Middle-Aged Gamer: Optimal!

So I'm playing Final Fantasy 1 on the Final Fantasy 1 & 2 : Dawn of Souls cartridge for GameBoy Advance, and actually enjoying it. I have generally steered away from these old school RPGs lately, having had my fill of them back in the day, and now prefering the action-adventures more anyway.

What amazed me about the game was found under the "Equip" section. It was a command called "Optimal" which automatically selects the best armor and weapons for the character from the party's inventory. No more in-game testing or vague guesswork to see if the broadsword is better than the rapier, if the leather cap is better than the iron helmet.

I don't know if this is the first RPG to have an "Optimal" button, but I damn sure like it. Why didn't they think of this years ago? I can think of about a few hundred RPGs that could have used such a feature. Bard's Tale, Im talking to you.

Full article available at $link:http://middle-agedgamer.blogspot.com/2007/01/optimal.html$