The Final Fantasy Legend games have pretty much nothing at all to do with the Final Fantasy franchise. They were originally released in Japan with another name and were rebranded when released in North America. They weren't designed with any features of Final Fantasy universes in mind and as a result don't really feel like Final Fantasy games. That doesn't make them bad by any stretch, don't get me wrong. It just means they are really Saga games.
Final Fantasy Adventure, on the other hand, was developed as a Final Fantasy game. An action-RPG game instead of a straight up RPG, to be fair. And one with its own very distinct world. But it was still created as a Final Fantasy game and there have been a few things I've noticed so far that make you really think you're playing a Final Fantasy game. Here's what I've noticed so far...
First and most importantly to me is the existence of chocobos in the world. One of the adventuring companions you can find in your travels is a chocobo. When you ask the chocobo for help you ride him around which lets you travel the overworld map at a fast speed while ignoring all enemies. It even plays chocobo riding music when you do!
At one point in the game your chocobo saves your life but gets seriously injured in the process. Fortunately for him you happen to be in a town with a mad scientist who uses machinery to upgrade your chocobo into a -- wait for it -- chocobot! Which lets your chocobo run across water! I guess since the Game Boy wasn't in colour they couldn't just have you find a blue chocobo like in later games...
The next thing that brings a Final Fantasy feel to the game is that some of the NPC sprites are essentially from the original Final Fantasy game. I've run into white mages and red mages thus far and there's really no mistaking them for anything else. One of your companions is even a red mage and he casts fireballs randomly in combat to help you out.
Finally the enemies can apply a wide variety of debuffs when they hit you. Most of these are standard RPG fare... Blind, poison, stun... But one of them, the most crippling of all, is to turn you into a moogle! This prevents you from attacking (though you can still move) and lowers your defense to nothing. I go from being able to take a couple hundred hits without dying to getting killed in 3 hits. It's brutal! I actually think this was the first game to have moogles in it (FFIII on the DS had moogles but I think they were added in with the port and weren't in the original game).
Pretty much all that's missing is a guy named Cid, an airship, summoned monsters, and maybe 4 elemental crystals!
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