Final Fantasy: Endless Nova

Preamble
Final Fantasy : Endless Nova was the first RM game I ever played, and I'm sure not the only one's.
Made by Delita Hyral X during the infancy of the RM scene, it proved itself as a cut above the rest during it's time and to this day still provides some straight up good Final Fantasy'ing.

Visual: 4/5
If you were to score the Mona Lisa today, could you penalize it for flaws that today's Paintshop Pro could easily fix? Likewise, the graphics pool available to a gamedev back then was significantly smaller. Original artists were few and far between, and even game rips were sparse; still being slowly added to the internet.
Keeping this in mind makes it easy to appreciate what Endless Nova did to create it's own identity. It's chock full of RTP, but the RTP is built upon with oodles of edits and customized material all following in the same vein. Main chars and NPCs alike are a peppered mixture of palette swaps and full-on edits, and a couple hundred unique battle animations await the player's eyes.

Sadly, not all is oldschool perfection. The mapping in particular is lacking even for it's time. Gameplay functionality is there, albeit with more ground to trek between points than necessary, but aesthetics range from the bare minimum to not present. It's a world solar system borne of big ideas but little detail.

Audio: 2.5/5
The matter of an era bereft of resources applies here too. Back then, mp3 was too large to frivolously use, and original midis were hard to come by; harder still to integrate. Thus VGmusic was the go-to for all of an indie project's needs. Final Fantasy : Endless Nova is no different.
That said, I can say the soundtrack works, but not much more than that.

What I can say is, midis don't stand the test of time very well. Different sound cards render in different ways, and modern ones may even leave some instruments out. What was once a beautiful melody may now simply annunciate a few bleeps. This happened with a few tracks...

Storyline: 2/5
The plot is a gumbo of gibberish.
Taking place in a solar system called Hell's Dome, the opening mission is to retrieve a stolen "Weapon Prototype" item, which forever remains as ominously non-descript as it sounds now. Two cases of amnesia are used as plot devices, several party members are there for no reason other than to fill out the roster, the primary antagonist's modus operandi is as old as Garland's, and FF7 characters are rehashed unapologetically.
Which actually makes it perfect as a Final Fantasy game!

But seriously, it isn't that the story is bad. It's just badly presented and loaded with filler. I suppose it does get you into the forest where you can fight enemies, find treasure, tailor raise your stats, steal tradeables, learn blue arts, absorb magic, et al. That's where all the cool stuff is anyway.
At least whenever it starts clumsily infodumping all at once, you can take a time out with some Last Starfighter at the arcade. Awww yeeaahh.



Gameplay: 4.5/5
This is one of those situations where the oldboy, Final Fantasy : Endless Nova, was implementing custom systems through the snow uphill both ways while everyone else was still in diapers. Stealing, absorbing magic, trading collectables, minigames; a lot of things that've come to be expected in a modern indie game were in their trailblazing infancy here. As such, there is some clunkiness to note and user-unfriendly interfaces to speak of (trading in particular).

All thrown in the pot, the game is still a lot of fun even today. Plot progression opens new areas at a reasonable pace, and you can always take a breather to do some collecting, minigaming, or treasure hunting (there's lots of it tucked away). With so much to do, there's never a dull moment. A perfect challenge for all the 100% completionists out there.

But alas, party formation and the blue magic curse! Ellana, the solar system's resident blue mage, will most certainly find herself in every player's main party for the sole purpose of completing her omnibus of critter magic. The same could be said for Ibis, our comedy relief-cum-thief. Most collectables are obtained by stealing from enemies because it's so much more efficient than killing and hoping for that 10-20% drop rate.
So despite there being seven recruitable party members, the average party will have three staple characters (can't forget our lead man, Deren) and one player preference.

Overall: 4.5/5
Ordinarily the score would average at 3.5, but Final Fantasy : Endless Nova benefits from a +1 Culture Bonus, kind of like in Civilization with temples and libraries built in the very early BCs. It's impact has been felt through a whole generation of RM devs and still remains an enduring and inspiring classic.

And with that, I leave you with a pinup girl to ogle.