5:23 The place where the hilt and blade meet is narrower on the first one, the middle of the hilt is fatter on the second one, the third one is longer in Japan, and the hilt on the final one was redrawn with longer pointy bits on either side.
Would love if original concept of Final Fantasy 2 would be revealed to masses. Game about four factions - Two heirs to a kingdom, an evil empire and a princess of monsters. And your player is a third heir to a kingdom that would choose your side between them. Original Final Fantasy 2 concept is wild and epic, would love if more people knew about it.
On the Sword sprites I can help. The left most one, the guard is widened by 1 pixel on the top and bottom removing pixels to thin out the blade base. The Falchion (going from right to peft here) has 1 pixel changed to a lighter grey to add shine. On the next one, the blade tip has a pixel removed to make it more profiles. Basically it’s 1 pixel smaller at the very tip. Last one has an entirely different guard.
@@TheReturnersHideout If you're able to see those "Magic Eye" images that used to be popular, you can use the same trick to spot differences in side-by-side images.
I kinda like the triangles in the Tiamat dungeon over the pentagrams. They seem like they fit what's basically a space ship a lot better than generic pentagrams.
That was then the White Mage re-appeared. His eyes were bloodshot and he handed me the VHS tape. 'The Lost Episode of Final Fantasy', it read blood red, scraggly Comic Sans font. I was scared.
Its kinda crazy how common religious censorship was on the NES. Wizardry series too has it a lot, with Bishop becoming Wizard, Priest being Cleric, amd the like.
So many changes, and they seem fairly arbitrary to me; this is supposed to be a fantasy setting, there's no need to get super strict with rules and stuff; give us what the developers intended to give us!
The wizardry stuff is funny because the Japanese, original NES version, was a port of an English computer game and a good localization.. and then when translated to English again, got censored.
America in the 80s was going through a confusing time in regards to religion and games (look up the D&D satanism panic). Nintendo decided to avoid that nonsense entirely - and it was probably a good thing.
Even though FF1 is a D&D fangame, the reason why Beholder is such a big deal is that its one of the few monsters invented by the people at TSR instead of being adapted from mythology and pulp culture, and FF1's American release was right during the heavy litigation era right after 2E dropped where post-Gary TSR was really trying to reign in control of the D&D identity. Had FF1 came over 4 year earlier or 2 years later, TSR would not have sued to change the sprite. Same thing happened with the name Dragon Quest over with Enix.
@@bluishwolf TSR thought they owned the name mind flayer, but actually didn't, and knew they did not own the idea of squid-faced monster men. That's why they're called Wizard and Sorcerer in the first localization. By the time of FF4's localization, it'd become common knowledge that TSR didn't own the name. It's also why WotC started pushing the name Illithid for mind flayers after buying TSR.
What I find odd is that they left the name Beholder in Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, a game specifically made for the western market. The enemy design is a little bit different but it's still an eye monster with tentacles.
@@Dug88 Beholder is too generic of a name, you can't own it outside of very specific contexts. Change the eye monster's look enough and you can call it a beholder.
I would definitely be interested in a video of a prototype playthrough. Regarding one of the removed items - that statue looks kinda like a Bhuddist statue you see either near temples or on roadsides. It may have been used to indicate churches or graveyards. One of the commonly seen ones depicts the patron saint of travellers (I can't remember his name as I'm not well versed in Bhuddism), so it may have been used as a save point?
Can do! So, that statue is part of the Menu graphics, that's what is throwing me off about it. Maybe it was to indicate KO'd party members at some point?? Hmm..
This is a longshot, but perhaps the strange grey man was considered for the menu if you didn't have the party member yet - whether you chose to do a solo run or more likely, if you were to recruit them throughout early game towns. Or just to test the proportions for menu-only sprites that they never created during development - see FF2's menu portrait sprites. If only we had another clue... @@TheReturnersHideout
Castle of Ordeal! ;D Sorry, I just love the use of that word. I always say "Mount Ordeals" with such excitement whenever I reach it in 4. I think I'm going to start saying "Castle of Ordeal" now, too, and I play through FF1 quite a bit these days, so maybe that will cheer me up a bit.
My favorite Easter egg is the frozen fairy on the first Ice Cave floor, which you can only see with a map editor. 4:53 So much was plagiarized from AD&D, it's amazing that they thought that little sprite of all things was going too far.
@@TheReturnersHideout It's the fairy sprite from the town of Gaia, but in the gray color palette of the Ice Cave. It's on floor B1, at coordinates 2F, 1E. It's deep inside the wall, so you'll never see it playing the game, but if you could somehow tunnel through the wall and talk to it, you would get OXYALE. If you get FF1Hackster for Windows and the game rom, you'll be able to find it easily.
@@TheReturnersHideout It's the fairy sprite from the town of Gaia, but with the gray color palette of the Ice Cave. It's Sprite 0 of Floor B1, at the coordinates 2F, 1E, which is deep behind the wall, so you'll never even see it playing the game. But if you could somehow tunnel through the wall and talk to it, I think you would get OXYALE! The program FF1Hackster for Windows had a map editor where you could see it easily.
5:25 - The changes are so minute, they're _literally_ pixels of difference. Sword 1: Two white pixels removed from the base of the blade. Sword 2: the top-left pixel of the gray square at the base of the blade is a lighter gray. Sword 3: Two white pixels removed from the pint of the blade, making it look more like a saber than a straight blade. Sword 4: Two pixels on the crossguard moved down by 1 pixel, and one pixel added on the other side, making the crossguard wider.
The redone US FF1 beholder looks more like the aliens from the Simpsons 😅. I love hearing about development changes and differences. Really shows you work that went into the game that you would never have known. It's such an iterative process.
I've had steady content coming out since the first week of December and I'm so excited to make content again - I might have to take a brief pause after the rest of my FF videos get released, but it won't be for anywhere close to as long! Thanks so much for sticking around!
I recently did a playthrough, using my theory that a team of 4 Red Mages/Wizards would be overpowered. I was correct. After loading up on Lv 3 and 4 magic and the silver swords, we became nearly unstoppable. Later in the game, we took down KRAKEN in one turn by casting LIT3 ×4 times. Fair warning though: You're overpowered right up until the final battle, but if you grind an extra few levels, you should be fine.
The first sword is narrower right before the cross guard in the American version and it could be my imagination but the cross guard of the last sword looks a bit wider than its Japanese version.
Cool find man. I went to that website and have a question. What does "US left over" mean in the translation section? Does it mean what wasn't translated and spelled differently or sentence structure was different in the beta from the official? Those first few ones like the ?‥ threw me off. If only we could get the Final Fantasy 4 for the NES if it exists, the unreleased FF5 US version for the SNES if it even exists and super early FF7 that looked like it was using the SNES graphics of FF6 with only one single screenshot to show it existed.
Thank you! I’m not 100% sure about the left over part, I skipped it because I didn’t understand it lol. I’d definitely like to cover the other things you mentioned though, it’s all insanely interesting to me!
Legendary games / Legendary creator series on NHK Japan, available dubbed in English on their website, are great programs on the art done by the main concept artist of Final Fantasy and Anime.
This hat was my uncle’s (an amazing person that was taken far too soon). I had been looking for a Cubs hat anyway, and in his belongings I saw this sitting there and asked if I could have it!
I did a short livestream of it and it showed some interesting things, but I will make a whole separate video about it eventually! Thank you for watching and commenting!
@TheReturnersHideout I don't think they would have. Lots of games from the 80's and 90's from Japan had religious symbolism and some nudity. Though with that little of pixels the nudity part doesn't matter really.
Ahh America so afraid of its own self-loathing self it had to censor churches and crosses. I’m glad that era has passed mostly. Our mythos is very interesting to them and it’s cool to see them use it just like us with our old samurai and kung fu movies with all white men playing Asians 😂😂
5:23 The place where the hilt and blade meet is narrower on the first one, the middle of the hilt is fatter on the second one, the third one is longer in Japan, and the hilt on the final one was redrawn with longer pointy bits on either side.
THANK YOU!!! Wow in the moment I could not see it!
the tip of the third sword is a different shape
There's literally one pixel that's a bit lighter on the second sword, I had to uncross my eyes to notice the difference lol
Would love if original concept of Final Fantasy 2 would be revealed to masses. Game about four factions - Two heirs to a kingdom, an evil empire and a princess of monsters. And your player is a third heir to a kingdom that would choose your side between them.
Original Final Fantasy 2 concept is wild and epic, would love if more people knew about it.
When I start covering FF2 very soon, I’ll look into this! Thank you!
On the Sword sprites I can help. The left most one, the guard is widened by 1 pixel on the top and bottom removing pixels to thin out the blade base. The Falchion (going from right to peft here) has 1 pixel changed to a lighter grey to add shine. On the next one, the blade tip has a pixel removed to make it more profiles. Basically it’s 1 pixel smaller at the very tip. Last one has an entirely different guard.
I'm glad you can break down the differences! In the moment I couldn't tell what was happening lol! Thank you!
@@TheReturnersHideout If you're able to see those "Magic Eye" images that used to be popular, you can use the same trick to spot differences in side-by-side images.
2:20 lol wasnt expecting that 🤣
Oh wow! Huge fan my friend - been watching for years!
I kinda like the triangles in the Tiamat dungeon over the pentagrams. They seem like they fit what's basically a space ship a lot better than generic pentagrams.
Seems like the monk went from spikey anime hair to Chuck Norris mullet
I'm not sure why the White Wizard/Mage's face changed directions though lol - I don't have a clue as to why they would make that small of a change!
That was then the White Mage re-appeared. His eyes were bloodshot and he handed me the VHS tape. 'The Lost Episode of Final Fantasy', it read blood red, scraggly Comic Sans font. I was scared.
Its kinda crazy how common religious censorship was on the NES. Wizardry series too has it a lot, with Bishop becoming Wizard, Priest being Cleric, amd the like.
So many changes, and they seem fairly arbitrary to me; this is supposed to be a fantasy setting, there's no need to get super strict with rules and stuff; give us what the developers intended to give us!
The wizardry stuff is funny because the Japanese, original NES version, was a port of an English computer game and a good localization.. and then when translated to English again, got censored.
Link from LoZ was totally Catholic, along with Batman. They didn't like that going forward and had to erase actual religions from the games.
America in the 80s was going through a confusing time in regards to religion and games (look up the D&D satanism panic). Nintendo decided to avoid that nonsense entirely - and it was probably a good thing.
To be fair, we were founded by Christian extremists, even today American Christianity seems batshit insane to Christians overseas
"This is my.. uhh, official educated guess." Sounds like an awesome opener for my next presentation.
Feel free to use it! No credit needed!
Even though FF1 is a D&D fangame, the reason why Beholder is such a big deal is that its one of the few monsters invented by the people at TSR instead of being adapted from mythology and pulp culture, and FF1's American release was right during the heavy litigation era right after 2E dropped where post-Gary TSR was really trying to reign in control of the D&D identity. Had FF1 came over 4 year earlier or 2 years later, TSR would not have sued to change the sprite. Same thing happened with the name Dragon Quest over with Enix.
Oh snap, I didn't know a lot of what surrounded the Beholder enemy - that's super neat. Thank you for that!
The same goes for mind flayers, yet they are uncensored in the game.
@@bluishwolf TSR thought they owned the name mind flayer, but actually didn't, and knew they did not own the idea of squid-faced monster men. That's why they're called Wizard and Sorcerer in the first localization. By the time of FF4's localization, it'd become common knowledge that TSR didn't own the name. It's also why WotC started pushing the name Illithid for mind flayers after buying TSR.
What I find odd is that they left the name Beholder in Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, a game specifically made for the western market. The enemy design is a little bit different but it's still an eye monster with tentacles.
@@Dug88 Beholder is too generic of a name, you can't own it outside of very specific contexts. Change the eye monster's look enough and you can call it a beholder.
I would definitely be interested in a video of a prototype playthrough.
Regarding one of the removed items - that statue looks kinda like a Bhuddist statue you see either near temples or on roadsides. It may have been used to indicate churches or graveyards. One of the commonly seen ones depicts the patron saint of travellers (I can't remember his name as I'm not well versed in Bhuddism), so it may have been used as a save point?
Can do! So, that statue is part of the Menu graphics, that's what is throwing me off about it. Maybe it was to indicate KO'd party members at some point?? Hmm..
This is a longshot, but perhaps the strange grey man was considered for the menu if you didn't have the party member yet - whether you chose to do a solo run or more likely, if you were to recruit them throughout early game towns. Or just to test the proportions for menu-only sprites that they never created during development - see FF2's menu portrait sprites. If only we had another clue...
@@TheReturnersHideout
Castle of Ordeal! ;D
Sorry, I just love the use of that word. I always say "Mount Ordeals" with such excitement whenever I reach it in 4. I think I'm going to start saying "Castle of Ordeal" now, too, and I play through FF1 quite a bit these days, so maybe that will cheer me up a bit.
That’s what it was called in the NES version before they changed it to Citadel of Trials. I like Castle of Ordeals better
My favorite Easter egg is the frozen fairy on the first Ice Cave floor, which you can only see with a map editor.
4:53 So much was plagiarized from AD&D, it's amazing that they thought that little sprite of all things was going too far.
I've never seen anything about that frozen fairy! Do elaborate please!
@@TheReturnersHideout It's the fairy sprite from the town of Gaia, but in the gray color palette of the Ice Cave. It's on floor B1, at coordinates 2F, 1E. It's deep inside the wall, so you'll never see it playing the game, but if you could somehow tunnel through the wall and talk to it, you would get OXYALE.
If you get FF1Hackster for Windows and the game rom, you'll be able to find it easily.
@@TheReturnersHideout It's the fairy sprite from the town of Gaia, but with the gray color palette of the Ice Cave.
It's Sprite 0 of Floor B1, at the coordinates 2F, 1E, which is deep behind the wall, so you'll never even see it playing the game.
But if you could somehow tunnel through the wall and talk to it, I think you would get OXYALE!
The program FF1Hackster for Windows had a map editor where you could see it easily.
which us funny because after the fact tons of stuff was straight up taken from DnD in countless other games and it was just accepted
huh
5:25 - The changes are so minute, they're _literally_ pixels of difference.
Sword 1: Two white pixels removed from the base of the blade.
Sword 2: the top-left pixel of the gray square at the base of the blade is a lighter gray.
Sword 3: Two white pixels removed from the pint of the blade, making it look more like a saber than a straight blade.
Sword 4: Two pixels on the crossguard moved down by 1 pixel, and one pixel added on the other side, making the crossguard wider.
Thank you! I just don't know why it really mattered that much!
@@TheReturnersHideoutHonestly a good question. Why was Fighter's face changed? Why was white mage's hood changed?
Turns out I only knew about half of this!
Also, glad to see constant new content!
Thanks so much! Some of it is experimental in nature so I’m just trying to make a lot of different type of videos every so often!
The redone US FF1 beholder looks more like the aliens from the Simpsons 😅. I love hearing about development changes and differences. Really shows you work that went into the game that you would never have known. It's such an iterative process.
Aaah after 10000 years, new content! Glad to see you back.
I've had steady content coming out since the first week of December and I'm so excited to make content again - I might have to take a brief pause after the rest of my FF videos get released, but it won't be for anywhere close to as long! Thanks so much for sticking around!
He was stuck in the time loop
I recently did a playthrough, using my theory that a team of 4 Red Mages/Wizards would be overpowered. I was correct. After loading up on Lv 3 and 4 magic and the silver swords, we became nearly unstoppable. Later in the game, we took down KRAKEN in one turn by casting LIT3 ×4 times. Fair warning though: You're overpowered right up until the final battle, but if you grind an extra few levels, you should be fine.
I would absolutely LOVE a video on this ROM!!!
I’ve got several more videos slated for release over the coming weeks, but I’ll throw one together for sure - thanks so much!
@@TheReturnersHideout All is good! Love your work! Keep at it my man 🙏🙏✨✨
@@enarmonika5557 thank you so much!
Sword difference I see is the third sword went from 3 pixels at the top down to 2.
Such a small difference, I wonder why!
Livestream of this would be great if it’s not too much work on you. Would be a great way for us all to experience this alt version.
The first sword is narrower right before the cross guard in the American version and it could be my imagination but the cross guard of the last sword looks a bit wider than its Japanese version.
The changes are so minute I just wonder what the point of them were! Thank you for commenting!
Cool find man. I went to that website and have a question. What does "US left over" mean in the translation section? Does it mean what wasn't translated and spelled differently or sentence structure was different in the beta from the official? Those first few ones like the ?‥ threw me off.
If only we could get the Final Fantasy 4 for the NES if it exists, the unreleased FF5 US version for the SNES if it even exists and super early FF7 that looked like it was using the SNES graphics of FF6 with only one single screenshot to show it existed.
Thank you! I’m not 100% sure about the left over part, I skipped it because I didn’t understand it lol. I’d definitely like to cover the other things you mentioned though, it’s all insanely interesting to me!
Yes. Please go through it!
Imagine we had a build of ff1 and there was an npc sprite named TINA
Legendary games / Legendary creator series on NHK Japan, available dubbed in English on their website, are great programs on the art done by the main concept artist of Final Fantasy and Anime.
I'm pretty sure that you already did the stream, but I'm always voting for a quality video. Personally, I'm not a fan of streams.
The stream did happen, but I think I will go back and highlight some of the moments from it in a normal video! Thanks so much!
Play it. PLAY IT!!
They should either have used it in the newest remake of the first trilogy, or make a side game that uses it. Hate to see things go to waste.
where did you get your hat
This hat was my uncle’s (an amazing person that was taken far too soon). I had been looking for a Cubs hat anyway, and in his belongings I saw this sitting there and asked if I could have it!
Livestream PLEASE, or even just a highlight reel
I did a short livestream of it and it showed some interesting things, but I will make a whole separate video about it eventually! Thank you for watching and commenting!
Is the rom online or is it being privately given out?
It's online in the cutting room floor page for FF1 - check the Prototype page for it!
Newly subscribed over here, I vote that you play that prototype, please?
Thank you so much, I’ll get on it and try to find something awesome!
Beta releases of games are quite fun. That is one of the reasons I buy alpha's of games on steam. To see the progress is very cool.
It is really neat to see how games come together!
Oh wow who knew Wiccan was in FFI
Thats cool. Thanks
DO IT!
A lot of these changes seem pointless.
I fully agree with you - I'm not sure of the intent here. Maybe Nintendo of America required specific changes?
@TheReturnersHideout I don't think they would have. Lots of games from the 80's and 90's from Japan had religious symbolism and some nudity. Though with that little of pixels the nudity part doesn't matter really.
Drop the ROM.
The ROM has been dumped for I think a decade lol - check the cutting room floor website in the Prototype of FF1!
Ahh America so afraid of its own self-loathing self it had to censor churches and crosses. I’m glad that era has passed mostly. Our mythos is very interesting to them and it’s cool to see them use it just like us with our old samurai and kung fu movies with all white men playing Asians 😂😂
Sun Belt Rentals.... are you from South West Ohio?
Great video I love all this obscure FF lore stuff 👍👍
Thanks so much! I'm a huge fan of it as well!