Final Fantasy IV – DS

I was at the local Gamestop when I saw the one game I’ve been waiting to play for ages: the DS remake of Final Fantasy IV.

It’s no secret that I regard the game as one of the best of all time, so I couldn’t wait for a chance to play a completely remade version.  I picked it up along with the FFIII remake, and set upon playing.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t play FFIV right away.  I was in the middle of FFII for the PSP, and couldn’t bring myself to play the games out of order, especially considering that I’ve never played II or III before.

FFII was actually pretty good once you get past the odd levelling system.  Every action you perform has a chance of increasing a stat.  For example, if you attack with your sword, your sword level will increase by a tiny bit.  Or if you cast a spell, your INT just might increase.  It’s a pretty good system, and the game isn’t too difficult, which allows a lot of freedom when designing your team.  My only gripe is that your fourth party member changes repeatedly throughout the game, and each time, he/she is ridiculously underpowered.

The plot itself was decent, but not great.  It’s a typical empire taking over/destroying the world scenario.  Throughout the game the empire attacks and eventually levels towns, you can’t even enter them from the world map anymore.  By the end of the game, there’s only one or two towns left, so there’s not a lot left to explore when you finish.

I moved on to FFIII, and enjoyed it at first, but the game quickly turned sour.  It had the classic job-class system that made FFV and FFT famous, but it was implemented very poorly.  Each class has 99 job levels, and if you didn’t level them up, they were next to useless.  So if you wanted to switch classes, you couldn’t really do so freely, you needed to level up.  Add to that the limited healing items and spells, and it was slow going.  I eventually got so tired of the level grind and the mediocre plot supporting it that I loaded up the action replay and cheated my way through the rest of the game.

It’s amazing, the back of the box says people regard FFIII as ‘legendary,’ yet there was nothing even above average about this game.

Finally, I was able to play FFIV, one of the games that made me love RPG’s.  At first glance it’s visually stunning.  The familiar characters and locales are rendered in (albeit somewhat lower end, but that’s to be expected for a portable system) 3D, complete with the occasional voiceover.  After a few minutes of playing, it’s apparent the graphical overhaul wasn’t the only change…

While the battle system in and of itself remains the same, there have been some major changes to how abilities work.  Firt, they changed many of the main characters’ abilities.  The biggest being Edward, who ACTUALLY is useful in battle now.  You can also learn new battle abilities through items… I’m still learning about that aspect.

One feature I love, and I hope newer games pick up on it, is the ability to customize your battle commands.  For example, if I commonly use a non-consumable item (say, a staff that casts a spell), I’ve always had to go to the item menu, find that item, and use it.  This becomes quite a pain if I do this several times a battle.  In FFIV, I can go to my abilities screen, and set up a command that uses it, and put it in place of any other command.  So now the mage’s useless ‘Fight’ command it replaced with an ‘Ice Rod’ command.

So, all you other RPG’s out there, take note.

Another main difference is the difficulty.  This game is a lot harder than the original, and I’ve played both the American (easytype) and Japanese (normal) versions.  There’s definitely more of a level grind involved, and per battle, you earn jack in terms of money.  When you have a town where a piece of armor costs 7,000 Gil, and a battle nets you about 50, there’s a problem.  Reminds me of Dragon Quest.

Bosses I remember devising strategies for and killing with a few rounds are now long drawn-out battles, and some are capable of wiping my team out with a single attack.  It is reminiscent of how FFIII played, but I’m toughing it out because the game is actually fun to play.

So, if you liked the original, and have a DS, go pick it up.  It’s worth it.

Zel-kun out.