Final Fantasy I’s Marsh Cave is toxic gaming at its finest (#2)

Well, I guess we’re doing this. With Endwalker queues still at ridiculous levels if you pick the wrong time of day to try and log in, our Final Fantasy adventures will be continuing with the Pixel Remaster that was released a while back by Square Enix.

Check out the previous episode here!

Today we challenge the notorious Marsh Cave dungeon, a locale that is a real pain in the arse due to its tendency to poison everyone in your party right as you run out of Antidotes. And while Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster is certainly a lot easier than the original NES version in a lot of ways, it certainly doesn’t tone down the most annoying aspects of the Marsh Cave.

Please, enjoy my suffering.

Mad props to Trent the Red Mage, who finally made it out of a series of alternate timelines in which everyone died and successfully rescued the rest of the party after things looked decidedly bleak for a while.

Pro-tip for anyone challenging Final Fantasy I for the first time, whether it’s with the Pixel Remaster or one of the many other versions you can play today — bring antidotes. Lots of antidotes. And potions. But mostly antidotes.

The Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters are a range of rereleases of the classic 8- and 16-bit Final Fantasy games, presented with brand new pixel art and astonishingly good new arranged soundtracks. While they have their issues — albeit issues which the community has taken it upon themselves to figure out solutions for — they’re a worthwhile investment, particularly if you’re interested in trying some of the older Final Fantasy games for the first time.

Final Fantasy I is an interesting case study, because it came out back in a time where the concept of the “JRPG” didn’t really exist as such — with that in mind, it is abundantly clear in many ways that Final Fantasy I is very much a look at the classic Dungeons and Dragons formula through Japanese eyes, and recognising that is all part of the fun!

If you’re put off by the challenge factor of the Marsh Cave, don’t be discouraged; things get a tad easier from hereon. Unless you run into Warmech, but that’s not something we have to worry about for a little while yet…

Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster is available now on Steam.

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Pete Davison

Pete is Rice Digital's editor, and a proud champion of any and all games involving pretty girls hanging out, saving the world or both. His first waifu was Rit from Rod Land.

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