Get Back to JRPG Basics with Physical Final Fantasy 1-6 Collection Anniversary Edition on PS4

My copy of this arrived early yesterday. My first FF was XV, so have never been anywhere near the 8bit and 16bit games. Planning on playing one Pixel Remaster and one post-VII FF game per year moving forwards until I’ve caught up… which will be around 2032 😅

To anyone who has received this in the UK, is it all on disc or does it have a download code for part of it?

@Smash41 It has the full game but it is an older build.

After playing all six digital versions of these games here is my quick review: play them in reverse order.

1-3 are laughably basic with barebones mechanics, random battles every five steps and just plain uninteresting stories about gathering crystals. I can only imagine how bad the originals were. But 4-6 are definitely starting to get there, with 6 in particular being a gem.

Was going to hold out for this but just went for 6 and 5 in the end as i heard the rest were pretty basic.

@colonelkilgore worth playing the old ones are the best especially vi my fave 😎 just got the pixel remaster myself as came to Xbox finally 😂 7 to 10 are all top tier too😎

Got mine Saturday morning. Did that break street date?

Already got the FF1 plat.

@Angelus3K several decades old games and still they can't be bothered to release the patched version on the disc....

This is so dissapoiting.

I bought the digital versions on my switch lite some time ago, as I figured playing these in handheld mode would be a better experience.

Now that I have a Portal, I could double dip and get the PS digital versions, so having a bigger handheld screen as well, but I think that’s a bit overkill.

TLDR; I bought the digital ones, so not after the physical in this instance.

@Decimateh-xblz yeah I’ll play them for sure. Currently, I’ve played VII Remake, XIII, XV & XVI… but I’ll play the whole series now I’m hooked.

For the pretty reasonable ask of USD 74.99 (or your local equivalent),

What do you mean pounds sterling that this sites own local equivalent?

@LifeGirl what you mean games released in the 1980s early 90s have basic storytelling and mechanics? Well colour me shocked

@colonelkilgore I like your plan. Actually I might do the same xD

I only played FFVII Remake/ Rebirth and FFXVI

I got the physical Asian version with English language, is this identical to the US version?

@Khwarezm89 nice, I’ll keep that in mind and be sure to tag you with my progress… would appreciate it if you didn’t mind doing the same as you make your way through them 👊

I've been playing Final Fantasy since its American release and I personally recommend playing them in order as it truly helps one who hasn't grown up with these titles to appreciate the evolution of the series. I bought the Digital Collection and will buy the Physical as well to keep in my Collections. I began replaying these 5 weeks ago (FFVI is my favorite Game of All Time and I played through it twice before starting VII) I'm currently 30% through Final Fantasy VII (Original) and will go all the way through until XVI, and follow up with the side stories, and of course continue with Final Fantasy XIV Online. Still waiting for the epic Final Fantasy Tactics (and hopefully a remaster or remake of Vagrant Story, which I own on disc)

It's great to have all the games bundled together especially in physical form. I'll be buying this as soon as I can scrounge up the cash and find the game shop that carries this. I might buy two or three copies so then I can have even more final fantasy games on hand, even if they're just duplications of the same ones on the other cartridges.

@Medic_alert That is why I buy more at LRG then normal games now somehow. It's sad that 30 year old games are better preserved then new games. 😩

@Medic_alert a license key that you can resell, lend to friends and won't lose access to if your PSN account runs into trouble.
If you look really far into the future when the digital downloads might no longer be available, then at least an old version of the game might be better than no version.
I've still got my ps1 and Dreamcast discs available to play upstairs, if they had been digital only they'd likely have been lost years ago.
Though yes I appreciate that not everyone cares about such things.

"For the pretty reasonable ask of USD 74.99 (or your local equivalent)"

I don't know, it seems too high to me. End of the day, these are 30+ year old games being sold for over the price of a new game. I think $60 at most is reasonable, though preferably this collection would sell for lower.

Gonna skip this since I already got FF VI on PS1 classic. Don't care for FF I-V well except IV which i quite like it.

$75 for old and very available roms with some very minor ''upgrades'' is a scam

Is this just the same collection that released a couple of years ago that was being scalped for $1000-$2000 USD or is it different in some way?

Best Buy sent me a mangled, mutilated copy. It didn’t even ship in a bubble mailer, it was literally a brown paper bag wrapped around the game. I can’t believe the incompetence of whoever deemed this an acceptable way to ship something so easily broken in transit. They might as well have stuck a post-it note to the jewel case and thrown it in the outgoing mail just like that. Couldn’t even quickly exchange it for an in-store copy, because they never ordered any due to an overabundance of lesser ‘people’ buying digital instead of physical. Uncivilized savages

@Angelus3K that's enough for me!

@LowDefAl Exactly, I despise the gatekeeping of classics through LRG, publisher websites and so on. Ordered mine via Amazon like it (nearly) should be.

@Balaam_ the US needs socialism, example 5,677,105. And I'm not even kidding.

@thedevilsjester the exact same thing

@Melee_Ace defo could've been a cool 40€£¥$ and it would still be economically viable for them by a mile.

@PerpetualBoredom Good to know, I was wanting to get the collection physically; but unwilling to pay outrageous scalper prices for it.

@Melee_Ace They are 30+ year old games; but its not just the ROMS wrapped up in a nice package. They were all completely rebuilt from scratch (in Unity IIRC) so its a considerably more effort than most retro bundles.

$113CAD for (3) noteworthy games and (3) historically important, but not so notworthy games from 30+ years ago, is not "reasonable" by any metric. easy pass. i wouldn't be able to justify the idea that i am supporting s-e' exploitative FOMO tactics alone. heck, i don't think they updated the font on console either? is it still arial instead of the classic pixel font? on pc, you don't have that problem thankfully

@thedevilsjester I understand, and I will say the improvement is obvious. I personally just don't consider it worth $12.50 per game (or $18 for some individually). If the collection had sold for $40-60 and it had the content from the PSP/GBA ports I'd be more open.

Especially when you compare to other collections the asking price is a lot higher than normal, like the Castlevania Dominus Collection that just came out. Konami, of all companies, offered 4 games plus a flippin' remake all for $25. Yeah the titles weren't as reworked as FF (Haunted Castle Revisited aside) but side by side I'd say there's a clear difference in value.

I think what disappoints me more than anything is that the pixel remasters have been out for years but the price is still that high. I've never seen it below $60 in a digital sale, and I find it peculiar that Square has held on to that price point for so long.

This really shouldn't be more than $60. No Sale.

Etrian Odyssey collection is also vastly over-priced.

@Melee_Ace They have to make up for the 'dismal' sales of the more modern titles somehow! Maybe the pixel collection is funding FF7.3 😉

I loved FF VI on Super Nintendo but in my memory Secret of Mana was better.