Final Fantasy Adventure - Intro and Brief Gameplay Demonstration
6As implied in the title of this video, only the intro of the game is shown, with some editing, followed by a quick gameplay demonstration from the beginning. This was made to be used in a review I made on this French site here: http://www.geekmodeblog.com/2009/04/final-fantasy-adventure.html#complet This video is also supposed to give you a general idea of this game's story and gameplay, which could lead you to try it, I hope! When it was released in North America, it was renamed Final Fantasy Adventure, but it was originally called Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden (Gaiden meaning side-story or spin-off). What originally began as a Final Fantasy spin-off became the first game in the Seiken Densetsu series, which usually comes in North America as anything featuring the word Mana in its title (for instance, the great Secret of Mana on the SNES is actually the sequel to Final Fantasy Adventure since its name in Japan was Seiken Densetsu 2). To create further confusion, this game was titled Mystic Quest in Europe, a title very similar to Final Fantasy Mystic Quest for the SNES, a very different game. From this video, the story should be clear since it's summarized at the beginning of the game (Dark Lord has got to be the funniest name for a bad guy yet). The story is known to be very good for a Game Boy game, but featuring poorly translated dialogues. The game plays in an overhead perspective similar to The Legend of Zelda series, and it features many similarities, in fact, with that series. With the square screen representing one part of the field, and your character that can move at the edge of that square to go to the next. The sword that you thrust on the field to kill enemies in real-time. Where in Zelda you can shoot your sword when your health is full, Final Fantasy Adventure (and later titles in the series) feature a gauge that charges up when you don't attack (one attack and it resets). It's like Zelda, but with much more RPG elements (also more than Zelda II: The Adventure of Link). You gain experience to level up your stats, such as HP and Power. You can learn and cast magic. You can even have a not so smart NPC (non-player character) join you to aid you on the field. While not being smart (this is on the Game Boy, after all), they can be helpful, and it's an interesting concept. This is really a game to have on your Game Boy if you like Final Fantasy (even though it's a spin-off and does not share many resemblances, apart from Chocobos and stylistic similarities, mainly), RPGs, or even Zelda.
Note: The names I pick at the beginning for the main male and female characters, Sumo and Fuji, are in the official English manual of the game. Nowhere else can these names be found, not even in the Japanese release, so the game probably had no intended official names for the characters. Do not consider these names necessarily canon, but I guess it's not that important.
Also, Sword of Mana on the GBA is an enhanced remake of that game, with many changes to remove Final Fantasy references from it and make it more official with the rest of the Mana series. So Sword of Mana is canon, while Final Fantasy Adventure is not anymore. It can be considered a spin-off of the Mana series or a game of its own.