Final Fantasy has been well-received by critics and commercially successful; the original release sold 400,000 copies. As of March 31, 2003, the game, including all re-releases at the time, had shipped 1.99 million copies worldwide, with 1.21 million of those copies being shipped in Japan and 780,000 abroad. As of November 19, 2007, the PlayStation Portable version has shipped 140,000 copies. In March 2006, Final Fantasy appeared in the Japanese magazine Famitsu's Top 100 games list, where readers voted it the 63rd best game of all time. GameFAQs users made a similar list in 2005, which ranked Final Fantasy at 76th. It was rated the 49th best game made on a Nintendo system in Nintendo Power's Top 200 Games list. In August 2008, Nintendo Power ranked it the 19th best Nintendo Entertainment System video game, praising it for setting up the basics of console role-playing games along with Dragon Warrior, and citing examples such as epic stories, leveling up, random battles, and character classes. Editors at IGN ranked Final Fantasy the 11th-best game on the console, calling the game's class system diverse, and praising its convenient use of vehicles as a means of traveling across the world map.
Final Fantasy was one of the most influential early console role-playing games, and played a major role in legitimizing and popularizing the genre. According to IGN's Matt Casamassina, Final Fantasy's storyline had a deeper and more engaging story than the original Dragon Quest (known as Dragon Warrior in North America). Many modern critics have pointed out that the game is poorly paced by contemporary standards, and involves much more time wandering in search of random battle encounters to raise their experience levels and money than it does exploring and solving puzzles. Other reviewers find the level-building and exploration portions of the game as the most amusing ones. The game is also considered by many as the weakest and most difficult installment of the series.
The subsequent versions of Final Fantasy have garnered mostly favorable reviews from the media. Peer Schneider of IGN enjoyed the WonderSwan Color version, praising its graphical improvements, especially the environments, characters, and monsters. Final Fantasy Origins was generally well-received; GamePro said the music was "fantastic", and that the graphics had a "suitably retro cuteness to them". Reviews for Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls were generally positive, with Jeremy Dunham of IGN giving particular praise to the improved English translation, saying it was better than any previous version of the game. The PlayStation Portable version was not as critically successful as the previous releases; GameSpot's Kevin VanOrd cited the visuals as its strongest enhancement, but stated that the additional random enemy encounters and updated graphics did not add much value.
The theme song that plays when the player characters first cross the bridge from Coneria has become the recurring theme music of the series, and has been featured in most numbered Final Fantasy titles except Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy XIII. Final Fantasy was also the basis for the series finale of a video game-themed cartoon series Captain N: The Game Master entitled The Fractured Fantasy of Captain N. 8-Bit Theater, a sprite-based webcomic created by Brian Clevinger parodying the game, has become very popular in the gaming community since it started in March 2001.
Warrior of Light, based on Yoshitaka Amano's design of the lead character, and Garland are the respective hero and villain representing Final Fantasy in Dissidia: Final Fantasy. Warrior of Light is voiced by Toshihiko Seki in the Japanese version and Grant George in the English version, while Garland is voiced by Kenji Utsumi in the Japanese version and Christopher Sabat in the English version.
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