by me (unless otherwise noted, fanart and fanfics for example). That's the way I like it.

Q: Why don't you expand your site to include other FF's?!

A: First off, let me say that I love all FF's in the series. However, I don't like any of them as much as FF1. I made this site primarily because I couldn't find any good sites about FF1 at all, and I thought FF1 deserved a good web site. There is an abundance of FF4-10 sites out there, if you look hard enough. There are a lot of really big FF sites that cover FF4-10 in detail. There's no need for me to make a site covering those games, no matter how much I like them (and yes, I do love those games). As for FF2j and FF3j, I am not terribly familiar with those games. This is the other reason I made this site: I knew a lot about FF1, and I had good resources to compile lots of specific game information, like the charts and whatnot. I don't know anything at all about FF2j and FF3j. Any site I made about those games would be pretty crappy. The last reason is that I do not have the time to make any other sites for any other FF's. It took me almost two years to get to this point with my site right now, and I still have more FF1 stuff to add to the site.

Q: Your site sucks, get more downloads!

A: Yes, I have gotten quite a few emails saying nothing but that. My answer is that there is a lot more to my site than downloads. And there aren't many downloads I could put up that deal with FF1, other than the ROM and the stuff I already have.

Q: Why don't you play some midi music in the background on your site?

A: I find midi music on web pages to be generally very cheesy, and very unnecessary. It's annoying, and it has a tendancy to crash web browsers and slow down load times considerably.

Q: How did you make your web site?

A: I coded it all by hand, using a plain text editor (Notepad, which comes with Windows, or a neat program called TextPad, or lately, JEdit and vim). The graphics, I made in Paint Shop Pro 6/7. The screenshots come from Nesticle, WSCamp, Cygne, or some other emulator. I made all the graphics myself.

Q: Can you help me make my site?

A: No. I don't have the time. I hardly have time to run my site.

Q: You don't have my favorite party in your Parties section. Will you add it?

A: Probably not. There are a lot of good parties missing from my Parties section. It's impossible for me to write a review of them all. Please don't email me about parties. I get way too many emails about party suggestions.

Q: How did you make all those graphics and sprites and maps?

A: I used the great program Paint Shop Pro 6 / 7 to make all my graphics. That, and the handy F9 snapshot-taking function of Nesticle, are what I used to make all my graphics and maps. Cygne has a similar feature which I used to make the WSC sprites. It took many hours, but I think it was worth it.

Q: Can I link to your site?

A: Sure. It's not like I could stop you anyways.

Q: Will you link to my site?

A: No.

Q: Can I use information from your site on my site / project?

A: Yes. Graphics, charts, whatever, use it all in whatever way you want. It's not like I own any of that stuff anyways, it all belongs to Squaresoft. And spreading information about FF1 is the important thing to me, not hoarding information myself.

I do ask four things of you though. Firstly, please don't rip off my entire layout for your own site. I'd rather not have tons of clones of my site all over the internet. Be creative. Secondly, please don't take my walkthrough. There's nothing worse than having 100 different incomplete (incorrect) versions of a walkthrough circulating the internet. I make corrections fairly often, and I don't want inaccurate versions of it floating around. Plus I put a lot of work into that thing. And thirdly, please don't direct-link to images and files on my site. There's no need to leech Gamespy's bandwidth for your own gain. If you want to use my graphics or something, upload them to your own server. And fourthly, it'd be really nice of you to put a link to my site somewhere to give me credit for making all this junk. Other than that, take it all. No need to email me for permission, just consider this permission right here.

Q: Your monster chart lists all the wrong EXPs for all the monsters, you goon!

A: The EXPs listed for the monsters are the total EXP per monster. That EXP is divided by the number of characters you have alive at the moment, and each of your living characters gets that much. Typically you'll have 4 guys alive, so divide the EXP in my chart by 4 to get what the game will give you. Note that because the game works like this, if you have one living character and three dead ones, the one who's alive will gain EXP four times faster than normal.

Q: I emailed you and you never responded. Jerk!

A: I'm impatient and lazy. So many emails go unanswered. I do read them all though. Luckily, I have nothing all that important to say, so there shouldn't be too many reasons to email me anyways. :).

General FF1 NES Questions

Q: Where can I buy Final Fantasy for the NES?

A: Nintendo games haven't been produced for a very long time. So you have only a couple options. Your best chance of finding an NES cart is online, at a website like EBay. There are almost always a couple copies of FF1 for sale on EBay, sometimes for as little as $10. I know someone who bought a copy for $2, even. That's for a used copy, of course. There are also often brand new sealed-in-the-original-packaging copies of FF1 for sale on EBay, too, but those are probably good only if you're interested in buying it as a collector's item. And they're obviously a whole lot more expensive than a used copy. Other than that, flea markets or garage sales are a good place to find FF1. The NES is old; lots of people clean their houses, find 50 boxes of NES carts they haven't played for years, and decide to sell them all for $1 apiece. If you're really lucky, you might find a copy of FF1 out there somewhere. As a last resort, ask friends if they have a copy. Offer to buy it for $5 or so. There are a lot of people out there who don't realize how wonderful FF1 is and would foolishly sell their copy to you, I bet.

Q: What came with the original FF1 NES cart?

A: The original FF1 cart came in a black box, with a picture of an orb and a crossed axe and sword on the front. Inside was the cart itself, an instruction booklet with a black cover, and two posters. The posters contained a large map of the world, a chart with all the enemies' pictures with their stats, a chart of all the weapons and armor with their stats, and a bunch of maps of the first couple dungeons. I think that's all that came with it. Of course, it's been quite awhile since I bought my copy. I don't even know where my instruction booklets or posters are any more.

Q: Do you sell NES carts? Can I buy FF1 off of you?

A: No I don't, and no you can't. I only own one NES cart, and it's not for sale, because I like it. I'm not a salesman, I just run a web site.

FF1 Remakes Questions

Q: Remakes?

A: FF1 was originally released for the NES back around 1990. At the end of 2000 a remake of FF1 was released in Japan for the WSC, with updated graphics and sound and gameplay tweaks, but it was ONLY in Japanese, and never released in English anywhere. In 2003 a remake of FF1, mostly a port of the WSC version, was released for the Playstation, in America and in Japan. It was called Final Fantasy Origins, and it includes FF1 and FF2j (never released in America, ever) on one CD. It's spiffy.

Q: What does WSC stand for?

A: WSC stands for WonderSwan Color.

Q: What the heck is a WonderSwan Color?

A: The WonderSwan is a handheld, portable game system, similar to a Gameboy. The original WonderSwan was only released in Japan; it was black-and-white. The newer WonderSwan Color is the next generation of WonderSwan, you could say; it's in full color, and a bit better in other regards. The WonderSwan Color is/was also only for sale in Japan. FF1 was remade for the WonderSwan Color. As of this time, the WSC is pretty much dead. It never did well.

Q: What systems are the remakes released on?

A: FF1 WSC was released on the WSC. The WSC is the name of the system. Namely, Wonderswan Color. Final Fantasy Origins was released for the Sony Playstation. That's PSX, as in PSOne, as in Playstation ONE, the old console. Not PS2, Playstation2, the new console.

Q: Are the remakes for sale in America? Or in Europe? Or anywhere other than Japan?

A: FF1 WSC never left Japan. Final Fantasy Origins is for sale in America, Canada, and Europe, among other places.

Q: How much do the remakes cost?

A: Square released a special edition package that includes a WonderSwan Color system, specially colored to match FF1, and an FF1 cart. That's the one I bought. It cost me $99. Unfortunately, due to limited supply and high demand, the price went way up, almost immediately. I haven't seen it for less than $150 since January 2001. I've seen it as high as $250, even. By now, it's probably some kind of collector's item. I don't really know. Final Fantasy Origins, on the other hand, is about $30. :)

Q: Where can I buy FF1 WSC?

A: There are a couple places online that sell Japanese imports. That's where you'll have the best luck finding FF1 WSC. Upstate Games is one place. Or try to find a used copy on EBay.

Q: Where can I buy FF Origins?

A: Anywhere.

Q: So what's new in the remakes?

A: Read this.

Q: Why do you hate Black Belts?!

OK. First of all, let's compare the BB to a Fighter. The BB has horrible HP advancement. It's not as bad as a Mage of course, but also not as good as a Fighter. In my game with a Knight and Master, both level 28, my Knight has 602 HP, the Master has 522. Now maybe by some miracle the BB will pass my Fighter up at level 50 or something, but at that point it doesn't even matter, since the game is easily beatable at level 28.

How about defense. Obviously the Fighter wins in this category. The Fighter gets the best armor in the game. The BB gets bracelets, which are the worst armor in the game. The BB is little better than a Mage. His stats help him a little, but he's still pretty weak. In my game, the BB, in the second row, takes a consistent beating from every encounter, while my Fighter, in the FRONT row (meaning he takes more hits), happily stands and takes it with a smile. Maybe if you put the BB in the back row, he'd do OK. And he does get a little better as the game goes on and his stats build. But the Fighter gets even MORE better, what with the Dragon Armor his vast array of helmets and shields.

Now the real question. The BB is known for his physical attack power. If his attack was very much better than a Fighter's that might make up for his other huge weaknesses. But his attack power is NOT better than a Fighter's until very late in the game. So late that it's irrelevant. The Fighter with a Silver Sword does far better than a BB with his fists, at Elfland. The BB starts catching up after that, but if you get the Ice Sword from the CoO or Volcano as soon as possible, the Fighter leaps way ahead again. After that, with the Defense, Sun Sword and Excalbur, the Fighter stays way ahead for the rest of the game, until sometime after level 30 where the BB catches up again. At that point, the Fighter can kill anything in the game in one hit, except bosses, and that's all you need. Admittedly, if you level up to 50, the BB will finally end up the Fighter. I've heard many times, "A Black Belt can kill Chaos in one hit!!" Well a Fighter with Masmune at level 30 or so can kill him in three or four. That's more than enough power. In any case, if you beat the game at level 30 or so, the BB will be barely equal to the Fighter in terms of attack power. Certainly not ahead, by any means.

Conclusion: BB sucks in every way compared to a Fighter. A BB is a crippled Fighter, plain and simple. Now let's compare him to Mages. Mages serve a few very specific purposes. First of all, they hurt multiple enemies at once. Even the strongest level 50 BB or Fighter will take 9 rounds to kill 9 monsters just by attacking physically. Black and Red Mages lend support by wiping out multiple monsters at once. It saves time, and HP, since the longer you stand there swinging your fists, the more damage you take. Once you get the magic-casting items, Mages become a little less valuable, but not by much. Magic-casting items only cast FIR2, LIT2, etc; not the more powerful spells needed for the more powerful monsters late in the game. And why would you want to waste a bunch of turns having your fighting characters use those items in battle? Mages are around so that fighters don't have to. Secondly, Mages lend support to fighters. FAST effectively doubles the damage a fighter does. Protective magics help fighters (and everyone) last long enough to do enough damage to kill stuff. Support magic isn't essential to doing well, but it certainly helps. Finally, Mages heal. Healing is something you need from the first time you battle an Imp till the trek through the ToF. Heal Potions just don't cut it later in the game, and they're expensive anyways. The Heal Staff / Helmets are OK, but you need to use them a ton of times to equal one CUR3 or CUR4. The cost of heal potions is almost crippling in the beginning of the game, if that's all you have, and late in the game only being able to carry 99 of them at once means very limited healing ability.

The point: comparing Black Belts and Mages is like comparing apples and schnauzers. It doesn't make sense. They serve different purposes. The only differene is, a Mage serves its purpose very well in the game; a BB tries to serve a purpose, and fails miserably at it.

All that's left is the Thief. I will start with an admission. Thieves suck too, compared with the other classes (besides BB). They're basically crippled Fighters just like Black Belts. However, they serve a tiny secondary purpose that makes them worth it, in my eyes. They run well. In my games, I use RUN a whole lot. In the beginning you need to run often from annoying low-level enemies like Wolves. It's just a time saver; why stand there wasting time with Wolves when you could be killing Ogres? Also, enemies that poison you are very annoying. Running before they can is a good way to save PUREs and time. Same goes with large groups of undead that can paralyze you. Sometimes running as quickly as possible from those battles is all that stands between life and a slow death. Then there are Sorcerers. Don't think I need to say much there; you NEED to run from them. Thieves are the best runners in the game, in my experience. I've almost never had a Thief fail to run on his first attempt to do so, from enemies that allow you to run.

Secondly, Thieves get Black Magic after class change. By the time you get it, it's not all that great, but it's still useful. FAST is always good. If you have two characters to FAST, and only one mage, you can waste two turns casting it, or you can cast it in one turn by using a Mage and a Ninja. That's helpful versus strong bosses, and versus Warmech for example, where every single round matters. FIR2, LIT2, and ICE2 are also useful until the very end of the game. Not as good as FIR3, LIT3 or ICE3 of course, but once your mage runs out of higher-level magic, it's good to have some backup.

Now those advantages aren't very good. All characters can RUN. A Mage is almost as good at running as the Thief. And the magic the Ninja gets doesn't mean as much once you get the magic-casting Mage Staff, Black Shirt, etc. But I like the Thief anyways. I find the balance good when a Thief is paired with a Fighter. If the Thief were purely a fighting character, he'd be totally worthless, but getting magic and running well give him a little bit of use. It's understandable if someone didn't like them though; the advantages of using a Thief wouldn't be as good as the advantages of using another Fighter. Sometimes it's good for some variety though. A BB on the other hand IS purely a fighting character, and not a good one at that. So BB's, in a way, ARE worse than Thieves; Thieves serve a tiny purpose, whereas BB's serve none. If you won't swallow that argument, put the Thief and BB on equal level at the very bottom of the bucket. It's probably valid to do so.

The conclusion: Black Belts are worse than Fighters and Mages, and at best tied with Thieves for WORST CHARACTER EVER.

As if all of that wasn't bad enough, let's look at some of the other ways the BB sucks. The Fighter gets White Magic. Not that great, really, since CURE and CUR2 are pretty weak by the time the Fighter gets them. But they do help in places like the ToF where you need to squeeze every little drop of healing out of your characters to make it to Chaos with full HP. In fact the Black Belt is the ONLY character who never gets to use any magic. Secondly, and this is purely my opinion, but finding armor and weapons in dungeons is exciting. This is a fantasy game, after all. Finding a legendary sword or a one-of-a-kind piece of armor that protects you from magic is part of what makes fantasy fantasy. The BB gets no good armor, ever. After a little while, a Black Belt has to start using his fists, and keep using them the entire rest of the game. Incredibly boring, if you ask me. Using a BB in battle in itself is incredibly boring. "Hold down the A button" is your only strategy. That, and resurrect him when he gets stomped by weak parties of monsters, which will happen frequently. The Black Belt is also the only character who gets absolutely nothing from the class change. His sprite changes, and that's it, period. No magic, no new equipment able to be equipped... nothing. That's pathetic.

Now the BB does have two advantages that other classes don't. First of all, in the NES version, not having to equip much weapons or armor frees up his equipment slots to hold magic-casting items like the Heal Staff. That's nice, if you plan to use the BB as nothing but an item-using Mage-wannabe. It's hardly reason enough to take a character that sucks so badly otherwise. Secondly, not having to buy weapons or armor makes him very cheap. However, I contend that even a party of four Fighters or four Mages is EASILY affordable, even if you equip them with the best weapons and armor in the game at all times. Most of the time, with my favorite party of F/Th/WM/BM, I end up with millions of extra G by the end of the game. There are two parts where money is a factor in any way: Elfland, and Melmond. That's it. The stuff in Elfland is affordable after you're done leveling up, which you almost certainly need to to brave the Marsh Cave. Or you can just wait until after the Marsh Cave; you get tens of thousands of G worth of treasure from all the locked chests. In Melmond, the Steel Armor is very expensive, yes. But it's not all that necessary to get it anyways. Even without it, the Fighter has better defense than a BB of comparable level. The Iron Armor is good enough if you don't feel like saving up the G for Steel. And the Fighter gets Ice /Flame Armor shortly after Melmond in any case, which is even better than Steel Armor, and free. After that, every single weapon or piece of armor worth using is found in treasure chests, except the ProRing (which a BB needs too) and the Gold Bracelet, which is VERY expensive (and still not that good), and is something a Fighter for example doesn't even need.

My final argument is again a matter of opinion: Black Belts are ugly. Before class change, dressed in powder-blue sweat pants, or whatever those things are, they look like toddlers. After class change, they don't even get to wear a belt! I guess they forget their martial arts training or have their Black Belt license revoked or something. Wouldn't surprise me.