.
Printable View
.
oh god..... where to even start.....
Well the monster encounters are now randomized. In the original NES version you encountered the monster groups in a sequence. This means no matter what, if you fight 255 battles in the same area, you are guaranteed to find every possible monster in that area. In DoS the encounters were approximated to percentages which you may or may not encounter. You can fight 1000 battles in the same area and still not find every monster there is there.
Intelligence now does something. It affects the potency of magic. In the NES version it doesn't seem to have any effect whatsoever.
There were MANY new items added, mostly from later games. the ones I can remember off the top of my head are ethers, turbo ethers, elixers, megalixers, and various status enhancers.
New weapons and armor were also added, such as the Judgement Staff, which casts Flare when used, and the Light Bringer, which casts Holy when used. There were so many added, though, that I can't remember them all.
Weapons now have elemental properties. In the NES version the ice sword did not do any special damage against fire monsters.
Monsters can now regain HP every turn (very few do this, and only Death Machine regains an even remotely significant amount). In addition, the 4 Chaos Guardians, Death Machine, and Chaos now have more HP than they did in the NES version.
The MP system was changed from the tier system to the general MP system used in almost every other game (FFIII and FFMQ are the only others I can think of that use the tier system).
EXP and Gil gained after battle is noticeably higher, and many items are cheaper. In addition, some of the stores have changed their wares.
The graphics were redone to look prettier (duh).
You can now run in dungeons to get through things faster. This doesn't really affect gameplay.
The 4 Soul of Chaos dungeons (Earthgift Shrine, Hellfire Chasm, Lifespring Grotto, Whisperwind Cove) were added which are randomly generated and contain monsters and bosses from later FF games.
That's just what I remember off the top of my head.
They took a game and made it easier, yes. I think the thinking was that the original's difficulty would be a detractor. And yes, Death Machine = Warmech.
I wouldn't mind just changing to the MP system. All of the original prices, level ups, and even the lower maximum level, I wouldn've minded.
Also check this out for more differences.