Final Fantasy IV Developer: Square-Enix & Matrix Software Published by: Square-Enix Genre: RPG Release Date: USA and JPN Out Now and Europe 5Th Sept 2008 The year is 1991 and what a good year to own a Super Nintendo, Squaresoft launched the title Final Fantasy IV in Japan but the USA version was dubbed "Final Fantasy II." This introduced us to an assortment of characters, which had their own agendas and ambition to succeed in helping the main character in his quest. This game was considered one of the best games of its time and as no surprise would have many ports and remakes made for many systems, this was the first Final Fantasy game to include the Active Time Battle system also known as the "ATB" bar; this system was implemented into upcoming titles and was considered to be a major feature not only for Squaresoft but for other RPG games to come in the future. It was no surprise that with such a good story driven plot, interesting character designs and the success of Final Fantasy III that Square-Enix would collaborate with Matrix Software once again to bring another clever adaption of its beloved series to our beloved handheld the Nintendo DS. So the year is 2008 and I hope that this review will be as epic as such a classic that has captivated the hearts and souls of millions of gamers worldwide. Introduction You are the Dark Knight Cecil who is Lord Captain of the Red Wings, which is the most beloved part of Baron's military power. You are the king's adopted son and his most favoured Captain in the kingdom, but lately Cecil and his Red Wings are starting to question the kings motives after slaughtering many in the town of Mysidia without any resistance and claiming its kingdoms most prized crystal. When Cecil questions his king, he is accused of treason and stripped of his rank as Captain. The king requests he prove his loyalty for his captaincy of the Red Wings, with the aid of Kain, the leader of the dragoons. Cecil embarks on a journey that will not only save his soul but the entire world. Along the way Cecil will come across strong allies who will help him in his cause, as a dark knight of Baron he is first considered untrustworthy but his actions make people see the good in him. I will give you a small introduction into each character that he encounters in the game. Unlike the older versions of Final Fantasy IV some of these characters will leave the party and can not be played again; you will end up with 5 characters in your party before the end of the game. Cecil He is the main protagonist of this tale, excellent melee combat skills and his darkness ability allows him to do serious damage to his foes. Later on in the story, Cecil takes a trial to rid him of the darkness. He must seek acceptance from the light to become a paladin, once blessed he will be able to use a lot of white magic but still possess his melee power. Kain Leader of the dragoons and considered to be Cecil and Rosa's friend, his melee skills are not as good as Cecil's but his jump ability more than makes up for this. This character disappears early on in the game and Cecil often wonders what happened to his dear friend and hopes that he is safe. Rosa She is a white mage of Baron and considered to be one of the best in her kingdom, she cares a great deal about Cecil and has lots of feelings for him. When news comes in that Cecil has disappeared she leaves Baron in search of her friend. Rosa is the group's main healer through the adventure using healing spells, she can also shoot a good arrow in the head of enemies with her bow skills. Rydia Her hometown destroyed, her mother murdered by Cecil and Kain, this little girl was spared by Cecil when he realized that what happened to her village was not his doing but that he was deceived by his king. Rydia is the summoner of the party and can summon Eidolons to help her fight, she can also cast all sorts of black magic. Tellah This old wizard is looking for his daughter who ran off with a bard, Cecil comes across him in a cave, you agree to help Tellah slay the beast inside and he offers you his powers. Tellah can use black and white magic, has a recall ability which can call forgotten magic to aid him. Edward This is the bard who ran off with Tellah's daughter and is actually the prince of Damcyan, when Cecil arrives the castle is in ruins and Tellah's daughter saves Edward's life but she dies for her love. Edward has a variety of bard song abilities which can cause status effects such as silence, sleep, confuse and also one which can heal the party for a small amount of health each time you wait for your bars to fill. Yang The head of the Fabul Monks, you find him on Mt.Hobs being ambushed, he does well on his own but your party quickly comes to his aid, you tell Yang that his kingdom is in danger and he joins your group. Yang is a good unarmed combatant, his focus ability charges his attack in exchange for the use of a turn, charged up enough times and it will cause serious damage, his kick ability attacks multiple targets for a good amount of damage. Palom and Porom These twins help Cecil on his trial to become a Paladin, apprentices of Mysidia they use a variety of black and white magic to help heal and cast attacking spells for the party. The twins have a number of abilities, Cry will lower enemies defence, Bluff will increase magic attacks for Palom and Twincast which both twins have to cast will combine MP and do some real damage to all enemies but does take a long time to charge up. Cid This fun loving mechanic was arrested by the king of Baron, once you have killed the fake king Cid will be freed and shows you to his most prized ship, the Enterprise. Cid doesn't actually make you two ships, he makes you one and does adjustments to the one that you stole from the tower of babil that adjustment is so you can fly over the lava and after that he also makes you a drill to get back to the surface. Cid's abilities are analyze which tells you enemy information, Upgrade which you can fuse elemental items in your inventory to Cid's Hammer. Edge Edge is the prince ninja of Eblan, his mother and father are captured in the tower of babil, you meet him battling the elemental archfiend which has his parents and it doesn't go well for him. After a quick heal by Rosa Edge joins the group in search of his folks. Edge has the abilities Throw which you can throw any weapon in your inventory, Ninjutsu which has elemental spells, blink spell, blind spell etc and the ability Steal which basically lets you mug a few people for items. Fusoya Fusoya is the man on the moon, the Guardian of the crystals that is using it's power to contain an evil in the core. Fusoya helps you in your quest when the "blue planet" as it is called by the Lunarians is in danger. This guy is just another Tellah using black and white magic to the fullest. His ability is called bless which will restore the parties MP points over time. *Tip* Cecil, Rydia, Rosa, Edge and Kain are the characters you will use at the end of the game. New features When it comes to this remaking the developers have not been lazy, this isn't just a 3D version of the same game trying to take your hard earned cash (or bandwidth he he). loads of effort and attention to detail make this game far more then just a cheap port and I will explain why. Missing scripts New scenes and stories which dive you deeper into the characters, some flashbacks about the characters past are present and exclusive to this version. Cutscenes These cutscenes take place quite a few times and with actual voice acting, it lets you take a break from the heavy text based reading and its rewarding you for advancing in the game. The voice acting is weak and they could have sourced better actors but either way it makes the characters come to life and seeing these scenes makes you understand and share their story. New Game Plus Once you have completed the game you have the option to start again but with a few things carried over from the previous one Augment system I have mentioned some of the individual abilities that you can collect from temporary party members but there are more to find in the world, they can greatly improve your parties performance and after you have capped to the highest level, new augments will improve stats of characters so that you never really stop maxing out your characters. *Tip* If you give more then 2 augments to a temporary character he will give you all of his unique abilities for your main characters to use, you need to give the twins 3 augments to unlock all of their abilities before they leave. Boss battles improved To combat the augment system overpowering the party each boss has been made more difficult and offer more of a challenge then previous ports. New music Composed by Nobuo Uematsu, this classic soundtrack brings the game more up to speed with later final fantasy games. Map Clearing Each dungeon or cave starts blank. the further you explore the more of the map you clear. get 100% on each map and you receive extra items, some of them are typical potions but others are rare and can offer you good use in your quest. Clear every single map and you can get the Rare treasure augment which lets you find rare treasures which some are needed for better armor,weapons and also side quests. Whyt minigames Whyt is a edilion which rydia can summon to battle in her place, you can select abilities for whyt to use but when you first get him he has no stats at all. to level whyt up you have to play countless minigames, the minigames increase depending on what characters you get along the way. Rydia has a maths game where with 4 numbers you have to achieve the number 10 using mathematics. Cecil has a game where gnomes are running towards him and you have to tap them to kill, some of them take several taps and you need to watch out for the giant gnome and fast gnomes as if they get to you and take your two hearts its game over. Kain has a jump game where you rub the stylus on the screen to power up his jump, once in the air you will have birds coming towards you and you have to tap them to kill or they will hit you and take you back to the ground to end the minigame. Rosa has a counting game where you will be given a number of seconds, you have to hold the stylus on the screen and count then when you think the time is about right you let it go, you will get points depending on how close you are to the actual time. There are more minigames but I have not played them yet. *Tip* In Kain and Cecil's minigames try using two styluses, also on Rosa's counting game try using an actual stopwatch to make it easier counting the seconds. If you achieve perfect scores in each mini game then you will unlock that characters uniform for whyt to use which is pretty cool, also whyt can be taken online for some whyt on whyt battles which is pretty cool considering you only have to be good at the minigames to enjoy this experience, you can also customize whyt's face to offer more individual expression thus making your character completely unique to you. Big chocobo This is the guy that you talk to in order to do whyt minigames, he has more to offer if you start the Namingway sidequests you can unlock the movie theater to watch all the cutscenes so far in the game, sound test and bestiary which the big chocobo will display in his menu once you have met Namingway on your travels. FFIV has some of the best graphics, you wouldn't think that the developer actually cut the level of detail compared to FFIII so that it could actually fit more into this title. It's one of the best 3D games on the DS and I would gladly use it to show to people that with good know how the system is capable of pulling off varied amounts of graphics. Movement can be achieved by the stylus or D-pad you can also pick anyone in your party to be the on screen avatar, by selecting the menu button you can read the selected character's thoughts and each one has different views about the situations you are in, the game switches back to Cecil for talking and action scenes though. I would suggest this game to people who are new to the series as there isn't much party management involved apart from the augment system, the game is still playable even if you don't want to give augments to your party. I found this game to be pretty simple for a final fantasy title, I have seen the game over screen about 3 times in my first playthrough which is why I could suggest this to people who have never played before. Money in the game is vast and on my playtest I was quite wealthy and could afford everything, their are loads of items to find and lots of things to sell. *Tip* know when temporary characters on the team are going to leave so you can strip them of armor and weapons to sell to a shop keeper later on FFIV is not a perfect game, there seem to be some minor translation problems which only the very picky will notice, the voice acting could have been much better then what was delivered but it is very passable for a handheld game. The DS speakers can make the music sound bad but if you have a good set of headphones I would suggest using them instead of the standard speakers. Due to the voice acting namingway will not let you change names straight away, to make up for this there is a rather long sidequest where Namingway will change his own name and give you small tasks to do. The Score Presentation: 10/10 Graphics: 10/10 Sound: 8/10 Gameplay: 8/10 Lasting Appeal: 10/10 Total: 46/50 Last thoughts Final Fantasy IV is a wonderful game that will keep you playing for hours on end, there is big amounts of stuff to find and loads of hidden secrets to look for, a top quality game for newcomers and nostalgic gamers alike.
Re: [NDS] Final Fantasy IV *StarWatcher* Very nice review StarWatcher! insane has been doing that a lot lately.
Re: [NDS] Final Fantasy IV *StarWatcher* There you go, you put it back up. I like it, post some more reviews and you'll get a lot better.
