The Nintendo Gameboy Advance gets a port of a port of a couple of NES game. Both Final Fantasy I & II were originally released on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) way back in the day. Both titles were subsequently ported to the Bandai WonderSwan as a compilation not that long ago, and that compilation has been ported to the GBA with a new subtitle (Dawn of Souls), and a few extra playable features.

If you’re an old school Role Playing Game (RPG) fanatic you’ll dig this compilation. Everything from the graphics, to the gameplay has remained true to what you remember playing all those years ago -- although the Graphics and sound have gotten better. Characters fights occur through non-stop random battles. You’ll never know when they’ll take place, and have no option to avoid them. The only thing you will know is that they’ll be occurring almost constantly.

The old RPG’s used to be almost exclusively about leveling up. Your success in those games depended almost entirely on how much time you wanted to spend in those random battles. The more time you spent, the more powerful your character became, and the easier the important boss battles were. Final Fantasy I & II stays true to that formula although there are major differences in how and what you level up when comparing the two. The same can be said for the storylines, and extras included.

In Final Fantasy I leveling is extremely straight forward. Attack enemies, increase your stats across the board; attack enemies, increase your stats across the board, and on, and on. The storyline and characters are also quite simple -- especially when you compare them to Final Fantasy II. You’ll select a group of four character classes, who will plow through enemies on their way to becoming the four crystal heroes out to save the world from the bad guys.

The secrets hidden within Final Fantasy I come mainly in the form of four new dungeons, and the extras that can be found within them. Beat the game and you’ll gain access to four new areas to explore. Each area is randomly designed, comes packed with new enemies/treasure, and even incorporates famous monsters found in later games of the Final Fantasy series. You’ll also be able to use whatever items you find to replay the original storyline, but do so in much easier fashion obviously.

Final Fantasy II is definitely the better of the two titles though. The story is far more complex, and character leveling is done in a ‘smart’ fashion which will require you to think about how you use each of your heroes. Your character stats are increased through use, rather then across the board after every battle. If you use your sword a lot, your sword level will increase. If you cast spells a lot, you’ll become a better spell caster. That’s just on offense. Defensively if your character takes more hits, then their Hit Points (HP) will increase faster then any other party members. It’s an intuitive system that provides results based on your input.

The plot for the second game revolves around 3 characters and their attempt to stop the all out conquering of the whole by the people who have left them orphaned. Final Fantasy II will also start to introduce you to some of the characters you’ve seen in almost every Final Fantasy game since (like the flight oriented Cid for example). If you’ve ever wondered where some of those characters got their start pick up this compilation to check them out in their Final Fantasy infancy.

In addition to the better leveling system, and the slightly better storyline, the second game also comes with an interesting extra feature once you finally beat it. You’ll be able to come back and play through a special mode as some of the characters “that didn’t quite make it” through your first play through of the title.

Final Fantasy I & II Dawn of Souls is pretty much a rehash of what you remember in your NES days but with better graphics, sound, and a few extra features. Given today’s evolution in RPG’s (even for handheld RPG’s), I find it hard to believe this compilation will hold the attention of newer gamers for longer then 15 minutes. Any old school players out there with a GBA however will get plenty nostalgic with this duo of games, and given the unlock-able features I recommend it to that segment without hesitation.