Continue the Fantasy with Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II for the iPhone
A platform without a Final Fantasy game is very rare indeed, and with that in mind, a port of Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II on the iPhone comes as no surprise.
These versions of the classic games have its’ own ups and downs. Control-wise, the game is leaning towards a more positive note. It utilizes the virtual directional pad quite nicely since you are limited to a four-direction movement anyway. The system shines the most in battles though, wading through menus by repeatedly pressing down or up is replaced by a simplified icon tapping system.
Choose an action from menu items such as Fight, Magic or Item and touch the respective icon to have your characters execute the command instantly. The item and equipment menus use the same system so it eliminates the need to keep pressing down just to get to the 50th item on the list. Another advantage of this game is that there are no reported slowdowns even for first generation iPhone users.
Problems that are specific to the iPhone version however are plentiful. There is no accelerometer support so aside from the mentioned menu improvements, ease of use is whittled down once you have some wires connected or if for some reason tapping is hindered by something.
An accelerometer that allows for different screen orientations may have been nice. Also, the in-game fonts are tiny. There is a huge room for improvement considering the vast difference in screen size from FF and FFII’s console predecessors. Regarding the layout, some text should have been moved to allow for more visibility.
Considering the number of design and ease of use issues with the iPhone version, the game looks to have been lazily ported to extend game sales. The price is also quite hefty for a game that is also available in other consoles. Costing around 6.50 EUR, it may be better to secure a copy of these two games on other platforms if you can.
View more information about the Final Fantasy iPhone games at Joystiq.
