[sterlingice]

First time I've had to, but I have to strongly disagree on a couple of accounts with this one:

1) I just don't rate the production values that highly. The game balance was positively awful (hours of creeps and ogres, anyone?). The gameplay was good, but there were other RPGs that were also quite good (Dragon Warrior series, in particular). The translation was nothing to write home about either, but we're splitting hairs at that point- nothing had good translations back in the day. If I were talking production values, especially attention to detail, SMB3 takes the NES cake and it's not even close.

2) If you're going to pick a Final Fantasy, this would be about 4th on my list. IV (II) and VI (III) would top it for production values, particularly III as a total package. Tho, if Chrono Trigger is higher on the list, I suppose I could see a reason for wanting an earlier game. I'd even rate VII higher for purely influential reasons, much as I can't stand playing the game. In the grand scheme of things, FF didn't break a lot of ground and very few things followed it- it was a good singular showing but the mould was never really used for much after it.

SI