Final Fantasy

Best: The modular party

As the game that started it all, Final Fantasy can feel a little simple compared to the decades of iteration that followed. But it was still pretty exceptional for that time, and the way you could customize your team set a strong precedent for future games. You had four party slots, but six possible classes to choose from, and that made every party composition a strategic play. Between the other 15 games and all their spin-offs, this fundamental has been riffed upon in countless ways, but it gave everyone a personalized experience as they carefully contemplated what characters they would set out with.

Worst: The “ineffective” move

One of the most frustrating aspects of the original game was changed in various re-releases, but that first game on the NES had a weird quirk that, if you queued up an attack that would hit an enemy that was taken out by other means, you would waste a turn because those moves wouldn’t redirect to another foe. They would instead be deemed “ineffective.” For a game that is all about what you do in what little time you’re allotted, an oversight like this is a great way to feel like the player is wasting their time. Thankfully, this was corrected in future ports and remasters.