Final Fantasy IV

July 25,2008 - Final Fantasy IV was re-released just a few years ago on the Game Boy Advance, and that marked the sixth separate time the game had been released. Featuring a new dungeon and a somewhat redone narrative, the game had positive reviews because of how well the game aged. Now the game is being released a seventh time, this time on the Nintendo DS. Unlike the previous six installments, the DS entry has been remade from the ground up and gives Japanese RPG fans a familiar, yet refreshing, experience.

Originally released as Final Fantasy II on the Super Famicom, the game is perhaps the most influential title in the series, being the first to implement the active time battle system that has become a mainstay in the flagship Final Fantasy games as well as Chrono Trigger. The game tells the story of Cecil, a Dark Knight in service to the kingdom of Baron. Upon attacking the village of Mysidia for their sacred crystal, Cecil questions the king’s orders to attack such a defenseless village. After his next mission that turned out to be the destruction of another village, Cecil betrays the King in hopes of saving the lives that Baron has threatened. Along the way, he overcomes tragic ends to people he meets along the way and works to take down the evils that overcame the kingdom.

One of the welcome changes made to the game is the new emphasis on exploration. When in dungeons or caves, the bottom screen serves as an empty map that will constantly fill itself as you continue to explore the area’s depths. The bottom right hand part of the touch screen will also contain a percentage that tells you how much of the floor you have mapped. Due to the game’s excessive random battles, it can be a bit of a hassle to map out an entire area, but sometimes the reward is well worth the effort as you can earn great awards like ten tents while other times the reward, sometimes a simple potion, might not be as helpful.

Aside from the obvious overhaul in the game’s overall presentation, the most obvious change made to the game is in the difficulty. While the game isn’t exactly “hard,” per say, this remake requires quite a bit of level-grinding to properly progress. Not leveling up will usually end up with you having to throw your DS out the window for dying in the first cave battle. Also, while it’s fully customizable, it’s worth noting that battles at first (especially since you only have 1-2 characters in your party) will be extremely slow. This can be fixed by going into the settings menu and moving the battle speed to “1” just for the sake of speeding things up. This is a rather helpful option, as later bosses in the game will require you to fight more strategically, and in order to do that properly—you’ll need more time in between turns.

When you get to the point where you’re comfortable with how your party is fighting, you can hit the X button to put the game in Auto-Battle mode. Auto-Battle mode makes the characters use commands they use the most; in other words, the damage dealers will attack while the healers constantly heal. This counters the annoyance of having to take three steps only to end up in another battle again, so it’s a welcome addition.

As far as keeping battles strategic, the main new feature is the Augment System. Veterans of Final Fantasy IV should be well aware of when, where, and which characters leave the party. Sometimes it can be a death, a kidnapping, whatever—but there will be a fair amount of required shuffling going on in your party. To somewhat ease the pain, you’ll come across “augment” equipment that allows you to teach special abilities to whichever character you want.

Augments kind of work like the Technical Machines (TM) from the flagship Pokemon games in the sense that they’re particularly useful and they can only be used once. When you augment an ability to a character who eventually leaves your party, when you play through the game a second time (or a third, fourth, etc.), that character will automatically have that ability in his or her arsenal. So for example, if you give Rosa an Auto-Potion augment, have her kidnapped, and then save her—she’ll still have that ability, even if you decide to play through the game again. The system may be a bit complicated at first, but it’s worth noting that it really isn’t required and the main way to make great use of it is to play to beat the game more than once—if you have that kind of free time, more power to you.

The other new feature worth mentioning is the wireless play. Aside from simple battles, there really isn’t much to it. You can customize Whyt, Rydia’s pet and main Summon, but there really isn’t too much variety. It’s nothing as close to the interactivity of sending letters in the DS remake Final Fantasy III, to say the least.

It has come to be a norm with Square Enix’s DS titles nowadays, but as soon as you pop the game in, you’ll be greeted with a jaw-dropping, epic cutscene thanks to the ActImagine codec. Aside from how beautiful the cutscenes look, the game looks a tad better than Final Fantasy III visually. To make things even better, you can unlock a theatre feature that allows you to watch all the main cutscenes in the game. The artwork has also been redone looks fantastic. The main quirk about the visuals is how pudgy and short the main characters look. The DS is just as powerful as the PSOne, but the characters in games like Final Fantasy VII and VIII look so much more realistic than the 3D adaptations of the characters in the Final Fantasy III and IV remakes. Either way, that’s nothing to really worry about. The bottom line is that the game looks great, and the fact that there’s emotion to the character’s faces gives the game more life than it ever had.

The sound is one of the more impressive updates in this remake of a classic. While all the music is the same, each tune sounds more orchestrated, and they don’t even come close to sounding like simple MIDI’s that players are used to with the GBA. Aside from that, most of the main cutscenes in the game come equipped with some good voice acting. There’s overacting in some cases, but what’s really amazing is how much they stuffed in a single DS card. You can also unlock a sound test option later on in the game, so you can relive all the sounds the Final Fantasy IV features.

Final Fantasy IV is a game that has aged remarkably well over the years, and this update has undoubtedly given the game new life. Despite the fact that this game was already re-released a few years ago, the fact remains that Final Fantasy IV is one of the games in the series most deserving of a remake, and Matrix has done a bang-up job in offering an improved presentation to a game that is already loved by many. This DS remake may seem a bit overly challenging at first to both newbies and veterans, but those who stay along for the ride will easily enjoy what’s arguably the best RPG in the DS’ astonishing library.

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