Marsh cave was the reality check. Very shortly into the game. And the teacher for the rest of the game, and how the dungeons would treat you. It just threw you in the deep end after giving you a soft ball of a first dungeon. And I liked that it did. With repeat plays you can make it not as crushing by knowing the exact route insuring the minimum amount of steps needed to proceed. But that first play through of it as a youngster was truly a huge task to overcome.

I remember being 8 years old, being on the VERY LIST TILE of the ice cave before the exit, hit a random encounter, it was a GrPEDE...never fought one before, but it cannot be that hard, right? And there is only one! It wiped me, and it was already something like my 50th attempt trying to get that floater outside of the dungeon. 30 years later, this is still the most frustrated I have ever been playing a video game. Also, you forgot to mention arguably the dungeon's strongest enemy; the MAGE can just wipe parties before you even have a chance to act.

Another thing that boosts the Sea Shrine in my eyes: unlike every other dungeon, it doesn’t require a journey to get to as it’s accessible from a town. This means you don’t need a cabin or house to save your game before and after completion.

Great list, I agree with more or less all of the choices but my heart still wants to put the Ice Cave at the bottom just because Sorcerors and Mages instakilling you and making you redo the long canoe trip is probably the most annoying thing that can happen in FF1

This video randomly popped up in my recommendations and I just wanted to thank you for going with the original game and graphics. Marsh Cave is definitely legendary! So many runs end there. Even in the Pixel Remaster with almost all of the game’s challenge removed, the Marsh Cave still doesn’t pull its punches if you go in at low levels.

without watching the video beyond the intro, automatically get a like for the 8-bit theater panel

Yep, that darn Marsh Cave. Oh, I hated that so much as a kid. I was young and didn't understand the concept of grinding and just didn't understand what it was that I was supposed to do as I got my butt kicked over and over again. It was many years later I learned, grind, grind, grind, you think you're ready go grind another level or two and then maybe you should proceed.

Marsh Cave is such an obnoxious early difficulty spike. It's a stain on my otherwise favourite FF game and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people never played past it. I love the character implications of Titan's Tunnel as well: the Titan blocks your path, but does not attack you. You're not given the option of attacking the Titan. You absolutely must negotiate, because you're the good guys.

“Remember: we’re gonna fight that Titan.” I hope hee either added to the pixel remaster updates as an optional boss or some brilliant hacker out there just makes it happen.

Marsh cave was my favorite dungeon. I always use a tent before entering and do the top section and exit to use another tent then tackle the bottom part which is fun but very difficult.

I've always been a little disappointed in the Axes in FF1 if you fiddle around with FFRandomizer's weaponizer sometimes it turns the Xcaliber into AxeCal. I was thinking that maybe the rat tail was a reference to the year of the rat. but 1987 was the year of the rabbit.

The "wizards" are just tanks! But water-element, so LIT is a good option. A better translation is Piscodemon, which is what I think they became in the remake(s). Poison doesn't make it harder to flee if you are poisoned. But thanks to some shoddy programming, if the character 2 spaces lower is under any status effect, you have a harder time running. So TREE is asleep? ONE can't run. Weird. I'd argue that Astos is not the real first boss - Lich is. That's the first one that you don't need to target - the game just assumes you're targeting the 1 enemy. Astos and Garland make you press that extra button. Great video, I like most of the rankings. Although the Sea Shrine is cool to me, at least. Thanks!

"Almost everything you encounter will take a pound of flesh." is such a good line.

What a great list idea!!!

Very fun game! Getting hype to play Final Fantasy Renaissance I like the NES graphics more than the Pixel remaster graphics.

I learned a lot about this game! Did you know the Dark status is bugged? It doesn't actually do anything in the NES Version. Same with the special swords like the Coral Sword, Dragon Sword, Were Swords, etc. none of them actually work! Their special stats don't do anything, apparently. And spells like SABR also don't do anything. I was mind blown and saddened to find out that! I tried so hard to make use of these things on the NES only to find it doesn't do anything!! Crazy!

The last cave could also look a bit scrappy and dry reusing old stuff in order to save on the limited cartridge space available at the time. Not sure tho

The sky castle doesn't have the best weapon... the Masamune is the best weapon in the game, and every class can use it including the white mage. It's in the final area, after the Tiamat. Found it on my 3rd playthrough of the game back in the mid 90s. I remember reading 8-bit theater when I was in HS in 2002.

I have PTSD after Marsh Cave

Against wizards, use lit spells (never ice/fire/slep/bane/brak/stun) and spells that improve evade/absorb (60 atk x2)

Poison is the most ANNOYING debuff in the game, not just for the health drain, but that it rearranges the party order EVERY... SINGLE... TIME...

Sea Shrine loot is mid? The Opal Bracelet is the best armor for every class who isn’t the Knight, and since you’re running two, one is wearing the Opal Armor. Not to mention is has a ribbon. Meanwhile the Sky Fortress has no one’s best armor, and only the best weapon for Ninjas.

The floating castle artwork was done dirty in the subsequent remakes. The whole point was you were supposed to hear about it and realize it was not a literal castle, but rather a euphemism for what was actually a SPACE STATION, hence why all the chests look futuristic and why there were teleporters to switch floors. The art style in later games took the castle in the clouds aesthetic too literally and lost that bit of appeal.

How about ranking FF game vehicles like the ships, canoes, snowmobile, airships and Chocobos based off when you get them, how useful etc. For example, Cid's Airship in FF3 is stupid cuz it's gone so quick. No reason to even have it, you know?

Mindflayers and their insta kill ☹️

They developers were probably streaching the limits of the 144 KB cartridge there likely wasn't room for another tile or Music set for the temple of the Fiends, the best we could hope for was a pallete swap. Also Squaresoft was pretty small, especially back in 1987; they likely could afford the bigger cartridge. Dragon Quest 3 was 256 KB and release about two month later. Final Fantasy II is much bigger and Final Fantasy III came on a 326 KB Cartridge

I think the best dungeons are long, hard,vask for resourceanagement and preparation, and give better rewards from exploration than from grinding the enemy combat encounters.

Kary is weak to mute, hold, slep, slow (don't use ice,fire,lit,bane, brak)

Check out Final Fantasy Renaissance, you can fight Titan :)

I hate the ice cave, that goes to F bottom of the list. Why? From what I can recall from my solo white mage play that dungeon killed me the most. Everything else was... eh okay.

Someone told me Tiamat is a she 15:40 so should we be referring to Tiamat as a she/her? I am starting to get confused

Ice Cave was sooooo mean to me. It's sheer luck to make it in and out.

Thanks for doing the NES Version btw. Everyone is soooooo obsessed with the Pixel Remaster or the GBA versions

well designed game lol

Axes are trash (hit%/32 -> # of hits) because they have low hit % compared to swords (silver in particular)

This game was pretty easy. I don't remember wiping in any dungeon

Yeah, there's a reason I don't play the NES version of this game and it's mostly because the dungeons are too far away from town and you can't save on the world map.