Final Fantasy IV

"Damnation!"

We've gone through so many Final Fantasy titles in this 1001 list that keeping track of what came out when is getting a little tricky. Luckily, the 1001 list is fairly chronological, so after FFXII we're obviously going to be playing Final Fantasy IV.

Shouldn't there be an X in that?

No, my eyes aren't fooling me. The 1001 wants us to play Final Fantasy IV, but specifically its 2007 remake that brought it onto the Nintendo DS and into the third dimension. What carries over from the 1991 Super NES original? The plot, I assume, but what about the mechanics? How much has been borrowed from the last two decades of RPG innovation? Anything? Nothing? Let's find out.

Fun Times

FFIV starts with an FMV, as Final Fantasy titles are fond of doing. It's a little weird to see such a thing on a Nintendo DS, and I slightly regret resetting the screen gap settings of this emulator, but we can ignore it if we squint.

My knowledge of FFIV is non-existent. The earliest Final Fantasy title I'm really aware of is FFVI, and that's including the fact that I've played a bit of FFV for this 1001 list. These early titles are just too long ago for me to be aware of. I wasn't a gamer back then - they just couldn't have formed an impression on my childhood brain.

So this is as good an opportunity as I could get for revisiting a game then, really. The best way to play a game I know nothing about is a remake with - I hope - quality of life improvements. Let's see what the DS can deliver.

Well, it couldn't keep those graphics up for very long. I jest, of course, but if I were to compare these polygons with the pixels of old, there'd be just as much of a difference to look at. Besides, graphics don't make the game now, do they?

Knowing nothing about the story or its setting, it'd be absolutely lovely if FFIV introduced itself right about now.

Well, that's a start. Cecil here looks like some kind of Power Ranger, and with a look like this and a name like that - including the 'Baron' part - something tells me he's a bad guy.

Oh, wow, voices! Choppy, garbled voices (thanks emulation), but voices nonetheless. Not the kind of voices I was expecting. Cecil sounds rather young, and doesn't sound like a gruff bad guy. Hmm.

These guys are flying back from a mission to steal a crystal, but something seems to be bothering everyone. Something about it all wasn't quite right. But why? Before finding out, the ship is attacked. It's time to see what battle mechanics FFIV has to offer us.

Would you believe it, it's a system that requires you to wait for your action guage to fill up before being able to choose an action, such as an attack or the use of an item. And then wait for it to happen, too. To fans of the series, it's known as the Active Time Battle system, and it was first introduced in this very Final Fantasy, all those decades ago.

It's not strictly turn based - indeed, to me, it's not clear when anything will happen - but not strictly real-time either. I should, with subsequent releases of Final Fantasy, be able to explain it all better, but I just can't. All I'm doing is pressing A a few times to confirm an attack, then waiting for it to happen, then waiting for the chance to do it again. So it's an easy system, sort of. Press A a bunch. We can do that.

Sure enough we can do it, and return to... the castle... to be greeted by a bloke called Baigan. Not sure who he is, but a little whisper in the ear of the King in the next scene gives me the impression that Baigan is a bit of a prick, worming his way into the Kings good book at any cost. Not in an arse kissing kind of way, but in a political manouvreing kinda of way. The bastard.

We've been stripped of our rank and sent on an errand with our buddy, Kain. Baigan has the Kings ear and this business with stealing Crystals is beginning to raise some questions. Those we stole the Water Crystal from didn't even put up a fight to defend it, and some exploration of this castle reveals some prisoners pleading with us to not abuse the power of the crystal. Uh-oh.

Frustrations

The castle is full of about 7 people, and it's up to me to find out just where it is I need to be going now that the King is finished with me. I found some chests full of money and the prison cells occupied by what will probably turn out to be the innocent, but I've still not found where I've got to be before embarking on this quest to kill an Eidolon.

Ah, my tower. Which one is mine?

It's not a huge effort to run around this castle, but it always annoys me when old games set up a plot and then just drop you into a world and have you figure it out for yourself. We've moved on since the early 1990s, but this is a faithful FFIV remake, and I've got to find my tower.

A few courtyards and interactions later, we finally find it, and are able to muse below the moons. I read that FFIV is set on Earth, which would explain the use of our moon in the sky... but an identical, smaller moon nearby? That's just lazy. You didn't even rotate it or anything.

Not about the graphics, though. Gameplay and story. To be fair, this is a story opener that I wasn't expecting from a game this old. Intrigue and ethics, in a fantasy RPGs? Whatever's next? Characters will emotions and feelings?

Oooohhhh, yeeeeaaaah... that's not landed well with me. Cecil really does sound like a 14 year old boy here, and not the Lord Captain Baron Super Dark Knight Power Ranger that his title and costume seek to portray. The whole look of these two characters, Cecil and Kain, just doesn't strike me as coming from a Final Fantasy game. They look ridiculously out of place, but then I don't really know what this place even is to begin with.

I wonder what the original sprites looked like. Would I have been having the same reaction to these characters with teeny tiny sprite versions and voices that I'd have to give them myself?

There's not much time for me to think about it, as daybreak brings us some more in-game cutscenes and some story dump.

There are loads more paragraphs about there being more monster activity, blah blah blah, but it's not doing much to convince me that Final Fantasy IV is worth playing. Once it's finished setting up the world a little bit more, we find ourselves standing with that world at our feet.

It's a game from the early 1990s, remember, so there's no indication of where to actually go in this wide world,  but a greyed out castle and a colourful (in comparisson) town right next to us do offer some hints, and the first local I chat to inside gives me all the information I need.

Towns are vital for getting the items, equipment, and information that you'll need on your travels, and as such, as soon as I chat to this guy and find out I should be heading Northwest to a mountain cave, I immediately turn around and leave town to get adventuring. I'm a Lord Captain Baron yada yada yada, I can cope with whatever I'll find en route.

And, because it's a Final Fantasy game of old, we'll find lots of random encounters to level up along the way.

Further Fun Times

So far, FFIV looks pretty good. It's a remake we're playing, obviously, and if we ignore the absurd costumes we're wearing, I can see myself having a good time with this sort of set up. Clean menus on the bottom screen, simply animated action up top - it's not pushing the DS to breaking point, and it doesn't need to.

My problems thus far have been more attributable to my reactions to the aesthetics, and the lack of handholding that old games had. We've not had any clear tutorials or anything. An easy fight to introduce ourselves to the menus, yes, but we had to figure out what would happen by doing it, not by being told about it - the brand new ATB system, for example, hasn't been explained to me in a way I understand. I've got to learn by doing, and that can sometimes annoy me. At least it looks interesting to compensate.

Finding the cave didn't take too much effort, and it's full of random encounters with giant creepy crawlies defending treasure chests. Sometimes there are a couple of opponents, sometimes as many as six, all waiting for their turn to strike.

Feeling the need to crack out the special abilities, Cecil goes all moody by using 'Darkness', which will increase the damage he does at the cost of injuring himself. How edgy.

I'm not a fan of all the purple, by the way. These guys really do look stupid. But the environments are alright, and the monsters aren't too bad, though they do like to slow me down with status effects. 

Running around the cave will reward me with experience from battles, items from chests, and a reward from a rabbit-looking thing that want's me to fill in the map. Every little helps, especially when I'm not the kind of player to run back to town and stock up whenever I'm feeling the need. Must be all that 'On Site Procurement' from Metal Gear Solid.

The King wants us to kill this Eidolon and deliver a ring to whoever we find beyond it. I don't know what an Eidolon is, but I've beatenso many worms and butterflies in this cave that I'm prepared for anything at this point.

Oh, it's just a real big worm, look. Not sure about the earrings, though. For that crime against fashion alone, something needs to be done. Let the battle commence.

Kain leaps into the air, where he will descend, at some point in the future, in an attack that will deal double damage. Cecil, meanwhile, has been blinded in a previous encounter, and I don't have any more eye drops, having used them to cure Cecil's blindness from the encounter before that. The result is that all of his attacks will miss, but I do have a Red Fang spell to try out.

As it burns, the Eidolon decides to transform into mist. Attacking the mist - even if you're blind and will automatically miss - will result in a counter-attack, Freezing Mist, which knocked Cecil out cold. He's gone. He needs a Phoenix Down, which I do have, but unfortunately Kain is still hovering in midair, waiting to finish his Jump strike...

... which finally connects. With the mist. Which triggers a counter attack. Which kills Kain.

Ah, thanks for explaining that, FFIV. I wouldn't have known otherwise.

That's a game over, folks. I didn't even learn how or where to save in this game. At least I know where my tower is, should I return.

Final Word

What a question. Should I return? Final Fantasy IV is an old game. Even this remake is now 13 years old. But it is still playable, and it is still a Final Fantasy title, and you know that they generally have some degree of competence about them.

Each Final Fantasy game is different, though, and some resonate with me more than others, be it for the art style, the characters, the story, the gameplay... I've (now) got a list of Final Fantasy titles I want to play some more, or watch through at the very least, and that also means a list of games that I don't really care about, and don't have any desire to find out more about.

Final Fantasy IV sits somewhere in the middle. It absolutely hasn't leapt to the top of the list because I don't like Cecil or what he's wearing. But it hasn't fallen off the list either, because this remake keeps it alive in player's minds with enhanced visuals and gameplay. But it's old gameplay, right? I'll have to put myself into the mindset of a SNES gamer to get through it. I wasn't a SNES gamer. But it's playable, and accessible, even if it doesn't hold your hand. But I did die to the first boss. But then, I was blinded while facing him.

You know what, I'm not going to come to a decision about whether anyone should play Final Fantasy IV, either this remake or the original, until I've played FFIV, either this remake or the original. But don't expect that to happen any time soon, because I'm not sold on what I've seen so far.

Any of that make sense? Great.

Fun Facts

There was no need for me to use the stylus, but then I never encountered any of the new mini-games that make use of it. I don't even have any idea where they'd fit. Maybe there's an arcade in town...

Final Fantasy IV, developed by Square Enix, Matrix Software, first released in 1991.

Version played: Nintendo DS, 2007, via emulation.