FF1 - Hours 3 - 7

When I mentioned earlier that this first game in the Final Fantasy franchise was hard I wasn't exaggerating. Difficult, frustrating, agonizing, and capable of eliciting the most colorful of epithets. There's always something to be said for the thrill of surviving a brush with death, but the sheer regularity with which one of your warriors will die coupled with the exorbitant cost of reviving them leads to a potent desire to throw your controller across the room. Still, the true gamer soldiers on. I've spent the last several hours mapping the territory, so to speak, a learning how best to stay alive on journeys farther and farther away from the safety of town. These are my suggestions to you.

• Make use of the Memo Save function to save your game in between resting. You can memo save any time, regardless of where you are. Save early, save often.
• DO NOT skimp on spells and equipment. Everything you want to buy will cost you hundreds of Gil more than you can possibly afford. Don't leave town without the latest accoutrement. You'll enjoy the levels you accidentally get while slaughtering monsters for Gil almost as much as you'll enjoy the shiny new sword you bought.
• Don't be afraid to run away. Seriously, when you encounter a party of seven enemies two of which cause poison with their attacks, FLEE. There's no shame in living to fight another day, or, in this case, sometime in the next five steps you take. After your first two or so hours of game play, you should have reached the second town and gained access to the ship. Stay in the waters near where you first boarded and you'll find yourself likely to encounter Privateers with some regularity. Said Privateers are worth 150 Gil apiece. I highly recommend plundering their booty for a half hour or so before pushing on, prices at the next town take a steep up turn. (If you're on land, Ogres yield a good payout as well, but they hit considerably harder than Privateers).
  
• Carry potions. Lots of potions. No, more than that. No, still more. There you go. Oh, and carry half as many antidotes (resting at an inn does not cure poison), and a few sleeping bags for the purpose of hard saving before a dungeon.

By the sixth hour my party was level 8 and I'd officially bought everything that I could possibly force myself to stand still long enough to buy. I decided at last to tackle the Marsh Cave in search of a magical Crown rumored to have the power to restore the decrepit Western Kingdom. I escaped with the crown in hand and only 1 of 4 characters still alive. It was good times. My journey continues.