The bosses in Origins have a lot more HP than in NES.

*SPOILERS*

I'm first listing the NES HP, then the WSC/PSX HP.

Lich (1st): 400 HP --> 800 HP
Lich (2nd): 500 HP --> 1000 HP
Kary/Malirith (1st): 600 HP --> 1200 HP
Kary/Malirith (2nd): 700 HP --> 1400 HP
Kraken (1st): 800 HP --> 1600 HP
Kraken (2nd): 900 HP --> 1800 HP
Tiamat (1st): 1000 HP --> 2000 HP
Tiamat (2nd): 1100 HP --> 2200 HP
WarMech: 1000 HP --> 2000 HP
Chaos: 2000 HP --> 4000 HP

So Tiamat (2nd encounter) in FF Origins has more HP than Chaos in FF1 NES. Some enemies also regenerate at the beginning of every turn in PSX. WarMech is one of those. The enemies in Ice Cave also seem a lot harder in FF Origins. A group of Mages seem to cast Fire3 and Bane a lot more eagerly than in NES, and that can lead to Game Over many times.

While the enemies are harder in Origins, there's also many minor additions that make the game easier than in NES:

  • Being able to buy 99 items at the same time.
  • Ineffective feature can be turned off.
  • You can dash by holding the circle (O) button.
  • You can use Soft, Life and Life2 in battles.
  • When buying weapon and armor, you get to see if it's more powerful than the one you've got equipped. Weapons and armor also go to item storage, so you can have a lot more of them than in NES.
  • You can select an easy or normal difficulty. I won't go into explaining how ridiculously simple the easy difficulty is, though.


Other changes between NES and PSX:

  • Intro FMV.
  • Cutscenes, some extra dialogue and characters doing "!" expressions at times.
  • Bonus galleries.
  • I think the ship mini-game has different bonuses.
  • New music for bosses, Fiends and Chaos. The bridge-crossing theme also plays during the ending now, and there's the text "The End" in space with Prelude playing, just like in FFs 4-7.


I think Dr Unne listed some more changes in his WSC and PSX reviews.