No idea about the Crown thing. I think FF1 wasn't really thought all the way through before they started selling it. A lot of NES games were like that. There were a lot of NES games that were so poorly coded that it was impossible to beat them. I'm very happy that FF1 is even as good as it is, despite the non-working elemental weapons, spells that do nothing, buggy world map, invisible castle-dwellers, semi-corny translations, an ending that makes no sense to any sane human being, an arguably unbalanced battle system, etc. The good thing is that it's just a game, and a fantasy game at that, so imaginative people like ourselves and find some patterns in things. All those little quirks are part of what makes FF1 so darn fun, and interesting to think about.

I don't care much for mods, but that sounds like a good idea I guess.