Rate top gamesFinal Fantasy IV (1991)
About
Final Fantasy IV (ファイナルファンタジーIV, Fainaru Fantajī Fō), known as Final Fantasy II for its initial North American release (and not to be confused with the original Japanese Final Fantasy II), is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Released in 1991, it is the fourth main installment of the Final Fantasy series. The game's story follows Cecil, a dark knight, as he tries to prevent the sorcerer Golbez from seizing powerful crystals and destroying the world. He is joined on this quest by a frequently changing group of allies. Final Fantasy IV introduced innovations that became staples of the Final Fantasy series and role-playing games in general. Its "Active Time Battle" system was used in five subsequent Final Fantasy games, and unlike prior games in the series, IV gave each character their own unchangeable character class.
Final Fantasy IV has been ported to several other platforms with varying differences. An enhanced remake, also called Final Fantasy IV, with 3D graphics was released for the Nintendo DS in 2007 and 2008. The game was re-titled Final Fantasy II during its initial release outside Japan as the original Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III had not been released outside Japan at the time. All later localizations, which began to appear after Final Fantasy VII (released worldwide under that title), used the original title.
With its character-driven plot, use of new technologies, and critically acclaimed score by Nobuo Uematsu, Final Fantasy IV is regarded as a landmark of the series and of the role-playing genre. The various incarnations of the game have sold more than four million copies worldwide. A sequel, Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, was released for Japanese mobile phones in 2008, and worldwide via the Wii Shop Channel on June 1, 2009. In 2011, both Final Fantasy IV and The After Years were released for the PlayStation Portable as part of the compilation Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection, which also included a new game, set between the two; Final Fantasy IV: Interlude. Ports of the Nintendo DS remake were released for iOS in 2012, for Android in 2013 and for Windows in 2014.
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Final Fantasy IV (1991) reviews and comments
A little side-note: I consider myself a Final Fantasy fan maybe it is my favorite franchise, I have played a lot of the non-numerical games and at this point, I'm yet to play only: 5,6,8,9 and 11. What I'm trying to say is that as much as I love this franchise and considering the time period they were created, at least till the 4th entry, there wasn't a truly great Final Fantasy game, they all were good but they also lack in some departments, be it the story, grinding or combat mechanics, but, having played IV for the first time (in a remake version, sorry about that) its safe to say that they finally achieved a milestone, whereas gameplay, story, rhythm, and progression merged beautifully.
Game-play wise, the game relies on the famous or infamous ATB system, in which your characters have a "time-bar" that needs to be filled in order for them to make an action, be an attack or spell, once you use an action this bar needs to be filled once again, it's as simple as it sounds, therefore what you get are dynamic and sometimes dramatic battles where you need to quickly choose commands in order to not lose any time and get the upper hand in battle, you can choose also the speed of battles (at least in this game's edition) if you're getting trouble selecting stuff or if you think you can speed things up you have some liberty in that regard, however, this is where things get mixed. As far as I know in this version of the game, the ATB doesn't seem to work that well if you're not using high-speed battles, and more often than not, characters that have delayed abilities like "jump" will take far more time than it needs to, this is clearly a disadvantage and a thing that will be with you for the rest of the game. Aside from that, I liked the ATB system quite a lot, it maintained battles dense and tight, speaking of battles, I was surprised with plenty of the boss fights, it has a great variety and several strategies that make you feel "super smart" when you figure out their mechanic in the middle of the fight, truly loved that.
The story, at least to me, was a reminiscence from FFII, it felt dynamic and well crafted, it kinda subverts a lot of your expectations in a good way, so I accepted gladly all of their plot twists, I loved how it is hinted that you have to get "5 objects" or so in order to get to the "final dungeon" but then the story is like: "you're little too late, the bad guy is ahead of you and it has collected 2 of them" it maintains a fresh and unexpecting rhythm, another strong point is the theme of doing bad things for the greater good, it truly tried to tell something and for the most part (and as a game from 1991 with a lot of technical limitations) it hits the target just right, I won't spoil it but definitely is one of the highlights. Although the story is great it has some problems also, mainly is that at times it somehow feels repetitive, and it seems that they didn't want it to go that far, so some things that should be definitive in the end are not, this lows the stakes a great deal at some point, not that it ruins it, but certainly takes points out of it.
Graphically, this edition looks beautiful, the combat sprites look great and for the most part, they nailed the art of Yoshitaka Amano, maybe the only sprites that didn't look that good were the dialogue sprites, but is not really an issue. The music is also pretty memorable, it has some reminiscence of some tunes of FFIII and also there are leitmotifs that you'll notice in future entries.
All in all, I believe FFIV is a well-packaged and crafted game, it simply has everything that the past entries have promised and more, there are some minor issues that I can see how for someone else can be easily overlooked and consider it a masterpiece and that's great, this game has passed the test of time and it makes it look easy. Definitely recommended for any RPG fan and also for people that are interested in a starting point for the Final Fantasy Series.