This 90 minutes russian visual novel is a diamond in the rough.

I was instantly charmed by the minimalist but stellar game presentation and by the mysterious "amnesic interrogator" premise. I was hooked to the point that the somewhat poor english translation barely hindered my enjoyment.

Don't get me wrong. It can be a dealbreaker for some, especially if you are a native speaker not used to some broken english. However, it's not horrible in the sense that you will always get the gist of what's going on even in the most esoteric of conversations.

Another downside to the game, is the fact that none of your choices except the very last one has any bearing on the ending. As you are playing as an interrogator, your choices will get you different informations, some choices are better if you want to get all the facts exposed but you are free to do as you please with no penalty. This is a bold choice by the dev, but fret not it is explained in both possible endings.

In the end, I was pleasantly surprised by the game. The pessimistic and dark undertones of its narrative hooked me. To its credits, I finished it in one sitting even though I played it pretty late and I was very tired.

I'm giving it a 6/10, up to a 7 if the dev eventually correct the translation and I'm looking forward to play their next game.

This game is a real classic and is like comfort food. It's the 3rd time I've completed it.

I've beaten it on the NES eons ago and again years later I've done it again on the PS1 Final Fantasy Origins compilation.

The pixel remaster version is fine with some QoL updates but it's not the definitive version because it lacks some bonus content from previous versions. PSP is the way to go if you are hardcore.

I don't recommend playing on the original hardware. There are several spells that are bugged and do not work, saving is a challenge and the difficulty can be brutally unfair.

The new orchestral arrangements from the pixel remaster are great. The graphics are good but certain monsters had better models in others versions imho.

The difficulty is toned down a lot. You get a lot more exp and gold from battles and things in shops cost less. You do not need to grind at all. I do not recommend you activate the cheat menu if you don't want to break the pacing because the game is easy enough as it is.

I highly recommend you switch the default font from "modern" to "classic" (same advice for FF1-FF6). The default font is ugly asf and do not fit.

The game is about 10-15 hours depending if you know what you are doing. It took me 12 to beat Chaos with everything else done. Some of the key items can be a bit cryptic to obtain without checking a guide.

The default party of Fighter, Thief, White Mage and Black Mage is a lot of fun to use and my favorite party. Every party config is doable though, but some will add a lot of challenge to your game.

FF1 is centered around physical attacks for doing most of the damage. Magic is more useful for bosses and for utility (healing, exiting dungeons).

Even if you use a full roster of physical classes, you get access to some items later in the game that you can use as spammable unlimited magic and you can also access some low level magic from certain classes upgrades late in the game.

If you decide to only use one magic user in your party, I highly recommend you choose the black mage. SABER, HASTE and TEMPER are must have spells for bosses. SABER and TEMPER are stackable. You can skip the White Mage if you hoard potions. Money is easy to get in this version so you could do it with minimal grind. You can beat the game easily before you reach lvl 50 btw (low 40 is reasonable).

Anyways, I had a blast playing FF1 again. It was cozy and chill this time; the only stressful/unexpected thing happened at the very end. It took me almost 3 hours to get the secret boss Warmech to appears. By this time my party was over leveled at 72. The mofo fleed ! Wtf lol. So yeah, I got the full bestiary achievement but technically I never got to beat Warmech the giant robot ♥♥♥♥♥ in this version because I'm not testing my bad RNG luck again.