I remember the time before mounts and sprint when we had to slow run around the entire world because we didn't have enough anima to teleport.
I remember the times when fatigue was an actual game system.
I remember running through long corridors to get out of a city or go from east thanalan to central thanalan so one map could unload and a new one could load so we could have a "seamless" overworld experience
I remember doing skill chains with other people in my party
I remember having to carry around 10 stacks of arrows so I didn't run out during a dungeon
I remember needing searching through a sea of retainer vendors for tufts of cotton to make a patch to repair my cotton robe and then search through more to get some wood chips to make the item I needed to repair my bow, then going through even more for leather scrap to make leather strips so i could repair my shoes
I remember breaking ifrit's horns to change the fight somehow, but I can't remember how it changed

Version 1 had some interesting ways to overcomplicate things....