Final Fantasy IV

This is the JRPG year for me, the year I end up writing on all those games I grew up with and the year I play more of. Every time I write a review, I get back to the Final Fantasy series and with every post, Square Enix announces a new port. More recently, I was glad to hear Final Fantasy IX's port announced on Steam so I couldn't help but continue my recollection and review moving on with the fourth entry.

Originally played on the GBA and eventually replayed on the Nintendo DS, Final Fantasy IV is considered to me as a landmark in the series and having a story that is simply epic which is an understatement by my standards. Final Fantasy IV is the kind of JRPG I loved to get myself lost in. With it's ridiculous story that takes our characters literally to the moon and proper character development that were highly demanding and eventually receiving a remake and a sequel titled The After Years, Final Fantasy IV is a heavy game by all means and we'll explore all the aspects that made me appreciate it till this day.

Final Fantasy IV starts off with our protagonist Cecil who is a general in the red baron army working for the king, if I recall correctly. The story takes place from a different point of view, our main character isn't exactly the heroic persona we look forward to rooting for and we oversee the development of such a character after slaughtering a whole village and eventually having a change of heart, changing from his class; a Dark Knight to going on a pilgrimage and becoming a Paladin. At the time, playing on my Gameboy that was spectacular to go through and not only that, but Final Fantasy IV featured a heavy story with heavy character backgrounds and even countless deaths where there are characters that you put effort into in terms of experience and equipment abruptly die and that was quite emotional for me back then. 

This entry received a lot of death scenes ranging from a kamikaze Cid to characters casting petrify on themselves to save Cecil

The story was already engaging enough using text boxes so 5 years after playing the gameboy advance version, it was a huge deal to see the same story in cinematic cut scenes. It was also one of the fewer JRPGs that featured a seventeen year old protagonist on his coming of age journey and actually had middle aged characters with complex issues despite the overall story being a typical save the world from inevitable destruction from the great evil.

Final Fantasy IV receiving the remake treatment on the Nintendo DS

To transition a bit from exaggerating on how amazing the story was, let's talk about how engaging the combat was. Not much is different from the previous entries aside from a wide range of characters to the point where it is the first game that employs five characters in combat. Not only that, but each character had their own special skills just like how Kain had the jump ability or how Cecil was able to cover other characters. Certain skills were unique to certain characters and that added more depth to their overall story aside from their usefulness in battle. Final Fantasy IV also introduced the Active Time Battle guage which allowed more of an action oriented flow in combat where the enemy can attack you despite your characters turns coming up and you are still choosing which spell to cast for example. It allowed a faster flow in combat and more reflexive thoughts on the players' behalf. Still, from my perspective, I did not see that much change from the previous Turn based battles because I could just change it in options to wait mode where the player can freely choose their next move without being interrupted by the enemy.

Despite me complaining about previous entries being difficult, Final Fantasy IV allowed more of a chance with each story progression to have some characters gain abilities without grinding. That's not to say Final Fantasy IV didn't have any grinding. I recall in the final part of the game, where when I reached the moon, I properly died countless times in normal fights and the boss fights from then on were quite tough and there would be consecutive fights with no breaks, so the player had to be prepared and adapted for several reasons including some characters dying in the story and being replaced with others in another fight.

Final Fantasy IV had the first proper soundtrack that really hyped me up in boss fights and normal battles. It was actually the first soundtrack I considered downloading on my music player and it got me even more hyped up when I knew there would be a remake. The difference between the gameboy version and the remake on the DS is significant aesthetically although it is the same game in terms of difficulty and design, featuring even more spectacular spell animations and summons.

All in all, Final Fantasy IV was one of the more engaging titles and broke the cycle to rehashed stories of saving the world in a typical fashion. It featured complex characters, a sequel I have yet to check out and a remake that I enjoyed revisiting. As with all current titles, it also got ported to Steam and mobile phones so you can check out this fantastic journey in at least 40 hours. I'll see you with another JRPG review in my next post.