GBA Final Fantasy 4 review so far
Unlike many people, Final Fantasy 4 was my first Final Fantasy game. It was a game unlike any other game I've every played. I've dabbled into RPGs before, the vastly more popular Dragon Warrior. In fact Dragon Warrior is so popular in Japan that it is required by law for the game to be released on a Sunday in to prevent mass school truency by students waiting to buy the game. One of the earliest memories was a screenshot of Final Fantasy which featured a group of sprites fighting some flaming beast with a technological background. It looked interesting enough and when we bought I dabbled in it, only to forget about it.
I don't know what drew me back into the game, but it forever changed how I looked at it. I essentially played a saved game to the finish, starting with our main character Cecil heading towards Mount Ordeals in order to become a Paladin. It's quite bizarre because now, no matter how many times I play the game, I always see the beginning of the game will be at that moment, everything before that is a precursor.
So this game has a lot of memories really, fond ones. I liked the characters, they were imaginative and to tell the truth it was probably the last true old school Final Fantasy before even FF6 kinda messed it up. I do have an affinity for FF6, but FF4 was the first. Why do I say it's the last true old school one? Well aside from the theme of crystals (which FF5 also has I admit), it was also one of the Final Final Fantasies where not everyone could be a like to each other. Mainly dragoons were dragoons. Knights were knights. No magic for everyone or skillz for everyone via a equipment. Plus not to mention full equipment abilities. Not just a weapon, an accessory and a piece of armour. But most importantly was the use of the ATB (active time battle) system. I liked it because it actually made it so you had to choose what spell to cast. A higher level spell will take longer to cast than a lower level spell. Do you need the spell now or later? Would you rather have your fighter fight, or perform his more powerful attack for a sacrafice of a turn? Granted it sounds nice on paper, but pratical application usually has you casting the most powerful spells in general. But the illusion of choice is good to have.
Basically the GBA port was the original Final Fantasy 4 filled with somethings that were left out from the US version. It was an reworked and reissue in the PS1 version but I've never played it before. Somehow I find playing 8-16 bit games on the next gen systems bordering on blasphemous.
It's basically a good port aside from a few minor inconviniences. Lag of inputing commands is the most important thing which truly does piss me off. It disappoints me and sort of frightens me on how lazy the programmers were in producing this. The latter exists because I wonder how they will treat the FF5 and FF6 ports. Possibly not as well considering a lot of resources seemed to be put into porting FF3j into the DS as a 3D game.
The other minor thing which is more associated with the lag is the magic animation. It looked far smoother and more impressive on the SNES and yet the GBA seem to make it into less quality.
The good parts is that the script has been revamped. It's not Post FF6 fare, hell it's not even Ff6 quality, and yet there is a noticiable difference. Even after not playing the game for so long. If anything the improvement of the script almost shows the glaring weaknesses of some of the writing because some parts are bad.
I admit, at one point in time I was disenchanted with the game. This was before the last dungeon. I was at a piddly level 45 with my characters where realistically you needed to be at level 80 to defeat the final boss. And that alone is one of the things that really make or break an RPG, if not...seperate the RPG player from the casual games. I never really relished leveling up unless I have some goal to work to, and quite frankly just getting high enough to defeat a boss isn't one of the motivators for me. I basically half assed the game a while and then when I decided to hunker down and play the new extra feature allowed to us, I regain my spark for playing the game again.
Namely what I speak of is the extra dungeon on Mt. Ordeals in which you can get the ultimate weapons for other party members. In the original you usually end up having only 5 characters to work with. It's a typical team full of variety. But the game itself has total of 12 characters in which you can play with, 10 of which are alive and spirtually supporting you before the last dungeon. So now in the port, you are allowed to use the remaining 5 characters who are still alive at your disposal. And it's just fun in general to make a mishmash of teams. Even setting them up to get their ultimate weapons was greatly enjoyable. The bosses guarding them were extremely well done and imaginative, and above all else challenging; I loved them.
The game itself is a challenge because there is a need to level up. I didn't however considering I blazed through a lot of the parts of the game, but it's fun nevertheless to play an RPG were one battle could really do you in. But ultimately it was a game that fell flat as a port. I am disappointed because I don't want a generation of players to consider that this is the best that FF4 could offer where in reality it was much more than laggy gameplay. However in the end I thank Square for the memories of the game again. I have yet to play the 50 level dungeon that awaits so that's why my review falls a bit short, but still. I'd give it a 3.5/5.0 stars
I don't know what drew me back into the game, but it forever changed how I looked at it. I essentially played a saved game to the finish, starting with our main character Cecil heading towards Mount Ordeals in order to become a Paladin. It's quite bizarre because now, no matter how many times I play the game, I always see the beginning of the game will be at that moment, everything before that is a precursor.
So this game has a lot of memories really, fond ones. I liked the characters, they were imaginative and to tell the truth it was probably the last true old school Final Fantasy before even FF6 kinda messed it up. I do have an affinity for FF6, but FF4 was the first. Why do I say it's the last true old school one? Well aside from the theme of crystals (which FF5 also has I admit), it was also one of the Final Final Fantasies where not everyone could be a like to each other. Mainly dragoons were dragoons. Knights were knights. No magic for everyone or skillz for everyone via a equipment. Plus not to mention full equipment abilities. Not just a weapon, an accessory and a piece of armour. But most importantly was the use of the ATB (active time battle) system. I liked it because it actually made it so you had to choose what spell to cast. A higher level spell will take longer to cast than a lower level spell. Do you need the spell now or later? Would you rather have your fighter fight, or perform his more powerful attack for a sacrafice of a turn? Granted it sounds nice on paper, but pratical application usually has you casting the most powerful spells in general. But the illusion of choice is good to have.
Basically the GBA port was the original Final Fantasy 4 filled with somethings that were left out from the US version. It was an reworked and reissue in the PS1 version but I've never played it before. Somehow I find playing 8-16 bit games on the next gen systems bordering on blasphemous.
It's basically a good port aside from a few minor inconviniences. Lag of inputing commands is the most important thing which truly does piss me off. It disappoints me and sort of frightens me on how lazy the programmers were in producing this. The latter exists because I wonder how they will treat the FF5 and FF6 ports. Possibly not as well considering a lot of resources seemed to be put into porting FF3j into the DS as a 3D game.
The other minor thing which is more associated with the lag is the magic animation. It looked far smoother and more impressive on the SNES and yet the GBA seem to make it into less quality.
The good parts is that the script has been revamped. It's not Post FF6 fare, hell it's not even Ff6 quality, and yet there is a noticiable difference. Even after not playing the game for so long. If anything the improvement of the script almost shows the glaring weaknesses of some of the writing because some parts are bad.
I admit, at one point in time I was disenchanted with the game. This was before the last dungeon. I was at a piddly level 45 with my characters where realistically you needed to be at level 80 to defeat the final boss. And that alone is one of the things that really make or break an RPG, if not...seperate the RPG player from the casual games. I never really relished leveling up unless I have some goal to work to, and quite frankly just getting high enough to defeat a boss isn't one of the motivators for me. I basically half assed the game a while and then when I decided to hunker down and play the new extra feature allowed to us, I regain my spark for playing the game again.
Namely what I speak of is the extra dungeon on Mt. Ordeals in which you can get the ultimate weapons for other party members. In the original you usually end up having only 5 characters to work with. It's a typical team full of variety. But the game itself has total of 12 characters in which you can play with, 10 of which are alive and spirtually supporting you before the last dungeon. So now in the port, you are allowed to use the remaining 5 characters who are still alive at your disposal. And it's just fun in general to make a mishmash of teams. Even setting them up to get their ultimate weapons was greatly enjoyable. The bosses guarding them were extremely well done and imaginative, and above all else challenging; I loved them.
The game itself is a challenge because there is a need to level up. I didn't however considering I blazed through a lot of the parts of the game, but it's fun nevertheless to play an RPG were one battle could really do you in. But ultimately it was a game that fell flat as a port. I am disappointed because I don't want a generation of players to consider that this is the best that FF4 could offer where in reality it was much more than laggy gameplay. However in the end I thank Square for the memories of the game again. I have yet to play the 50 level dungeon that awaits so that's why my review falls a bit short, but still. I'd give it a 3.5/5.0 stars
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