Final Fantasy History Month: A Veritable Classic (My FFIV Review)

Continuing with my string of reviews, I now set my sights on FFIV, since I had to skip over III due to technical difficulties. So, here it is:

Yes, I have the DS version. Why? Obviously, because it's Golbez and not Kain on the cover, duh.

Now, first, I need to go back to commenting on the graphics for this one (and eventually III), since the dev team completely remade these games from scratch, although with this one they left the story intact. Also, it's one of the few ones I have played in their original format and thus have a basis for comparison.

The difference truly is staggering this time.

Besides the obvious aesthetic improvements that the shift from 2D to 3D brings, it also vastly improved the storytelling and even introduced voice acting, which helped give those important scenes a lot more emotional impact. Hell, there's even some CG cutscenes thrown in for shits and giggles.

Pictured above: the original angsty FF protagonist.

Now, this significant graphics boost completely changed how I viewed this game. The first time I played it was a couple of years back, on my old SNES. I wasn't terribly impressed due to issues with the script, mainly, and piled on top of that were the alright-but-not-helping graphics, which were a big step down from my usual 3D fare on the PS2 and such. Eventually, I didn't see what the big whoop was about the game, and I quit somewhere after defeating the antlion in the cave. A few years later, I decide to give the game a second try, on my new DS, this time, and boy am I glad I did. With the script cleaned up to not induce any more headaches, and pretty graphics to keep combat lively, I was hooked. Unfortunately, this remake introduced a few more things which would make this game a pain in the ass for me. All of which are good when you have time, but not when you're blazing through the other five games in order to review them. The graphics are a no-contest. A+

Next, we have the sound. This is one of the few Final Fantasies whose score is actually very enjoyable, especially the arrangements they come up with for the piano collections and other assorted media. While not many of the tracks are terribly memorable, they make the game that much more interesting and help a great deal with the mood. Heck, the regular battle theme is one of the most memorable ones around (although every time I hear the opening bassline, my mind switches to FFIX, but that's a different matter altogether). I'm no music expert, so my judgment on these aspects of the games is always painfully brief, but I can say with a lot of confidence that this one has one of the better scores in the series. All the pieces just give you the right mood for the moment and nothing feels out of place. Plus there's the great track "Battle With the Four Fiends", which plays during... the battles with the Four Fiends and Golbez. It is one of my favorite boss battle tracks, since it is so darn catchy and it feels, playful, which helps you not come to hate the boss battles once you get stuck on one. The soundtrack receives a solid A.

Have some pretty art to break up the monotony.

Next up, the gameplay. For the first time in the series the ATB (Active Time Battle) system is introduced. Instead of the usual turn-based combat, there is now a small bar that slowly fills up and once it does, it is that particular character's turn. Naturally, this changed a lot of things, since it used to be that the 'haste' and 'slow' spells merely increased the amount of 'hits' your character landed on the enemy and therefore inflicted more damage, or the inverse. With the ATB, however, 'haste' and 'slow' now had their titular effects on your gauge and thus opened up a ton of new strategies and forms of time management during battle. Another change is the removal of FFIII's Job Class System, where all party members could freely change their classes outside of battle to suit your current needs, but this was done for a reason which has to do with the story, and it works just fine either way. There is also the small detail that you now have five party members instead of the usual four which seems to be the norm in FF games, and throughout all of the game, people switch in and out of your party (again, for plot-related reasons). For the most part, though, the gameplay remains unchanged. You go around the world, fighting monsters, and you know the rest. Ah, and of course, not sure if it was there in the original, since I never got too far into it, but we also have the Augments. These 'augments', are abilities which party members that leave your... party, give you once they are gone. Say, for example, you used to have Prince Edward the bard in your party and then he left. Now, in his place, you have the 'Song' augment in your inventory, which you can use to have one of your characters learn the titular ability and use it in battle. Sounds pretty straightforward, but it gets more complicated, as only specific combinations of augments and characters will yield better, advanced types of augments which will make your life much, MUCH easier, and in the late game give your characters some nice stat boosts. Ah, yes, I almost forgot. This game is insanely hard. Like, nightmarish. I was fairly overpowered by the time I approached the final dungeon, around level 78, and once I set foot in that place I got my ass promptly handed to me in a silver platter with a lace napkin underneath. Of course, the whole game is an offender in this aspect, since being at a high level does not mean your party won't be wiped by a random encounter out in any field of the game. Enemies here love to play dirty and they will spam insta-death attacks and similar strategies any chance they get. But it's not unbearable, if you take your time to enjoy the game. And finally, there's the little side quests which you can opt not to do and will have no major impact on your gameplay. The gameplay, at least the DS version, get an A- because it is really, truly, hard. Portable, my ass.

But it's so pretty...

And finally, there's the story. On one hand, I like the story because it is well written and most, if not all of the characters are likable, and on the other hand, I personally blame it for giving Square the idea that it needed angsty and broody protagonists to make their stories better. But I get ahead of myself, and what better place to start than the beginning. You play Cecil Harvey, a dark knight in service of the kingdom of Baron, and captain of the Red Wings, the best damn airship fleet in the world. As of late, the king, a normally peaceful man has started to attack other countries and you are concerned with this, but out of loyalty, you carry out your duties all the same. After returning from a particularly brutal mission, you confront the king and for this, you are stripped of your captain's rank and sent to deliver a package to a small village of summoners. Of course, this package was a trap and the village ends up burning down, killing all the summoners, save for a young girl named Rydia, who later joins your journey reluctantly. The game then focuses on Cecil's journey as he strives to atone for his past actions and stop Golbez, the man behind everything, from gathering the crystals and destroying the world. Also in the cast we have Kain, captain of Baron's dragoons and Cecil's best friend (who happens to suffer from chronic backstabbing syndrome); Rosa, a white mage, accomplished archer, and Cecil's lover; Rydia, the little summoner girl who's parents were accidentally killed by Cecil; Cid, Baron's chief engineer and good friend of Cecil's; Edge, ninja prince of a kingdom destroyed by Baron; and many others which help Cecil along on his journey.

Now, on to the finer points of the plot. I really like how Cecil's atonement is handled throughout the whole game. Especially with the voice acting. It really helps to convey how sorry he is, without coming off as too whiny or too wimpy. The way the rest of the cast interacts with him is also very well handled. For example, at first, Rydia is completely unwilling to speak to him, but after snooping in on a couple of deeply apologetic moments he has, she very slowly starts to come around, eventually forgiving him, realizing the he truly did not burn down her village willingly. We also have the entire village he is sent to destroy at the game's beginning (not the summoner's village, the one before that), whose inhabitants go so far as to turn you into a frog or pig if you speak to them, and who come around after your switch from dark knight to paladin (though they still transform you after this, out of sheer spite). Then, of course, there's the interactions between the other characters. Kain is a particularly obvious example, always jealous of Cecil 'till the actual ending scene and acting accordingly. There's also Tellah and Edward, the former, blaming his daughter's death on the latter and spending a good chunk of your early game trying to find and kill him, while delivering the infamous line, "You spoony bard!" (now with voices!) when he does find him. And of course there's all the other characters, which all get their time in the limelight, making them all equally interesting and important to the plot as Cecil himself. But what would this game be without it's star character and the driving force behind the plot? Ladies and gentlemen, we also have Golbez, the main villain and, as Ray was so kind to point out to me, the only undefeated villain in the whole franchise. This man is always a step ahead of the party and every single part of his plan revolves around either fucking shit up for you, or making you open up a path for him to fuck shit up subsequently. In short, he is what existed before Xanatos, of the Gargoyles. Not only is he crazy prepared, but he is always more powerful than you, which makes him one of the few villains who runs from you not out of cowardice, but because he has tight schedule to keep and can't be arsed to finish you. He also has control over the Four Fiends, who are some of the more fun boss battles in the franchise, with Rubicante, the Fiend of Fire, coming to mind. He is fought after a particularly grueling dungeon, which is likely to have left you in the red, and what does he do? He prefers to fight like a gentleman and heals your party up. Of course, it's still a hard as shit boss battle, so the refill is greatly appreciated. There are many other great things that I would love to mention, but I want to keep this as brief as possible without doing a n injustice to this fantastic game, so that's it. Story, solid A+. Not because of epicness or none of that, but because it is coherent, and all of the tense moments are appropriately so, something all previous FF games had failed to do until now.

The aforementioned Rubicante, preparing to flash your party and scar them for life.

So, bottom line, this is one of the best old-school FFs there are. The other one, of course, is VI. And between these two, it's always a tough pick. Some pick this one as the best because it's the first one to truly succeed and therefore, has seniority. Others pick VI because it goes for broke and makes the story as epic as can be (within console limits, of course). But my reasons are neither of these. Personally, I would tie them both at the top, since they are both magnificent in their own right. But I choose VI just ever so slightly over this one because its world is bigger and more fleshed out, at the cost of overshooting its mark and coming off as trying too hard. While I love that IV has the most solid story of them all, VI gives me the warm fuzzy feeling I can only get from learning as many details about my characters' lives as I want. Plus, it has Kefka, one of the greatest FF villains ever, by virtue of his sheer insanity and being the only one to actually succeed in his goal of world destruction. But I digress, my point is, FFIV is tied with VI for best in the franchise and with good reason. Most of this is, of course, due to it being the DS version, which in my opinion is the definitive version, seeing as it offers the best possible experience. That whole 'After Years' crap is not relevant to me, and neither should it be for you.

Fefi's Personal Score: 9/10
'Fair' Score: 9/10 (What, you actually thought I'd give it a lower score this time?)

This man taught Xanatos all he knows. Plus, he rocks the spiked armor like no other villain can.

July is Final Fantasy History Month. Yes, I did just make it up.

So, due to unfortunate circumstances, I have been stuck in my house for the whole summer. On the one hand, boo for me. On the other, it has given me plenty time to appreciate all these video games I have at my disposal. Being the huge RPG nerd that I am, I decided to play through the first 6 Final Fantasies and see how they stacked up nowadays.

First up: Final Fantasy, the one that started it all.

Hold on to your long-johns, we're about to get retro up in this bitch.

I decided to play the updated PSP version, since the original had a horrible five cast limit per spell level, and that shit don't roll with me.

First up, the graphics. Naturally, the original graphics would not stack up very well nowadays, but back then, this was pretty damn cool:

Mind blowing.

And now, for the latest, and what I presume will be the last update, they look like this:

Pretty.

So, for what essentially set the ground for every other JRPG out there, the graphics are a-okay.

Next up is the music. It's naturally nothing too fancy, just your usual string orchestra crap which I must admit, is quite catchy when you get lost on the map and have no damn clue where to go next. The game also comes with the bonus dungeons that have bosses from the other final fantasies and their theme music also gets a nice tech bump, which makes these bonus battles all the more exciting (Gilgamesh, anyone?). So the music is par for the course in a FF game, fun and fitting, but ultimately forgettable unless you're a fanboy (like me!).

Gameplay-wise, the game follows the standard turn-based combat format. The higher your characters' speed stats are, the better your chances are of striking first and ending the battle without any major casualties. The magic system uses the more recent MP, uh, system instead of the original 'five casts per day' limit, which you had to use an inn or a tent to refill. This came as a big relief, since I like to cast the big, flashy spells on the grounds that they look fabulous and awesome. But as far as strategy goes, you can just make a team of physical attackers and just punch through the game in a heartbeat. Alternatively, you could take up the four white mage challenge and have fun until you reach the final boss, which is easily defeated by this setup. Naturally, game progression is as cryptic as can be, since there is no quest log or anything to remind you of where to go next unless you speak to every NPC to get vague hints, but I suppose that's half the fun of playing this game.
All in all, if you're not in the mood for this game, the gameplay can get to be a tad frustrating, so I can only say the fun that is had depends on the person playing it, but I'd give it a solid C+ considering it's a 20+ year-old game.

And finally, there's the 'story'. Technically, it has one, but since you have to piece it together from your tasks and whatever the NPCs tell you, it can be hard to make out. I'm not even going to say it's a spoiler, since it's such an effing old game. You start out accepting a quest to rescue a princess from a rogue knight, Garland, and eventually end up protecting the world from dying thanks to the work of the Four Fiends of Chaos, which are destroying the crystals that control the elements of the earth. After much hard work, you go back 2,000 years in the past to defeat... and this is what I consider to be quite the surprising plot twist, back when it was released, anyway... Garland! It appears he was summoned back to the past by the very Fiends you had destroyed earlier when you first defeated him and had trapped the heroes in an endless time loop and it is  up to you to end it by defeating him. Final battle happens, the loop is broken and all your hard work disappears, since technically, none of the previous events ever happened. Messed up shit, if you ask me.

So, my final verdict is the following: It's a game that is over 20 years old and is very fun to play on the go, hence all the mobile remakes. With all the little touch-ups it has received, it is more than bearable to play in this day and age. For the casual, non RPG hating, gamer, this means that it could be played and beaten with no major problems. For the RPG lover, it has more than enough bonus dungeons and difficult bosses to keep you entertained for the few days it'd take you to beat it. For the Final Fantasy fan, just get it, if you didn't already have it.

The Warrior of Light compels you to play this game.

Fefi's Personal Score: 8/10 (Actually, I love the damn thing)
Reasonable Score: 7/10