I figure it can't hurt to put one up in the forum, and I've kinda been itching to write this particular one for quite a bit.
Consider this a topic in which to discuss the game.
If you have any points on which you disagree, let me know and we can argue about it. But I will spoil the review: I love this game and think everyone should play it, because it is easily one of the strongest games in a very strong series.
Ahem:
Final Fantasy IV (II to those of us in the States) originally came out in 1991, and alongside its next few successors is often held up as the apex of Square-Enix's developmental legacy, an example of what the company is really capable of within the confines of both limited space and limited technology. Alongside Final Fantasy VI, it is probably the most universally loved title in the series, with a staggeringly small number of vocal detractors. It has enjoyed this elevated status for years, immune to the criticisms often leveled at its genre concerning linearity and narrative integrity. But this particular perspective has always viewed Final Fantasy IV as a product of its own time, not directly comparing it to the games released today. There is a school of thought which suggests that Final Fantasy IV would not hold up to the games of today, and must be analyzed in the vacuum of 1991 due to rising standards of production and narrative. The game has been re-released several times now, but no particular acknowledgement has been given to these adaptations because they hold to the old forms and are essentially treated as ports of the original. The question begs itself: is Final Fantasy IV still any good?
Final Fantasy IV's remake for the DS, released in December of 2007 for Japan and worldwide in the fall of 2008, attempts to answer this question. The core of the game remains the same: the plot and narrative structure is essentially identical, there are no significant added characters, and you still use the Active Time Battle system to fight your way through a quest to save the world. The graphics have changed, the music has been re-recorded, and new gameplay elements have been added, but this is the same adventure now that it was in 1991. So how does it stack up?
The first thing that anyone is going to notice, upon booting up the game, is that the graphics have been changed from the simplistic 2-D sprites of old into 3-D chaaracter models and environments. The character models are not realistically proportioned, but they are not direct translations of the squat, super-deformed sprites of yore, either, instead finding something of a happy medium that may at first seem at odds with the tone of the story. It does not take long before the character models assert themselves as what they are, though: well-made and easily recognizable in a lineup, unique to themselves while being reminiscent of the original game. I ended up liking them very much.
The enemy models and environments have received similar treatment: each enemy is a 3-D representation of the two-dimensional sprite art that served in the original title, and every area in the game has been converted into polygonal, fully navigable locales. While the enemy models look very good, in some cases better than the sprite art that preceded them, the environment often leave something to be desired. The game benefits from the evironments rarely being the focus of the narrative, and hardware limitations no doubt play their part, but the complaint is still there.
The update to the game's soundtrack is very welcome, if not particularly surprising. The sample quality of the instrumeents is much higher and the composition of certain songs is communicated better (particularly in the battle with the elemental fiends), but this is the same soundtrack which you were familiar with back in grade school. In many games this would be a bad thing, but Final Fantasy IV has some of the best compositions in Uematsu's career and the soundtrack benefits from a lack of enhancements or remixing. To those of us who have played it before, it is a trip down memory lane, while for those of us new to the game it is as good as one could ask for.
Voice acting is the most notable aural addition to the game, and it works well, benefitted by a carefully re-written script and very capable voice actors. Liam O'Brien brings both jealousy and anger to illustrate the motives of Kain Highwind, Anthony Landor is an almost perfect match of Golbez's character, and the entire rest of the cast are emotive, professional, and refrain from being over-the-top except where dictated by their characters. The highlight of the voice cast is Yuri Lowenthal, probably best known to Saturday night anime fans as Sasuke from the series Naruto, who demonstrates his range as the game's protagonist, Cecil Harvey. Mr. Lowenthal's portrayal of Cecil is very carefully acted, striking a believable balance between the bravado necessary of a hero and the self-doubt which plagues Cecil throughout the game. When told that he is a good man by his lover, Rosa, Cecil responds, "I am a coward," and it is easy to believe that he believes this of himself. The impression that the game's voice acting gives is immeasurably improved by the quality of Mr. Lowenthal's performance, as Cecil has more speaking lines than any other character in the game.
The game controls as one might expect: outside of a few new minigames, stylus input is both limited and optional, returning power to the D-pad and the A button. In some games I would lament the lack of stylus implementation, but this is one of the rare genres where touchpad controls would not sigificantly improve the experience. As such, the controls in their original form suffice: quick, simple, and easy. There is no noticeable lag in battle menus (a problem that plagued the GBA version of the game), and everything works almost exactly as you would expect it to.
The minigames are fun little distractions on their own, though some of them, such as Rydia's math challenge, demand a certain cerebral stretching that makes Brain Age's toughest moments look tame in comparison. Each is well-implemented and makes full use of the DS' touch screen, and each one is very challenging to master while beeing reponsive enough that they are never unfair.
Each minigame serves the purpose of powering up Whyt, a new summon monster whose stats are determined by the three highest high scores you have in each minigame, with each game corresponding to a different stat. I never used Whyt a lot, but I did get perfect or near-perfect scores in every minigame I could, because each perfect score unlocks a different outfit for him. The purpose he serves in combat is a bit unclear, and he's not really a necessary feature, but the minigames associated with him provide a fun distraction so it's not a loss.
Final Fantasy IV is the progenitor of the Active Time Battle system, which was used in every following Final Fantasy up until Final Fantasy X. The developers have not changed things up at all for the remake, but for those unfamiliar, it works like this: there is a bar that fills up at a rate determined by your character's Speed stat. When the bar is full, you can take an action, and when that action is completed the bar empties again. In Final Fantasy IV, some actions take longer than others: very powerful magical or summoning spells will take what feels like a long time to use, while a normal physical Attack lands almost as soon as you have selected it. Time management is an often under-appreciated but still very present element of this system, and not being aware of it can make this game harder than it is. Which is is to say, very.
Let me tell you, Final Fantasy IV is hard. The original was hard enough that the localization team actually dumbed the game down for its Stateside release, and this version of the game is considerably harder than the original. It is harder than brass tacks. It will test your mettle, and make you rethink exactly what kind of JRPG gamer you are, in terms of both ability and playstyle.
Many gamers' first instinct when faced with the game's harder boss fights (and there are many of them) and more difficult normal encounters (there are a lot of them, too) will be to take time off to go to a level-appropriate area and kill many, many enemies in order to build up experience so as to get past the hard part. In the past, this was pretty much the only way to progress in this particular game: it was very old-school, and if you did not build up your stats you were likely to bite the big one very quickly.
That, thankfully, is no longer necessary or even wise. This release of Final Fantasy IV is one of the most heavily strategic traditional JRPGs I've ever played, thanks to two elements: the increased importance and prominence of status magic, and the introduction of the Augment system.
Similar to Final Fantasy XII for the Playstation 2, status magic is very important in Final Fantasy IV, with almost every boss being vulnerable to at least one negative status (even the final boss is vulnerable to Slow, which is the single most useful spell in the game). With the proper statuses inflicted on your enemies and the proper buffs cast on your own fighters, you can prove a match for the boss that was stomping your team into the dirt only moments before. The gameplay is immensely improved by this, as the magic users become useful for more than just being oversized blasters or healers.
The other strategic element is the Augment system, which changes the entire way that the game is played. The way Augments work is that after certain events and in certain places you will receive Augments, which allow you to add to or switch out things that your player characters can do, building up a myriad of abilities and enhancements that makes them much more effective in certain situations. As an example, you can take Cecil and give him the Counter Augment, which makes it so that he counterattacks every single physical blow leveled against him with one of his own. If you combine this with a piece of good armor and the Draw Attacks Augment, which makes all normal enemy physical attacks hit him, Cecil suddenly becomes capable of wiping out an entire enemy team by himself in less than one round, while making it much easier to keep your own team properly healed. This is just one of the myriad combinations that can be used: there are Augments that give you the best attacks used by certain bosses, Augments that raise your HP or MP by up to 50%, Augments that double the money you collect from battle, and augments that allow ou to use the abilities of characters that leave your party. There's even an Augment, which you receive near the end of the game, that doubles your experience gained from battle, effectively eliminating the need to grind in the only area where it might otherwise have been necessary. There is a depth of strategy added by Augments that did not exist in the game before, and it definitely benefits from it.
That the game manages to stand proud next to its more contemporary peers in terms of gameplay is a testament to the deeper strategic elements of this release and the near-timelessness of the ATB system, but that is not the primary reason that people play this sort of game. The real question, then, is if the story still manages to stack up. Does it say anything interesting? Does it make you care about the characters? How can something this old still be engaging, regardless of how shiny they tried to make it look?
THere are two themes in Final Fantasy IV that crop up again and again, the primary driving forces behind the narrative, and those are family and the loss of what you love. These simple but timeless ideas are played beside and over each other in various ways, with different elements of the plot having differing levels of effectiveness. Rydia's loss of her family and her childhood is the primary motive she has for growth, and results in her coming of age much sooner than many other children would, and Edward's beloved Anna is the source of one of the best and most heart-wrenching scenes in the game. There are many plot elements that could be discussed in detail, up to and including the story of the game's primary antagonist, the sorcerer Golbez, but I will focus on two people here: the game's hero, Cecil Harvey, and his best friend Kain Highwind.
Cecil is one of the best-written and most honest heroes in the history of the genre, the template from which all other conflicted Final Fantasy heroes were born (and almost invariably fell short of). He is distinctly aware of the abhorrence of his actions, and this causes him to doubt both himself and his entire purpose for acting, but instead of letting this hold him back in inaction and self-pity, he resolves to set right the wrongs that he had previously committed. He is not overly virtuous - when a man is hysterical over the loss of his beloved and screaming that he wants to die too, Cecil slaps him to the floor - nor preachy concerning his ideals: he is driven by the purpose of setting things right and protecting the people that he loves. His love for Rosa is the most constant element of his character, and even though it is not an interesting romance it does serve to illustrate how the man is driven to do the fantastic things that he does. His relationship with other characters, as a protective father figure and a lover and a brother, defines him in every part, making him inseperable from how he relates to the people around him. Cecil lends a cohesion to the party that many other games lack, acting as a lynchpin which holds the group togetherin both a narrative and in-character sense. None of these relationships is more interesting or problematic than that that he has with Kain Highwind.
Kain is probably the best-loved and most enduring character in Final Fantasy IV, creating the archetype of the Final Fantasy Bad-ass, an archetype that would create Faris of FFV, Shadow of FFVI, and Vincent of FFVII, and others up through every single installment in the series - all of whom fall short of Kain both in terms of motive and characterization. Kain's love for Rosa and respect for Cecil creates a conflict which leaves him vulnerable to darker thoughts, and he is the only character who makes it through the game without exorcising his own personal demons. Kain's hatred is born of love, and his relationship with Cecil, who is in many ways like a brother to him, makes his name more thematically appropriate than it might have beeen otherwise. His resolution to combat himself, his lack of trust in his own motivations, paints a picture of one of the only legitimately tortured heroes in the history of the franchise, and that he carries on through this without bogging the narrative down in pointless and expository angst is a credit to him and the writing that surrounds him. He is a rejected Lancelot, whose love is impure and whose goodness of heart does not match the fervor of his desires. He is covetous, vengeful, honorable, and conflicted, one of the best-written and most compelling characters in the history of the franchise and the genre
The script of the game was re-translated for the Gameboy Advance release of the title, and it was re-translated again for this release, which is to the game's benefit. The language does not come across as high as that used in Final Fantasy XII, but it is both appropriate to a medieval fantasy setting and rhythmic and forceful enough to stick in one's memory after one has played. This is reflected in every part of the game, particularly the speeches surrounding combat with two o the elemental fiends, Cagnazzo and Rubicante. More, the script now makes better sense: concepts that were vaguely gestured at in the original version are now actually foreshadowed, giving the narrative a sense of cohesion that it previously lacked. As such, the game's plot twists seem organic and natural, where before they were somewhat awkward and stilted. Every theme in the dialogue is made tighter and more corporeal, and in general the entire thing feels more professional and pleasing to read and listen to.
The game is of an average length for games of this type from the early nineties, and even veterans of the game will probably be looking at anywhere between 30 and 40 hours to beat the game in this version. Newbies can expect considerably moe of an investment. Extending the effective life of the game is a New Game+ mode, ala Chrono Trigger, which allows one to carry over Augments and certain rare items from the last game into a new one (with the doubled money and experience Augments, this means you will not have to grind for anything, ever, in subsequent playthroughs). Though not many people will utilize this feature, because the game is not very quick to get through, it does provide options for the truly hardcore, and people who wish to do combat with the game's optional bosses will want to prepare with the New Game+ options.
The question of whether or not Final Fantasy IV still stands up to its more contemporary competition can be answered with a resounding "yes". With this release, the game has re-established itself as both relevant in the genre and competetive in terms of both narrative and gameplay quality. The game operates on strong themes that are not shoved down your throat, has some of the best characters in the franchise's history, an excellent soundtrack and set of voice actors, and is rock hard in a way that old school gamers will appreciate. If you enjoy Japanese RPGs and own a Nintendo DS, even if you have played prior versions of this game, the question is not whether or not you should pick this up: it is a matter of when you intend to. This is one of the all-time classics restored and modernized, and it proves that the Squaresoft magic is not just a matter of nostalgia. It is not perfect, but it is highly, highly recommended.
My score (on VGC's hellish 100-point scale): 9.2
