Final Fantasy IV – Square Enix – DS

[schild]

Submitted by: Cyrrex

I've played most FF titles, but for some reason, I could never recall if I'd played number 4, which is often labeled as the best in the series.  So when I found out that they had a new and improved version for DS, I figured I'd better see what all the fuss was about.  Turns out I hadn't played it after all.  Boo me.

While I won't be able to talk about specific improvements over the original SNES title, there appears at least to be a basic bump up in graphics quality…you can put it at our near a basic PS1 title in terms of graphical goodness.  Nothing special, but serviceable enough.  The combat system appears to be fairly vanilla for an FF title so far, with characters simply gaining in level, attributes and spells automatically on level-up.  Nothing as intricate as what you usually see in more recent FF titles, from what I've seen to this point.  Combat itself is executed exactly as it always is in these games.  Voice acting has been included for certain cut-scenes.  This has been criticized as being weak/corny, but it doesn't bother me much, and it's not a frequent occurrence anyway.

All that said, FF games, for me, tend to sink or swim based on the story….though you need to accept that you are not affecting the plot itself, but are rather just along for the ride.  The main protagonist, Cecil, is an otherwise good boy being ordered to do naughty things at the behest of his once-was-good-but-is-now-going-crazy adoptive King/Father.  No doubt someone behind the throne is twisting his arm or otherwise bewitching said King.  It would probably be unfair to call it contrived, because by many accounts this game went a long way to pioneer this sort of story.  Whatever.  Regardless, the bottom line here is that it didn't take long for me to get sucked in by it.  The issues the characters deal with are fairly complex.  Love.  Betrayal.  Revenge.  Sure, I've seen it all a hundred times by now, but Square has always managed to do it with more flair and polish than most.

-

Bottom line is this:  I look forward every night to when my son gets put to bed, so I can bust out his DS and spend a few hours on this.   Unless you are an irredeemable FF hater, Buy It.

Submitted by: Cyrrex

[Trippy]

Byline needs to be at the top

[schild]

THERE, GOD, NOW IT'S EVERYWHERE.

Also, Final Fantasy IV is amazing.

[Trippy]

I was confused cause at my low resolution I couldn't see the full text and I thought it was you that hadn't played FF IV and I was like WTF?

[Aez]

I was confused cause at my low resolution I couldn't see the full text and I thought it was you that hadn't played FF IV and I was like WTF?

Hum...  and you didn't notice he suddenly had a son?

[Phildo]

Please tell me they left in "You spoony bard!"

[schild]

They did.

[Trippy]

I was confused cause at my low resolution I couldn't see the full text and I thought it was you that hadn't played FF IV and I was like WTF?

Hum...  and you didn't notice he suddenly had a son?

I did that's when I got really confused.

[Yegolev]

Killjoy let me play this a week or so ago, and it only took me until Cecil met King Baron to realize I had to buy it.  Again.  I bought it last night, actually, so this is the third version of FFIV that I have purchased.

[schild]

Fourth for me. SNES -> PS1 -> GBA -> DS. Here's hoping for a PS3 or PS4 version. Or whatever.

[Cyrrex]

Please tell me they left in "You spoony bard!"

I nearly roflcoptered when I saw that.  Don't spoil it for me, but I hope there's more of that to come.

[WindupAtheist]

I haven't played this since SNES back when it was new.  Much as JRPG annoys me these days, I'm tempted to see how it looks given a modern treatment.  I gave up on the genre a long time ago, but I loved this game hard back in the day.

[schild]

Nothing "modern" about it. Looks like an early era PS1 title.

[Cyrrex]

Yar, any modernization brings it up barely to PS1 standards.  Not even up to FF7 standards in terms of graphics.

I'm a bit stymied at a certain point in the game where you first meet up with the Monk (Yang?).  Big Bomb boss type thing...he basically ends up exploding and killing my whole party instantly.  Is there a trick, or do I just need to grind a few levels?  Have tried casting Protect, but I'm suddenly thinking that I haven't tried simply putting everyone into a defensive posture...fuck, don't tell me yet, I'll try that first.

[Phildo]

Try just wailing on the guy harder?  They may have increased the difficulty for this release, the original SNES version was dumbed down significantly for American gamers.

[Rasix]

Yar, any modernization brings it up barely to PS1 standards.  Not even up to FF7 standards in terms of graphics.

I'm a bit stymied at a certain point in the game where you first meet up with the Monk (Yang?).  Big Bomb boss type thing...he basically ends up exploding and killing my whole party instantly.  Is there a trick, or do I just need to grind a few levels?  Have tried casting Protect, but I'm suddenly thinking that I haven't tried simply putting everyone into a defensive posture...fuck, don't tell me yet, I'll try that first.

Shouldn't one shot you.  Just have everyone heal up to full when the screen indicates that he's going to explode.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but Protect is physical damage only or was FFIV not that advanced yet?

[schild]

Difficulty is harder. Good luck with Cagnazzo

Yea, you need to cast protect, hell I cast protect & shell against big bomb.

[Selby]

Try just wailing on the guy harder?  They may have increased the difficulty for this release, the original SNES version was dumbed down significantly for American gamers.

The PS1 version was harder and gave me a surprise, so wail harder or grind up a few levels and you should be okay.  That's the best part about these older RPGs.  Get stuck?  Grind a bit and blow it all away.  The SNES version could easily be done from start to finish in about 11 hours (one sitting if you were lame like some people) due to the lack of needing to grind.

[Cyrrex]

Difficulty is harder. Good luck with Cagnazzo

Yea, you need to cast protect, hell I cast protect & shell against big bomb.

Casting protect itself did nothing.  Entire party died, even though they were at full  or near full health.  Casting protect and then doing nothing but selecting DEFEND while the countdown takes place did the trick, however...Yang, Cecil and maybe Rosa survived, and Yang was even at more than 50%.  That was enough to get through it.  Obvious in hindsight, but I don't think I've ever had to depend on full party DEFEND before in an FF game.

[Phildo]

Cagnazzo... haha, stupid Italian name.  Should've kept the engrish names for the fiends.

[schild]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T08oWYjwlSY

[Fabricated]

Btw this game gets really, really fucking hard if you don't give out the new abilities to the right people or overlevel. Everything does way, way more damage and spams the most annoying abilities they have constantly. Also, status effects really work on stuff now. Use slow on EVERYTHING.

The last boss is so awful you have to pre-plan what you're going to do against his set cycle of attacks.

[Phildo]

New... abilities... that you can assign?  What is this blasphemy? (I don't have a DS)

[schild]

There are some abilities you can get through storylin ebits, like auto-potion (as ridiculous as it sounds) and counter. It gets dropped into 'key items' and you can give them to whoever.

[Phildo]

Those bastards!

[Cyrrex]

My one worry with that new ability assigning feature is that I am going to inevitably fuck it up somewhere along the line.  My other worry is that it doesn't seem to even do anything.  I have both auto-potion and counter assigned, and yet I haven't seen it used once.  Rydia has died several times without even once using her auto-potion.  Am I doing it wrong?

Fabricated:  What do you mean by over-level?  How can that be a negative?

[Strazos]

I remember wrecking this game on the GBA...

God damn, that final boss is a bitch. I was probably a bit underleveled when I finished him off; I basically had to keep retrying until the final evolution decided to NOT spam whatever god-awful ability he has back-to-back-to-back.

Such a fucking great game though. One of the better endings I have ever watched. Probably somewhere close the the Persona 4 ending.

[Rasix]

Probably somewhere close the the Persona 4 ending.

 

[Lum]

Please tell me they left in "You spoony bard!"

Not only that, the "developer room" easter egg has a note from the translator referring to some of the really bad Japanglish removed and the note  "turns out the bard was actually spoony, though."

[Lum]

There are some abilities you can get through storylin ebits, like auto-potion (as ridiculous as it sounds) and counter. It gets dropped into 'key items' and you can give them to whoever.

And if you don't drop Counter and Kick onto Cecil, there is something very wrong with you.

[Lum]

I have both auto-potion and counter assigned, and yet I haven't seen it used once.  Rydia has died several times without even once using her auto-potion.  Am I doing it wrong?

You have to add it to the "menu" of abilities for a character as well as assigning it to a specific character. Characters will (by design) eventually have more abilities than you can have active at once.

[Cyrrex]

Ahhhhh....that explains it, thanks.

[Phildo]

Do you get bonus points for triple-posting?

[Yegolev]

What the fuck is this Whyt shit?