On December 5th, Manall Lockhart released the final update to her Manall’s Final Fantasy project, bringing it up to version 3.5. The modification for the first Final Fantasy game for the NES has been an ongoing project since 2017. While far from the only Final Fantasy mod, Manall’s Final Fantasy has been noteworthy for the sheer consistence of its updates. Originally, Manall’s Final Fantasy was just an update of minor color changes and item edits. But by 2019, the scope of the had expanded considerably, with new mechanics, spells, classes, and various other improvements bringing Final Fantasy up to standard with subsequent, less buggy titles in the iconic series.
Manall’s Final Fantasy project has also long been a community effort, with the ROMhacking.net page here listing a large number of collaborators of fans in the Final Fantasy modding community providing her with material support and inspiration to improve the classic title. Manall’s efforts are a testament to the work fans of older titles like Final Fantasy are willing to put into remaking and remixing older titles while still working within the same constraints as the original developers. With Manall signaling a formal end to the project, it is not clear who will next attempt such an elaborate mod, or indeed, what else there may yet remain to be done, at least with this particular game.
Manall herself is not giving up on modding, as she has promised that a new project is in the works. Of her other existing projects, Manall’s Heroes of Might and Magic III is similar to Manall’s Final Fantasy, fixed dubiously implemented ideas. Manall’s Diablo II provided a means of acquiring better quality items without having to rely on the online multiplayer economy. Finally, Manall’s Waluigi RPG provided an alternate story experience to Super Mario RPG in addition to various game design tweaks to provide greater player options alongside a challenging, but fair, difficulty curve. All of Manall’s projects can be investigated in detail on her website here.
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