[NDS] Final Fantasy IV - insanecrazy07

Final Fantasy IV
Developer: Square Enix
Published by: Square Enix
Genre: RPG
Release Date: July 22, 2008

Hopefully this is the last remake of Final Fantasy IV. I feel bad for those who bought the GBA remake only to find out that there is a DS remake also. This is by far the best remake Square has done in a long time. The graphics are just astounding (for a DS) and this is how Final Fantasy III DS should have turned out.

Let’s take a trip down memory lane shall we?
You play as Cecil Harvey, the game’s protagonist. You are a Dark Knight serving the Red Baron. You blindly following his allegiance and do his evil bidding. The story is essentially exactly the same as all of the others so I won’t go into great detail about it.

They brought back Cecil’s Darkside ability (renamed Darkness). Cecil gains the Darkness status where all of his attacks do extra damage at the cost of his HP. While in this Darkness status, he may become immune to certain elemental and status attacks. Likewise, the Darkness status also acts as an element and can do super effective damage to foes that are weak to it. (Use it on the dragon!)


Darkness is your friend…for now.

Kain:
He is probably my second favorite character, not because of what he does in the game, but because of his class. Dragoons are one of my favorite classes mainly for their Jump ability. Being able to dodge major attacks with Jump, while dishing out serious damage is a great bonus.

Rydia:
When you first get her, she is extremely frail and easy to kill but instead of her dying every three seconds, it is adjusted to about ten seconds. The enemies may not always target her, but when they do, it is usually a hard hit. Be sure to drink your Oval…I mean unlock all of her Summons. They changed it to Eidolons like in Final Fantasy IX. You can also train this little summon guy, named Whyt, but he costs 50 MP, which is a big chunk of MP early in the game. Whyt will replace Rydia and fight in her place while he is summoned but I still don’t think he is worth the MP cost, at least, not for awhile. The little math game that you have to do in order to level him up is hard to understand at first and they never give you enough time to do it.


Talk to him anytime to level up Whyt and get pissed off doing math problems in the process.

Tellah:
I never really liked this old senile useless wizard but his later spells do come in handy. He has a powerful variety of spells, but he never has enough MP to use it twice. His Magic stats are through the roof so his Ice1 is equivalent to Palom’s Ice2. They brought back his magic ability that allows him to cast any random magic spell. It still costs MP though.

Edward:
I seriously don’t find ANY use for this guy and thank God you only get him for a little bit. The only advantage of having him is his status attacks that can attack all of the enemies at once.

Palom and Porom:
Palom is very useful as a black mage but needs some training before you utilize him to his fullest potential. He has a higher base MP than Tellah, so feel free to use the second level spells like Fire2, Ice2, Lit2, but mostly Fire2 since it kills undead and Milon rather easily.

Porom is better than Rosa for the most part, but Rosa eventually does become the better white mage near the very end of the game. Porom is especially useful for using Cure magic every turn simulating a Regen. That, combined with a high max MP, and you will be able to endure longer periods without resting.

Yang:
The martial arts specialist and probably the hardest hitting attacker in the group besides Cecil; his Kick ability allows him to attack all of the enemies at once and with considerable damage.

Cid:
The chief engineer that helps you make TWO, count ‘em, TWO airships! He isn’t a horrible fighter, but just remember, he is not permanent.

Edge:
Some random ninja-styled Prince that you meet late in the game. He is particularly weak compared to Yang and Cecil so expect him to die quite a few times if you place him in the front row with Cecil and Yang.

Fusoya:
He is the last character that you get and is by far the BEST magic user in the game. He has the same power as Tellah in regards to magic potency and a high max MP base like Porom or Palom.


Don’t cross the streams!

New Features:
Autobattle: Hit X during a fight and your characters will perform whatever action you ordered them to do in the Ability screen.

No item cap: You can go past 99 of one item now. The Fat Chocobo has a different function now.

New abilities not available in the US and EU translations:
Darkside and the other abilities that were thought “too difficult” are re-added into the game.

It is 3D! Without the 3D glasses!
Play the entire game in 3D; just don’t expect a free camera perspective.

CGI sequences are off the hook!
As usual, Square likes to take up most of the cartridge space with CGI videos that are just astounding. There are only a few games that I will let the start up screen replay over and over and this is one of them.

Auto Abilities
Auto abilities like Auto-Potion and Counter can be applied to one character, much like a TM like in Pokemon.

Some summons are available as an applicable item for Rydia.

Edit: Stupid f****** augments! If you want a COMPLETE playthrough, you will have to consult an augments guide that tells you specifically what augment to put on what person at what time. If you do this wrong, you screw up the whole process and the New Game+ and New Game++ are pretty much wrecked as well. If you're not an OCD completionist, then just play through the game worry-free.

Pros:
-New graphics add a new feel to the classic game.
-Autobattle makes grinding less of a hassle.
-Old abilities are added back in. Tch! The Japanese think we Westerners don’t know how to play RPGs…actually, that might be true.
-The videos and voice acting is up to par with all of the other Final Fantasy installments.
-Newly remastered soundtrack that takes out the digital ‘90s feel and puts in orchestral masterpieces.
-Supposedly harder difficulty, at least harder than the ‘Easytype.’


I hate that bomb…

Cons:
-Autobattle can screw you over if you run out of MP, so “watch your Magic Meter.”
-For those of you who are sick of remake after remake after remake, hopefully this is the last remake of the remakes.
-Grinding takes awhile even with Autobattle.
-Being seriously under-leveled is still common in many places.
-Money is tight throughout the game, especially when upgrading Cecil’s gear.
-Sound is staticky and I believe it is the DS, not the game design. I think the sound is too high quality for low quality speakers. It is the same problem I ran into with Drone Tactics.
-Battle speed is still very slow even with the battle speed cranked all of the way up and set to Active.


Cecil beats the Russians to the moon.

Extras:
Strippers and girls in bathing suits galore!
They come back in this remake to stir up the controversy once again.
Note: You don’t actually get to see anything.
Screw censorship.


Quick! Use a phoenix down!

Presentation: 9/10. The menus and translations are done very nicely. New features add a reason to get this game regardless if you have already played the original.

Graphics: 9/10. Not the greatest graphics in the world by my standards, but they’re amongst the best in the Nintendo DS realm.

Sound: 8/10. An 8 seems rather harsh, but the sound is terrible coming from weak tiny speakers.

Gameplay: 9.5/10. The gameplay has essential been unchanged except for the little minigames when you summon.

Lasting Appeal: 9/10. This game has lasting appeal ever since the beginning. Replaying a classic with revamped graphics definitely has the lasting appeal effect.

Total: 44.5/50.
Average: 8.9.
Overall: 9.
Rating: 5 stars.

Final Comments:
This is a great game with very minor flaws. Any Final Fantasy fan will enjoy this game even the 7th time around.

Aftermath:
I haven't really noticed a difference in the difficulty mainly because I like to grind 5-10 levels past the recommendation. (If a strategy guide says level to 20, I'm usually level 25 or 30) I always have the best equipment possible along with plenty of items and enough money.



ZOMG! FUSOYA!


Ifrit.


Shiva.


I hate this guy, but not as much as the Magus Sisters.


This is my desktop background.


Spoiler alert!


Spoiler alert 2!


Touch nothing but the lamp.

 

You're right about the sound not being great beause of the DS' speakers. I plugged in my pc speakers to my DS during the first part of the game and it sounded much better. Not that I can plug it into my speakers when i'm on my lunch break at work so i'll just have to make do with the in built speakers. Cool game, nice review

 

Extras:
Strippers and girls in bathing suits galore!
They come back in this remake to stir up the controversy once again.
Note: You don’t actually get to see anything.
Screw censorship.[/quote]
Ha, good review. The speakers do help alot don't they.

Anyways I was about to make a FFIV review but now......eh

 

I've been working on this one for a week or so now.

Most of my reviews usually take a week to finish.

 

nice work

 

Great job, I'll probably be getting this game in the next day or two.

You might want to move the spoiler alerts above the spoilers though, even if it won't spoil anything for a lot of people.

 

I'm liking the review insane, nice job, off the psp scene for a while?

 

I was being facetious with the spoiler alerts. lol
(Like we didn't already know)

The intro movie has the exact same spoiler so there really isn't one to begin with.

@dmac154
sadly, I know your name by heart, and this was just a small break, since this is one of my favorite games. This one was higher up on my priority list since the release was soon.

 

A week?! Mine take at least an hour. Anyways, love this game, already playing it, addicted to it. Strippers I know. Also, I was so happy when the weaklings Param and Porom get trapped in stone, to stop the wall, hahahahhahaha! Nice review BTW. Magus sisters was so easy, I just beat him with the guy with the claws. Get some skill

 

Awesome review.
The game looks so good. I really got to download it but just haven't got the time with school and stuff.

 

the first time i fought the magus sisters, i didn't know the tiny one healed the others.

 

Pros:
- Lengthy.
- Informative.

Cons:
- Inconsistently drawn-out in some places.
- Quite-messy English.
- Seemingly random screen-shots and captions (watermarked, nonetheless).
- Some possibly baseless information (ie: saying when you could beat the game 7 times without getting bored, though I'm not sure it's humanly possible to beat the game seven times and then write this review within the day of the ROM's release. That gaffe aside, you said you wrote this review in roughly a week, which makes me wonder, 'how is that even possible?' Were you writing a review for this game before it came out? Either way, unless something adds up here (I pulled an all-nighter, I'm not in the best range of thought) I'm led to question the integrity of this review. Remember, you're claiming to have reviewed Final Fantasy IV for the DS, not the SNES).

 

Good review, was ready to make this one.

 

I have played the japanese DS one and the only difference is obviously the language.
When I say you beat the game 7 times, I'm talking about all of the veterans who have already played this game and know it inside and out.
This game has been rereleased several times, (first time was SNES, Wonderswan? PSX, GBA, and now NDS)

Most of the material covered in my review did not need me to physically sit down and play the NDS (US) version.
The only stuff I pulled from the US version was the math game, summon minigames, Whyt, voiceovers, and name translations. (Darkness instead of Darkside)

you say that the screenshots are random, but they're there for a reason since it shows the new graphics.
And no my english isn't horrible on reviews, but any other time, i type however i want.
(and for the record, if you do criticize someone's english, spelling, grammar, etc. please quote the sections that you find are "messy" and explain why it is "messy" so that the person can correct it.)

I chose IGN for watermarked pics because they usually have the best ones. They always have screenshots of games that aren't released yet so that was my reason for using IGN.

 

And IGN normally have the best quality ones.

 

Yeah I know, I'm not saying it's a terrible thing to do, but clean images would have been preferred is all.

It's apparent that you've taken my non-veneered criticism far too personally. Regardless of that, I'll address your qualms.

First of all, it appears to me that you're saying you didn't truly review the NDS version of this title, you just took your experience with past ports (or the original) and merely commented on the graphics of the new title. However, without having fully played this title, your review of the graphics have seriously become quite void. If the only thing you actually reviewed directly from this title are the graphics, and you didn't even fully experience them, I can't say I'm not disappointed.

I stand by my opinion in saying that the screenshots aren't typically placed in context to the review at all, and that the captions simply raise eyebrows. If you compare your usage to that of a professional review, you might see a distinct difference.

Your right in saying that your English usage in the review is generally better than that of your posts, but there still are a couple little iffy things; most of them are simply sentences that should be rephrased in some way or another, though other "mistakes" include grammatical error. I'm not an English teacher with hours to spend correcting your review, I'm just saying that it's not perfect.

IGN screenshots aren't a huge issue. If you didn't use an emulator or a screen-capture (completely out of the way) while playing, I would have done the same. I would list it as a con though, since you would never see GamePRO magazine ripping IGN's images like that, for example.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to come in and say "DUDE UR REVIEW IS SHIT" or anything, I'm just trying to give useful advice. Very few reviews are ever flawless. You can't expect to write a perfect review, and neither can I. We're not professionals, but improvement is something that anybody should always be eager to look forward to.

My fingers -- they bleed.

 

Nice review the desktop background is sick, but doesn't everybody, just wish game graphics was like that, the desktop background. If only it was games would be heaven

 

nice review man..it help me a lot..huhu ;D

 

Nice Review...
I wanted to buy it, but ...naaaah.. i think i only get it for my R4.