Final Fantasy (MSX2)

Final Fantasy
Developer: Square Publisher: Micro Cabin Platform: MSX2 Released in JP: December 1989 This game has a hidden developer message. This game has unused graphics. This game has anti-piracy features.

Final Fantasy for the MSX2 is like the cool cousin you never knew existed.

Custom File System

At launch, the game identifies the game's file system as "Say DOS" version 1.A0. Back in the day, it was common for games to use a custom file system as a form of anti-piracy. This was to prevent file copying commands from being issued at the OS level. If you were able to reverse engineer the format to extract the files, the developers had another trick up their sleeve: there's data not referenced inside the Say DOS file system. The code file BATTLE.COM instead loads the battle graphic data through hardcoding.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Unused Graphic

As with the Famicom version, the "Pub" sign is left unused.

The prince character is also there, still unused. In this version, he is set to use the same colors as the Elven NPCs.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Developer Messages

Filename	Image	Text	Translation	Comment
MAINBG.PIC		ワタナベ　タダヒコ	Tadahiko Watanabe	Credited for "MSX Graphic".
SHOPBG.PIC		Ｔ．Ｗ	T.W.	Tadahiko Watanabe's initials. This text is normally not visible as the palette index used is set to black, like the background. It's made white here for visibility.
SUB0BG.PIC		ワタナベ　タダヒコ	Tadahiko Watanabe
SUB1BG.PIC		１９８９．１２/３作	Created at 1989/12/03
SUB2BG.PIC		キャッ♥️ エッチ！	Ugh♥️ Lewd!	Includes a modified version of the dancer NPC's sprite.
SUB3BG.PIC		ＳＡＹＳＯＦＴ	SaySoft	Presumably the name has ties to the disk image format the game uses, Say DOS.
SUB7BG.PIC		Ｆ．Ｆ３ガヤリタイヨ！	I wanna try out FF3!

(Source: Original TCRF research)