Final Fantasy Adventure: First Thoughts

I've put a few hours into Final Fantasy Adventure so far and I'm enjoying the game to this point. It definitely feels like Secret of Mana. I've found a wide variety of weapons which are used to overcome different world obstacles. The axe chops down trees. The sickle cuts tall grass. There's a grappling hook style thing which can be used to fly across pits assuming you find a post to latch onto. There have also been AI controlled helpers. Not to nearly the extent as in SoM (where they were actually fully formed characters who could be controlled by other people) but they're still hanging around and helping out. The game even starts in a similar matter with a fall from the waterfall near the mana tree.

It's not all roses, however. You get to equip two items. One of your many weapons and a miscellaneous item of some kind. Candy to restore health. A rock chopping item to chop rocks. A key to open a locked door. Or you can equip a spell in that slot. In order to change which item you're using you have to open the main menu, select item, find the item you want in the list, and select it twice. Then if I want to use the item I need to hit another button in the main game. So if I want to heal myself with a candy I need to hit at least 5 buttons and some directional presses on the item menu. If I want to open a locked door I need to do the same thing. For keys in particular it feels like the game should just know I have keys in my inventory and automatically use one when I walk into a locked door.

Items don't stack and I only have 16 item slots in my inventory. Right now 6 of my 16 slots are holding cure potions that I will likely never use. In the last dungeon I had to discard probably a dozen things in order to open treasure chests filled with stuff I then threw away so I could open more chests.

Finally the game only allows character movement in a cardinal direction. The monsters can move diagonally but I cannot. I think this is mostly a problem because I've never really played adventure games with this movement restriction so I keep wanting to react in ways that can't happen. I noticed that same thing when I tried to play the original Zelda recently. It frustrates my mind a little to think I can do something and then fail to  do so due to the controls.

In all it feels like the interface for the game isn't up to snuff but that shouldn't actually be too surprising when dealing with a 20 year old hand held game. I'm pretty sure I can block the annoyances out and enjoy the game. But I must say... I now have a real craving to play Devil May Cry!