I never thought I would ever give this high of a review on it, but Dawn of Souls is what great remakes are all about.
User Rating: 10 | Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls GBA
I'll get straight to the point. Final Fantasy 1 & 2 Dawn of Souls is a fantastic remake of two true classics. If you concider yourself a fan of Final Fantasy, yet you still havn't experinced the greatness of the first game, do yourself a favor and buy this. The addition of II is also great, since it was never originally released in the states. The only real complaint is that I would have liked to have also seen III in the package. While you can download a translated rom for it (And i recommend you should, its a great game), it still would have been nice to see this remade. Still, DOS is everything that makes remakes great. Both games are just as fun as they have been. The gameplay is still the same (which is great of course), but with a few small quirks. Most notably is the use of MP in Final Fantasy I. Before, each magic had its own number of uses until your party rested, somewhat similar to the stock system of Final Fantasy VIII. Now you use Magic with MP, which may sound a bit dissapointing, but its actually a good thing as magic users can be more useful. The gameplay overall in 1 is still just as great as it used to be. Once again you choose what class each of the 4 heros you want them to be, and of course it still has the 6 classes. The only change in the classes is Fighter is now Warrior, and Black Belt is now Monk. The only real complaint that a number may give is the high random encounter rate, especially in the dungeon areas, can get tedious. The game can become a bit of a drag at times as you are constantly bombarded by random encounters. Your party should be strong enough to deal with them, but it can still be straining. But if you can look past this forgivable flaw, Final Fantasy I is simple a must play for anyone who has the slighest appriciation for old-school RPGs. Final Fantasy II, took on a different approach to the combat system and tried something very unique for the time. Here, there is no experince points and leveling up. Rather, your characters individual abilities improve depending on what they do. For example, when a character uses a Sword, their sword skill will go up a little. When they successfully dodge and attack, their evade will go up. When they get hit, their HP may go up. It works like that. In addition, it also has a deeper story and more character than the first one. In this, your characters are a group of Rebels who fight against an evil, opressive empire (A bit starwarsesque, no?). I havn't gotten that far into it, but so far the story is pretty good. The audio in the game is simply fanstastic. The redone music stays true to the 8-bit mono original, yet at the same time updates the quality and sound appropriatly without losing the feel of the music. The sound effects are also well done too, as they show that the GBA can still pull of some pretty nice sound effects. The graphics in the game, concidering what its visual goal is, is fantastic. It looks quite similar to Final Fantasy orgins, only they look more polished and refined. That, and these kind of visuals just simply look better on the Gameboy Advance screen. In terms of what the gameboy is capable of, it may not be the absolute best, but when you concider what its going for, it comes through very well. In addition to the two RPGs, it also has a bestiary, in which you can look at monsters you have encountered and check out their stats. Its not a big addition, but its a cool little thing none the less in case you want to see just exactly what you defeated (or lost too). To simply put, Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls if a fantastic game that anyone who likes RPGs, especially old-school RPGs, simply must get. And the fact that you get two great classics (even if one more classic would have really been great), you still simply cant go wrong with this title. 
