A remaster of Final Fantasy IV
The original Final Fantasy IV comes to life with completely new graphics and audio! A remodeled 2D take on the fourth game in the world-renowned Final Fantasy series! Enjoy the timeless story told through charming retro graphics.
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First FF I complete, love the story & humor
Esse é o meu primeiro Final Fantasy clássico, então é meio difícil avaliar, já que não joguei nenhum na época. Mas vamos lá.
O que mais se destaca no game é a história e uma boa parte dos personagens principais. Se eu tivesse jogado esse game na época, teria achado a história incrível, por conta das diversas reviravoltas que acontecem nela e os personagens como Cecil e Kain. Porém, apesar de começar muito bem, com o tempo acaba ficando previsível. Fico imaginando como seria um remake desse game atualmente nos moldes do FFVII Remake; tem muita coisa que poderia ser melhor aqui.
O combate de turnos é bom no geral. O problema é que o tempo não para realmente quando você está selecionando a ação que irá tomar. Ele até para se você selecionar os menus de magias e itens, mas se ficar pensando em que ação irá tomar, o tempo continuará passando e os monstros te atacando, o que faz com que você não consiga pensar direito no que fazer e tenha que tomar a decisão do que fazer o mais rápido possível. Isso acaba deixando o combate chato e maçante com o tempo, uma vez que você vai sempre usar os mesmos golpes e magia. Outra coisa que incomoda é que mesmo você usando uma magia para analisar um monstro para saber suas fraquezas e vida, é algo que só mostra quando você usa essa magia. Então, se você não decorar a fraqueza e a vida do monstro, terá que usar a magia novamente ou olhar no bestiário, o que não é nada prático e muitas vezes o uso dessa magia nem funciona, o que faz você gastar um turno à toa. Obviamente, se esse game fosse feito hoje, ao usar essa magia, as fraquezas e a vida ficariam sempre visíveis.
O game também é longo demais. Poderia ter metade do tempo, o que seria bem mais agradável de se jogar. Quando cheguei na metade do game, tudo que eu queria era só que acabasse o mais rápido possível, pois já estava cansado de fazer as mesmas coisas sempre. Para ser jogado hoje em dia, fica bem difícil, mesmo eles tendo feito um ótimo trabalho com as animações do game.
Eu não joguei os Final Fantasy anteriores a esse, mas vi vídeos completos da história e detonados completos de todos os anteriores a esse, e dá para se ver uma grande evolução desde o primeiro game da série, principalmente na história. Só indico jogar esse game se você realmente quer conhecer mais a série ou se joga bastante games retro e já está bastante acostumado com games retro, caso contrário, você irá se frustrar bastante. Minha nota para esse game é 8.0/10, mas, na verdade, eu daria até menos. Porém, por conta de ser um game antigo que tem uma notável evolução se comparado com os anteriores da série, além de um bom combate e uma boa história no geral, acaba por merecer essa nota.
O que mais se destaca no game é a história e uma boa parte dos personagens principais. Se eu tivesse jogado esse game na época, teria achado a história incrível, por conta das diversas reviravoltas que acontecem nela e os personagens como Cecil e Kain. Porém, apesar de começar muito bem, com o tempo acaba ficando previsível. Fico imaginando como seria um remake desse game atualmente nos moldes do FFVII Remake; tem muita coisa que poderia ser melhor aqui.
O combate de turnos é bom no geral. O problema é que o tempo não para realmente quando você está selecionando a ação que irá tomar. Ele até para se você selecionar os menus de magias e itens, mas se ficar pensando em que ação irá tomar, o tempo continuará passando e os monstros te atacando, o que faz com que você não consiga pensar direito no que fazer e tenha que tomar a decisão do que fazer o mais rápido possível. Isso acaba deixando o combate chato e maçante com o tempo, uma vez que você vai sempre usar os mesmos golpes e magia. Outra coisa que incomoda é que mesmo você usando uma magia para analisar um monstro para saber suas fraquezas e vida, é algo que só mostra quando você usa essa magia. Então, se você não decorar a fraqueza e a vida do monstro, terá que usar a magia novamente ou olhar no bestiário, o que não é nada prático e muitas vezes o uso dessa magia nem funciona, o que faz você gastar um turno à toa. Obviamente, se esse game fosse feito hoje, ao usar essa magia, as fraquezas e a vida ficariam sempre visíveis.
O game também é longo demais. Poderia ter metade do tempo, o que seria bem mais agradável de se jogar. Quando cheguei na metade do game, tudo que eu queria era só que acabasse o mais rápido possível, pois já estava cansado de fazer as mesmas coisas sempre. Para ser jogado hoje em dia, fica bem difícil, mesmo eles tendo feito um ótimo trabalho com as animações do game.
Eu não joguei os Final Fantasy anteriores a esse, mas vi vídeos completos da história e detonados completos de todos os anteriores a esse, e dá para se ver uma grande evolução desde o primeiro game da série, principalmente na história. Só indico jogar esse game se você realmente quer conhecer mais a série ou se joga bastante games retro e já está bastante acostumado com games retro, caso contrário, você irá se frustrar bastante. Minha nota para esse game é 8.0/10, mas, na verdade, eu daria até menos. Porém, por conta de ser um game antigo que tem uma notável evolução se comparado com os anteriores da série, além de um bom combate e uma boa história no geral, acaba por merecer essa nota.
This review contains spoilers
FFIV is kind of The JRPG Ever. It’s not bad, I didn’t dislike it, but it hasn’t actually done particularly much to stand out and has some very old RPG elements to it that somewhat stick out.
The plot, for the first two thirds of the game, is a decent surface level appropriate for the game. It’s hardly revolutionary, and even plays into some very classic tropes, but it doesn’t take itself particularly seriously, yet there’s just enough kernels of information to dig a bit deeper into the story and truly enjoy the narrative. While Cecil is a very generic protagonist, some of the supporting characters are very fun – I was very fond of Cid, Tellah, and Porom. Here’s the problem though: they don’t stick around.
FFIV has a strongly rotating party. You’ll always have Cecil, but the rest of your group is constantly switching in and out – the only person other than Cecil to join and never leave again is Edge, even though some of the other characters’ reasons for joining and leaving are very contrived. I’m considering playing the GBA version at some point just so I can keep Cid in my party, who I think would make more narrative sense than some of the characters you do have in the original/pixel remaster. Of course, some of the characters are more justified in why they leave/return – I find Tellah has a very satisfying arc over the course of this game and I wouldn’t change that. On the other hand, Rydia shows up in the underworld, says “hey I’m an adult now” after spending time in the Feymarch, and no one ever mentions it again. What did that add, exactly? Yang is also kind of the anti-Tellah. He’s cool when he’s around, but him surviving is an absolute deus ex of bullshit that should not have happened after his heroic sacrifice.
You’ll notice I mentioned “the first two thirds of the game”. Everything surrounding the moon and the Lunarians is kind of just completely unhinged and just destroys the suspension of disbelief. I genuinely think this game would have been better if the writers committed to Golbez being actually just evil and the villain of the game, rather than it being some guy we meet in the last 10 minutes of the game and Golbez was actually Cecil’s brother the whole time. The moon and Lunarians are foreshadowed a bit, but not nearly enough to have any sort of payoff and it seems like escalating the stakes for the sake of it, rather than for good storytelling.
Gameplaywise, I’m not sure that the devs of FFIV knew what a difficulty curve was. There are parts of the game which progress smoothly, but also some difficulty curves out of nowhere, and some particularly easy zones as well. This observation holds for regular encounters, bosses, and dungeons as well. You gain access to the Land of Summons and Sylvan Cave at the same time and they are completely mismatched in difficulty (Land of Summons is very easy, Sylvan Cave has batshit difficult random encounters). Bosses like Rubicante exist that can form change making it hard to time ATB around. And for every well-designed dungeon, there’s something stupid like Magnetic Cave. The endgame is also an enormous difficulty spike with Zeromus being a very difficult final boss even if you’ve breezed through the rest of the dungeon.
The rotating cast of characters also remove part of what I consider to be the fun of Final Fantasy, building and customizing your team. You don’t really get to let your party grow outside of Cecil. No matter what you do, your endgame party will consist of a paladin, white mage, dragoon, summoner/black mage, and ninja. It’s balanced, but there are other characters in this game and they’re ripped from you due to the plot (even though most of them are okay at the end). If you like Yang the monk or Edward the bard, Too Bad, you can’t use or grow them. You also lose both your sages who get both black and white magic, making Rosa your only (reliable) source of magical healing, and Rydia your main black magic user (Edge can use black magic but it’s hardly his main tool).
Ultimately, it’s fine. I’m glad I played it, I probably will be curious enough to try the GBA version someday (I really wanted to bring Cid to endgame), but as far as games go it’s Literally Okay. I had a baseline fun time (which is good, video gaming is my hobby and I hope I’d enjoy that!), but I’m not really sure that FFIV will be a game I look back on and remember fondly as much as have the sentiment “yeah that is a game that I have played” about. The highs just aren’t high enough and the lows just aren’t low enough to bring this out of The Game Ever status.
The plot, for the first two thirds of the game, is a decent surface level appropriate for the game. It’s hardly revolutionary, and even plays into some very classic tropes, but it doesn’t take itself particularly seriously, yet there’s just enough kernels of information to dig a bit deeper into the story and truly enjoy the narrative. While Cecil is a very generic protagonist, some of the supporting characters are very fun – I was very fond of Cid, Tellah, and Porom. Here’s the problem though: they don’t stick around.
FFIV has a strongly rotating party. You’ll always have Cecil, but the rest of your group is constantly switching in and out – the only person other than Cecil to join and never leave again is Edge, even though some of the other characters’ reasons for joining and leaving are very contrived. I’m considering playing the GBA version at some point just so I can keep Cid in my party, who I think would make more narrative sense than some of the characters you do have in the original/pixel remaster. Of course, some of the characters are more justified in why they leave/return – I find Tellah has a very satisfying arc over the course of this game and I wouldn’t change that. On the other hand, Rydia shows up in the underworld, says “hey I’m an adult now” after spending time in the Feymarch, and no one ever mentions it again. What did that add, exactly? Yang is also kind of the anti-Tellah. He’s cool when he’s around, but him surviving is an absolute deus ex of bullshit that should not have happened after his heroic sacrifice.
You’ll notice I mentioned “the first two thirds of the game”. Everything surrounding the moon and the Lunarians is kind of just completely unhinged and just destroys the suspension of disbelief. I genuinely think this game would have been better if the writers committed to Golbez being actually just evil and the villain of the game, rather than it being some guy we meet in the last 10 minutes of the game and Golbez was actually Cecil’s brother the whole time. The moon and Lunarians are foreshadowed a bit, but not nearly enough to have any sort of payoff and it seems like escalating the stakes for the sake of it, rather than for good storytelling.
Gameplaywise, I’m not sure that the devs of FFIV knew what a difficulty curve was. There are parts of the game which progress smoothly, but also some difficulty curves out of nowhere, and some particularly easy zones as well. This observation holds for regular encounters, bosses, and dungeons as well. You gain access to the Land of Summons and Sylvan Cave at the same time and they are completely mismatched in difficulty (Land of Summons is very easy, Sylvan Cave has batshit difficult random encounters). Bosses like Rubicante exist that can form change making it hard to time ATB around. And for every well-designed dungeon, there’s something stupid like Magnetic Cave. The endgame is also an enormous difficulty spike with Zeromus being a very difficult final boss even if you’ve breezed through the rest of the dungeon.
The rotating cast of characters also remove part of what I consider to be the fun of Final Fantasy, building and customizing your team. You don’t really get to let your party grow outside of Cecil. No matter what you do, your endgame party will consist of a paladin, white mage, dragoon, summoner/black mage, and ninja. It’s balanced, but there are other characters in this game and they’re ripped from you due to the plot (even though most of them are okay at the end). If you like Yang the monk or Edward the bard, Too Bad, you can’t use or grow them. You also lose both your sages who get both black and white magic, making Rosa your only (reliable) source of magical healing, and Rydia your main black magic user (Edge can use black magic but it’s hardly his main tool).
Ultimately, it’s fine. I’m glad I played it, I probably will be curious enough to try the GBA version someday (I really wanted to bring Cid to endgame), but as far as games go it’s Literally Okay. I had a baseline fun time (which is good, video gaming is my hobby and I hope I’d enjoy that!), but I’m not really sure that FFIV will be a game I look back on and remember fondly as much as have the sentiment “yeah that is a game that I have played” about. The highs just aren’t high enough and the lows just aren’t low enough to bring this out of The Game Ever status.
One of the weakest versions of the game IMO. I get that with mods we can get the proper difficulty, but as the standard one it was really disappointing. We're talking about US FF II level.
It looks good as a remaster of the original SNES game. But why play this when there are the DS and PSP versions?
Also V-synch is screwed and make the game less enjoyable than already it isn't as expected (IMO. If you like an easier version similar to FF II US then you'll love this).
It looks good as a remaster of the original SNES game. But why play this when there are the DS and PSP versions?
Also V-synch is screwed and make the game less enjoyable than already it isn't as expected (IMO. If you like an easier version similar to FF II US then you'll love this).
started off good, then it became very generic after that. fun, snappy combat until the endgame where it gets kind of terrible. characters are extremely bland and the story is just... fine. pretty disappointed
Final Fantasy IV is a game that has been revisited and re-released a bajillion times over the years; I'm pretty sure it's the one that's gotten this treatment the most out of any Final Fantasy? Maybe VII's got it beat in terms of being an actual franchise, perhaps because uhhh TAY didn't. quite. do it for a lot of people. Maybe I'll visit that someday.
And yeah, sure, compared to future games it doesn't go quite as hard as it could. The melodrama is high, everyone's getting brainwashed all the dang time, your party is a revolving door of fakeout deaths... it's kinda silly. Like there's a particular instance in the storyline involving Edge's parents that's supposed to be fucked up and shocking but GOD the musical sting and the dialogue are so fucking funny.
But at the same time, I feel like I kind of get it, you know? It's charming as all hell. Much like FFIII before it, there's a cheeky playfulness to a lot of it that I feel has been present in pretty much all the Final Fantasies I've played. (Yes, even II, there were at least two goofy bits amidst all the grim insanity.) With perhaps one exception, every town has at least one NPC you can talk to in order to watch a goofy little dance sequence where the programmers did their damnedest to get the limited animation to do all it could. This isn't just limited to optional content, either; despite the High Drama of the main storyline, there's a bunch of out of battle story cutscenes where Palom and Porom squabble, Cid drags Edge around to make him help with the airship building, Edge pretends he's not crushing on Rydia... those kinds of things. It's really cute! Like, the way the story is conveyed through the gameplay is probably the star of the show, like the way Tellah's stats work or Cecil's battle against himself to become a paladin and so on, but I think they do a lot with a little in that regard.
I think they tried to do a lot with a little in terms of the Big Themes, as well. It maybe aims a little higher than it manages to convey, in that I feel like the Big Theme of the game as a whole is atonement and redemption. It does feel like the big themes of Cecil's arc comprise the bulk of the beginning of the game and kind of... finish with him becoming a paladin, but I gotta say, I do like that shit. I think it's pretty good, even if it feels like it goes a little fast. The way his relationship with Rydia, the child who he inadvertently orphaned, develops is pretty strong, and his return to Mysidia is good as hell. I love the way Cecil's interactions with the townspeople go in that segment! You get poisoned, you get turned into a frog, and you kind of deserve it, honestly. And Cecil is entirely aware he deserves it.
Of course, you can see it in other characters, as well, from Edward's guilt over his uselessness to Kain getting brainwashed all the time to the dang antagonist. I do feel like Brainwashing All the Way Down is a bit of a cop-out, but at the same time, it does feel like it's aiming at a metaphor. I think it ultimately ends up juggling too much to do any one thing justice as it hurdles to the end, but I kind of appreciate the ambition? I know the DS remake expands on the characterization more, so I look forward to that eventually.
The gameplay itself is kind of an interesting departure from the previous games in terms of giving you set parties with set roles rather than giving you the freedom to experiment. It's less "figure out which tools to use" and more "figure out how to win with the tools you're given." I still feel like there's a range of stuff to experiment with, though. When I played the game as a kid I got stuck at a very specific point (FUCK BAIGAN ALL MY HOMIES HATE BAIGAN) because I didn't really understand how to use the tools I was given, but now I have a better idea of how to deal with, uh, a party with one tank, one punch man, and three squishy mages, one of whom has a pretty bad MP stat because he's old. I didn't actually find myself that frustrated with Tellah on this go around because I discovered the wonders of Osmose, which was a helpful way to compensate for his shitty MP without using Ethers! Just steal it from enemies for free!
It's a little bit of a shame that the game pretty much tells you how to beat its puzzle fights right off the bat instead of giving you some time to experiment, though. There's some spicy fights before the endgame (rubicante... your hot leg distracted me into failure...) but the endgame yanks your training floaties off and tosses you right into the deep end. I was kind of tempted to ragequit on the final boss before I figured out the pro strats to beat him just because it was such a wild shift from what had been going on before and I'd already beaten Zeromus in a different game in a fight that was actually FUN even though I spent most of the fight dead on the floor because my internet died. I'm glad I pushed through, though, the ending was a lot cuter in motion than it was in screencaps.
Anyway, uh. Final thoughts. I wish they actually managed to capture the insane Beard Elemental energy of FuSoYa's Amano art because he actually looks like a weird alien and that's sick. I did like that his eyes flash red and green when he's casting, though, and his KO sprite is cute. Also I love that there's just a part where a robot bigger than a fucking castle starts stomping around and blowing shit up and it's extremely apocalyptic? I'm truly disappointed that's the one thing FFXIV didn't reference in its FFIV expac. Maybe they're saving it for later so they don't blow their whole FFIV Reference load in Endwalker...
Oh yeah and I think we should've been able to let Yang's wife join the party. She would have soloed Zeromus with her frying pan. She is the most powerful person in the game.
And yeah, sure, compared to future games it doesn't go quite as hard as it could. The melodrama is high, everyone's getting brainwashed all the dang time, your party is a revolving door of fakeout deaths... it's kinda silly. Like there's a particular instance in the storyline involving Edge's parents that's supposed to be fucked up and shocking but GOD the musical sting and the dialogue are so fucking funny.
But at the same time, I feel like I kind of get it, you know? It's charming as all hell. Much like FFIII before it, there's a cheeky playfulness to a lot of it that I feel has been present in pretty much all the Final Fantasies I've played. (Yes, even II, there were at least two goofy bits amidst all the grim insanity.) With perhaps one exception, every town has at least one NPC you can talk to in order to watch a goofy little dance sequence where the programmers did their damnedest to get the limited animation to do all it could. This isn't just limited to optional content, either; despite the High Drama of the main storyline, there's a bunch of out of battle story cutscenes where Palom and Porom squabble, Cid drags Edge around to make him help with the airship building, Edge pretends he's not crushing on Rydia... those kinds of things. It's really cute! Like, the way the story is conveyed through the gameplay is probably the star of the show, like the way Tellah's stats work or Cecil's battle against himself to become a paladin and so on, but I think they do a lot with a little in that regard.
I think they tried to do a lot with a little in terms of the Big Themes, as well. It maybe aims a little higher than it manages to convey, in that I feel like the Big Theme of the game as a whole is atonement and redemption. It does feel like the big themes of Cecil's arc comprise the bulk of the beginning of the game and kind of... finish with him becoming a paladin, but I gotta say, I do like that shit. I think it's pretty good, even if it feels like it goes a little fast. The way his relationship with Rydia, the child who he inadvertently orphaned, develops is pretty strong, and his return to Mysidia is good as hell. I love the way Cecil's interactions with the townspeople go in that segment! You get poisoned, you get turned into a frog, and you kind of deserve it, honestly. And Cecil is entirely aware he deserves it.
Of course, you can see it in other characters, as well, from Edward's guilt over his uselessness to Kain getting brainwashed all the time to the dang antagonist. I do feel like Brainwashing All the Way Down is a bit of a cop-out, but at the same time, it does feel like it's aiming at a metaphor. I think it ultimately ends up juggling too much to do any one thing justice as it hurdles to the end, but I kind of appreciate the ambition? I know the DS remake expands on the characterization more, so I look forward to that eventually.
The gameplay itself is kind of an interesting departure from the previous games in terms of giving you set parties with set roles rather than giving you the freedom to experiment. It's less "figure out which tools to use" and more "figure out how to win with the tools you're given." I still feel like there's a range of stuff to experiment with, though. When I played the game as a kid I got stuck at a very specific point (FUCK BAIGAN ALL MY HOMIES HATE BAIGAN) because I didn't really understand how to use the tools I was given, but now I have a better idea of how to deal with, uh, a party with one tank, one punch man, and three squishy mages, one of whom has a pretty bad MP stat because he's old. I didn't actually find myself that frustrated with Tellah on this go around because I discovered the wonders of Osmose, which was a helpful way to compensate for his shitty MP without using Ethers! Just steal it from enemies for free!
It's a little bit of a shame that the game pretty much tells you how to beat its puzzle fights right off the bat instead of giving you some time to experiment, though. There's some spicy fights before the endgame (rubicante... your hot leg distracted me into failure...) but the endgame yanks your training floaties off and tosses you right into the deep end. I was kind of tempted to ragequit on the final boss before I figured out the pro strats to beat him just because it was such a wild shift from what had been going on before and I'd already beaten Zeromus in a different game in a fight that was actually FUN even though I spent most of the fight dead on the floor because my internet died. I'm glad I pushed through, though, the ending was a lot cuter in motion than it was in screencaps.
Anyway, uh. Final thoughts. I wish they actually managed to capture the insane Beard Elemental energy of FuSoYa's Amano art because he actually looks like a weird alien and that's sick. I did like that his eyes flash red and green when he's casting, though, and his KO sprite is cute. Also I love that there's just a part where a robot bigger than a fucking castle starts stomping around and blowing shit up and it's extremely apocalyptic? I'm truly disappointed that's the one thing FFXIV didn't reference in its FFIV expac. Maybe they're saving it for later so they don't blow their whole FFIV Reference load in Endwalker...
Oh yeah and I think we should've been able to let Yang's wife join the party. She would have soloed Zeromus with her frying pan. She is the most powerful person in the game.