Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

Final Fantasy IV

1. Official Site
2. Platform: DS
3. Publisher: Square Enix
4. Developer: Square Enix
5. Release Date: 07/22/08
6. Genre: RPG

by Lee Evans

Reviewing Final Fantasy IV for the DS presented a unique challenge.  This is a game that's seen four incarnations, once on the Super Nintendo (as Final Fantasy II), once on the original Playstation in a compilation, once on the Game Boy Advance, and now the DS.  How do you review a game that's been around so often?

Square Enix also recently tried remaking a Final Fantasy game for the DS, and Final Fantasy III didn't fare so well.  It didn't bring anything new to the game, and simply wasn't interesting.  Did Square Enix learn from it's mistakes?

Obviously, there are a lot of questions surrounding Final Fantasy IV.  I'm going to look at FFIV from a couple different viewpoints:  A person first playing the game, and someone who has played other incarnations.  How does it stack up?  Is this a game that you should double-dip, triple-dip or even quadruple-dip for?

After Final Fantasy III's bland and generic graphics, I didn't think the DS had the juice to run a remake of Final Fantasy IV.  Happily for all involved, I was proved very wrong.  For someone who has played Final Fantasy IV before, you'll enjoy seeing some of the most identifiable characters in an RPG series in 3-D for the first time.  Character models look sharp and detailed.  Dungeons feel distinct.  If something is supposed to look imposing or scary, it does the job.

Now, obviously, the DS has some deficiencies.  The best graphics are ones that mask those deficiencies and surprise you with how much the system can actually do.  Final Fantasy IV provides just that, and holds out hope that rumored remakes of Final Fantasy V and VI can look just as good.

Music has always been Final Fantasy's strong suit, and they kept the tracks basically the same.  I haven't listened to the music side-by-side, but I'm pretty sure they embellished some of the tracks slightly to take advantage of the better DS sound chip.  Even if they didn't, it sure feels like it.  The music feels as fresh today as it did when the game was first made.

Square Enix also added in voices for the characters.  These voices only pop up during certain important cutscenes, so they're not always in your way.  It's a treat to hear a lot of these characters speak for the first time, even if Edward, royal prince of the sovereign nation of Damcyan, sounds unfortunately like Kiff from Futurama.

Being an RPG, most of the game is strongly menu-driven.  If you've played the game before, you're probably fairly familiar with how the menu system works.  If you've never played the game, you'll pick it up pretty easily.  It's easy to select what you need, and when you're on a subscreen to pick out a specific item or spell, combat pauses to let you find the right command.

There's also an auto-combat system that enables you to set your characters to fight a certain way or use a certain move throughout combat.  From what I've heard, it works pretty well.  I never used it, as I like to be hands-on during combat.  Even so, it's a viable alternative for power levelers.

Final Fantasy IV is the template for modern RPGs, so if you've played one, you know what you're getting.  You'll be walking around, getting into random battles, levelling up, and healing your party with a variety of potions and the like.  It's a rock-solid template, so they didn't want to mess around with it too much.  However, they've still added some new twists to the formula.

One new addition is the Augment system, where different characters can pick up abilities that would normally belong to other characters.  You can only use each Augment once, so you have to pick the right character for it.  It's a pretty neat system that makes the game a little deeper, but if you don't want to use it (or forget about it for a while, like I did), it's not entirely necessary.

They've also added a new mapping system, which gives you a bonus for exploring dungeons.  If you explore 100% of a dungeon floor, you get a special prize such as extra potions or antidotes.  It helps replenish your party instead of having them leave the dungeon, wander back to town, restock on what they need, and then go all the way back through the dungeon.  It's an excellent feature, and I hope they include it in future Final Fantasy remakes.

One of the main draws of Final Fantasy games has always been their stories, and Final Fantasy IV doesn't disappoint. It set a gold standard for stories in games back in 1991, and it still holds up really well. It follows Cecil, dark knight of the kingdom of Baron, as he discovers his true identity and stops the spread of evil in the world. It may seem like pretty stock stuff now, but it's deeper than it sounds. It's especially stunning when you remember that this surprisingly sophisticated story was hitting consoles almost 20 years ago. (Note to self: I'm old.) It really proves what a debt most modern RPGs owe to Final Fantasy IV.

So far, I've been dancing around the elephant in the room, and that is Final Fantasy IV's supposedly jacked-up difficulty level.  Square Enix decided to bring the game closer to its Japanese counterpart, and in doing so raised the difficulty to where it has always been for the Japanese version.  Does that mean this game is now impossible?

Well, the new difficulty isn't really noticeable for the first half of the game.  Sure, there are some tougher battles, and my party got wiped out more than usual, but it wasn't necessarily BAD.  It was a little more challenging, but I've already played through much of Final Fantasy IV, so I wasn't going nuts.  About halfway in, I hit a brick wall, difficulty-wise.  From there on out, the game got much more difficult, but I still enjoyed it with a little more effort.

Now, I could grind and grind to get to the point where I need to be, and most veteran RPG gamers will realize this.  However, for someone who has never played Final Fantasy IV and wants to experience it for the first time, this has to be offputting.  I hope that the learning curve is more gentle with any other planned remakes.

We've already talked about how this is the fourth time out for this game.  If you've played it before, you could believe that there's no reason to play it again, and you would be partly right.  The story is the same, and the cutscenes are basically the same.  If that's all you're playing the game for, then don't get this version.

However, if you enjoyed the tried-and-true gameplay of Final Fantasy IV, this is a great value.  It's a kick seeing this world in 3-D, and it's cool to see some of the other new features.  It's nice to see that Square Enix got the remake idea right this time around, which means that we can hold out hope for future remakes, including the upcoming Dragon Warrior IV.

Is Final Fantasy IV for the DS a good purchase?  I think we can all agree that in its original form, it was extremely influential, and the gameplay holds up very well.  Furthermore, the additions to the game have helped to enhance the game for people who may have already played through it.  However, the difficulty may put off people who are new to RPGs in general, although veteran RPG gamers should enjoy that.

So, if you have played Final Fantasy IV, or if you have never tried it but are familiar with other examples of the genre, you will definitely enjoy Final Fantasy IV for the DS.  Sure, it's a remake, but it's a remake of a classic with just enough new stuff to justify it.

Gaming Trend Score

91

1. Graphics: 90
2. Audio: 90
3. Controls: 95
4. Gameplay: 90
5. Value/Replay: 90
6. OVERALL:91