Story and character-wise, FFIV is a big step up. The cast is incredibly charming, and everyone gets their time in the spotlight. Unfortunately, a lot of the personality disappears past the halfway point, and most of the cast starts feeling like cardboard cutouts, and the sliver of character development that's there feels superficial and unfulfilling. On top of that, most of the heavy-hitting story moments get completely undone for no reason at all.

It's still a blast to play through, but the second half was such a letdown that it somewhat soured the experience for me.

There’s nothing I love more than playing an entry in a series where it feels like they finally found their footing. Much like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past felt like the instant standard for that series, Final Fantasy IV feels like the entry where the formula got fully realized. Granted, I skipped FFII and FFIII so I’m not fully aware which additions are brand new to FFIV and which are from the previous two installments but what I know for sure is that by this game, they have figured it out.

There’s a dramatic story with twists, betrayals, love triangles, self-sacrifices, and identity in FFIV that feels akin to what I expect from a Final Fantasy story nowadays. Alongside a ragtag group of unique characters with different roles in the party, I was just gripped from beginning to end. The cast of characters is pretty iconic too.

The gameplay also feels refined, with each party member being designed around their role in the party. The characters are pretty much on a set path in terms of the abilities they unlock which makes things simpler and tighter from a gameplay standpoint. Also, I’d like to say hello to the ATB system, which would be a series staple for a long time. It’s to good to see that they got it right the first time. The introduction to the ATB system is the biggest thing that made me instantly say “okay this is Final Fantasy!” It’s what makes these game have a more unique gameplay loop compared to traditional turn-based RPGs.

Overall, I am very pleased and impressed with FFIV and how gracefully it aged. The systems are so streamlined and tight that I would honestly call it the best entry-point to 2D Final Fantasy.

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.

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).

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.

a milestone in puppet theatre with a bunch of cool narrative design flourishes. the battle screen is just another stage for storytelling, and i know that tellah is a knowledgeable but frail old man because he knows all the spells but only has 90mp. unfortunately, while the storytelling is quite good, the story itself is not. the pacing is too brisk for its own good, characters sprint from beat to beat with few moments to breathe, and any tragedy or conflict is quickly defused and forgotten.

i initially had a lot of trouble adjusting to atb, partially due to the early game giving you weak and fiddly characters for narrative reasons. i slowly learned to appreciate the value of a well-organized inventory that's easy to navigate under pressure and the pleasure of recovering from suboptimal decisions. but in the second half when the party is more stable, i realized that most enemies don't require much moment-to-moment tactical adjustments, you can just learn their pattern and set an appropriate autobattle loop. combined with the game's linearity and set party composition, ff4 really feels like a precursor to ff13, which is a game that i love. at the very least it does the concept of "trick fights" a lot more elegantly than ff3, and the dungeons are well-designed to drain your resources between checkpoints.

i totally understand why the smooth fusion of narrative and gameplay makes this an all-time classic for many people. it makes me feel like an actor in a play, but that just means the weak script drags it down harder.

Esse é provavelmente o jogo que sintetiza TUDO relacionado a JRPG vanilla da era super nintendo.
História simples, mapa simples, trilha sonora épica, duração curta de umas 8 a 10h e sistema de combate simplíssimo, porém MUITO rápido, dinâmico e ABSURDAMENTE divertido.

E eu aplaudo as funções de qualidade de vida, especialmente poder desligar e ligar os encontros aleatórios quando quiser, isso pra explorar algumas dungeons bem chatas faz TODA a diferença.

É uma pena mesmo que ele não tenha nenhum conteúdo extra (tipo as dungeons extras do GBA) mas apesar disso é a versão definitiva do IV até agora

Final Fantasy is back baby

ATB had me much more invested in the combat at all times, even for basic random encounters. While that can occasionally be a drawback, for the most part it makes the combat side of this game much more engaging, awesome.

The story side of the game is also much more engaging. For the first time in the series the characters actually seem real a majority of the time, and the story is pretty good, despite some nitpicks that I won’t think too hard about.

Really interesting that they went away from the job system in this one after trying it in III. I am curious to see how I will like it in V, because I think that with some changes it can be much more engaging than its execution in III.

PS: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth comes out today. Maybe I will play that one day.

For some reason IV was the only classic Final Fantasy I hadn't finish once in my lifetime yet despite numerous attempt at doing so over the last few decades.

I'm both impressed and underwhelmed by it.
The former because the narrative is as Final Fantasy as it gets, with a lot of unique setpieces that are impressive for a SNES RPG. Especially how every single character's personality shines through their body language. A lot of cutscenes contains absolutely no line of dialog whatsoever, yet you FEEL what's going on so clearly just by seeing these sprites eccentrically spin around, emote and jump.
The later because the game is so short and the pacing is so fast that the most pivotal moments in the story doesn't really hit you like it should. You really have to fill in the blank in your mind and assume these characters have been traveling together for weeks and got to know each other between every location you visit, otherwise it doesn't really make sense why they develop such a sense of camaraderie in the span of 30 minutes.

Despite the game being really short, including the extra optional content, I find it pretty insane that the final boss isn't really doable before reaching lvl 70. I was barely level 50 when I reached the final dungeon, and if it wasn't for the Pixel Remaster 4x exp boost option I would have been stuck mindlessly grinding for hours before I could see the end of it.

Out of all the Final Fantasy games, I think IV is the one that deserve a proper remake the most. It's a shame all the attention goes to VII when the original was already an amazing experience through and through. IV really needs more padding so you have time to build up a meaningful relationship with these characters and feel the weight of every sacrifice made along the way.

Also, I think that games that takes inspiration from Divine Comedy are awesome and we need more of them.

A huge leap forward for the franchise. An amazing sequel with solid storytelling, world building, and mechanics.

I have to say this has been my favorite of the originals so far. Being my 8th FF game to play (only 5th finished though) I enjoyed this one from beginning to end. It truly feels like they pulled everything that worked from the prior games and utilized the better tech available to create a near perfect game.

The story is not dissimilar from the prior 3, and is nothing to write home about, but the storytelling and worldbuilding are the best yet. It's the same old fated heroes tasked with saving the world from evil, and it involves crystals. This one changes things up a bit though where you start out as a dark knight, on the wrong side of things and makes the decision to leave that path behind. All of the characters feel truly unique with pretty decent dialogue. This one also offers a lot more storytelling through cutscenes (including battle sequences) that truly add to the depth of the game. The story is fairly linear, with an open world, but there are some side quests you can miss out on if you're not paying attention. The end game was a challenge, but was pretty rewarding in my opinion.

Gone are swappable classes (or jobs), and magic is no purchased this time around. You learn new magic at certain levels based on the characters predefined class. Though characters swap out in your party throughout the game, it did not feel like a burden. You had a pretty consistent core of characters with one or two that change periodically. There weren't a whole lot of puzzles, and the dungeons were fairly straightforward, with secret paths throughout.

Combat felt really good and varied. You had to use your characters abilities and specialties more, and it didn't feel forced. Mini-bosses and bosses felt like a proper challenge, and progression made feel like you had to grind too much to continue on in the story.

Exploring the world was pretty straightforward as well but you get an airship much sooner. There were a number of dungeons littered throughout the world, and a couple other zones related to the story (no spoilers).

The game felt cohesive, challenging, interesting, and fun. All of the game systems, story, and world made for a remarkable experience.

I played this entirely on Steam Deck and it ran flawlessly. 60hz/60fps and didn't break a sweat (not surprising, but still nice). I had 0 crashes or frame dips. The deck is tailored for this kind of experience. It took me just over 22 hours to complete.

Overall, this is one of my favorite Final Fantasy games. It had awesome storytelling, the progression and combat felt solid, and it was just a fun experience. Highly recommend for any RPG/JRPG fan.

Francamente decepcionado. Recuerdo las dos primeras veces que lo jugué con mucho cariño, pero ahora solo le he encontrado muchas costuras. Respecto a los 3 primeros hay cierta evolución en el sistema de combate, primero por la barra ATB y luego por la implementación de hasta 5 aliados, también el uso de combates scripteados para darle emoción a varios eventos está muy acertado. Los personajes en su mayoría están bien, sobretodo los más jóvenes, pero no llegan a ser nada destacable y volvemos al mismo error de Final Fantasy II de sacrificar personajes para darle algún sentido a sus existencias, porque más allá de eso la mayoría solo son compañeros de combate.
El mundo si me parece que da un paso atrás respecto a los anteriores, mucha agua y pocos lugares interesantes, demasiados regresos a varias mazmorras/lugares (por dios, no quiero ver más la torre Babel).

Ya digo, recordaba el juego mucho mejor de lo que me he encontrado, muy decepcionado con la historia en general, muchas escenas (malas) sacadas de la manga para darle ese falso efecto de obra de teatro.

To play Final Fantasy IV is to be forced to appraise it along two axis: against the moment it came out, and in comparison with what JRPGs would become afterward. It is a game that feels at once boundary pushing, palpably energized by the new hardware of the SNES, and simultaneously thin, spinning a tale that would be handily outclassed in terms of complexity within a few short years. I ended up liking FF4! But it is a bit of a strange object, permanently caught in a transitionary period between the evocative bareness of the NES Final Fantasies and Square’s future, more extravagant output.

FF4 goes out of its way to reintroduce the series to new players, often functioning as a greatest hits of the prior games. There’s a gradually intensifying sci-fi narrative bent last hinted at in FF1, affixed onto a plot that feels like an expansion of FF2’s fight against an evil empire (complete with a rotating cast of playable characters), all joined by an expanding world map, breadth of locations, and discrete character abilities that feel in line with FF3. FF4 takes things further by constantly foregrounding its narrative and world in ways that the NES did not allow for. FF2’s opening scene, where your party is cut down by the empire’s troops within the battle screen, feels like the template upon which FF4 bases much of its identity on. Characters have firmly established combat roles with unique abilities (largely modeled on some of FF3’s jobs). They will often leave or join battles mid-fight, meaning that only Cecil is consistently in your party throughout the entire game. “Cutscenes” will often play out as automated battles that you view as an outsider; in one of the game’s best moments, you have to defend against Cecil’s shadow self in order to win and become a Paladin. All of this represents a new interest in integrating characterization into what your party members can do in battle.

This is all very cool to see! But FF4’s actual thematic content lacks depth. Characters typically get One bit of growth or wrinkle to complicate their archetypes. For instance, Cecil has to atone for his sins of pillaging and (accidentally) blowing up a town by becoming a Paladin…and then he’s pretty much good to go from there. Kain tries to be a rival/foil to Cecil (as well as his friend), but continually gets brainwashed. Rosa is a woman. There are characters I have a little more affection for than others (the summoner Rydia, who disappears partway through only to return older and more experienced, is my favorite), but none feel particularly interesting in and of themselves. Nor does the game seek to take its most interesting ideas, like its opening half hour where you work for the bad guys, anywhere other than the path of least resistance. FF4 is therefore in a bit of an awkward position, more interested than ever in emphasizing its narrative but unequipped to fill all that time with something particularly engaging. At least the setting feels at its most diverse and exciting yet! Towns probably get the biggest facelift, filled with the best bits of NPC dialogue in the series so far and demonstrating more of an inclination toward naturalism. There are finally bespoke rooms and buildings you can enter that serve no other purpose than to give the world a little more personality!

Combat also gets a pretty major overhaul with the implementation of the Active Time Battle (ATB) system, wherein each character has a bar that fills up over time before they can perform an action. I like how this represents each character’s agility more, but I personally never got much out of the added focus on reaction time; I kinda wished the wait mode just paused time whenever one character’s bar filled up. More interesting is how the game continually rotates your party members, which effectively ends up de-incentivizing grinding for most of the game (since you could lose a character you’ve put time into building up at any given moment). This meant that the difficulty curve generally resulted in a measured level of challenge throughout most of the game, as you’re encouraged to use each party member’s abilities to get through challenges instead of spending much time leveling them up. It gives the game a similar kind of puzzle-y feeling that FF3 had, although FF4 has the added strength of being able to design battles while knowing the player’s exact party composition.

Reading back over this, I feel like I may be coming off a little more negative than I intend to. Part of this might be due to me playing these early Final Fantasies via their pixel remaster versions; I get the desire to have the NES games at a “comparable” fidelity level to the SNES games, but there’s an aesthetic flattening that occurred in the process that I think dulled my perception of FF4’s generational leap and ambitions. Nobuo Uematsu’s increased compositional acumen shines through more than the game’s art at least; while the IOS version of FF4 PR does not allow one to switch back to the original OST, there’s a comparative scope and playfulness to the PR tracks that feel like they’re drawing on denser arrangements than what were present on the NES. Every facet of the game has some marked addition like this. It makes me excited to see this team’s iWork going forward; if nothing else, FF4 certainly lays a compelling groundwork for future Final Fantasies.

Told the story a gazillion times, but the 3d version of this on the phone was my first FF, and so this will always have a special place in my heart. Its a fantastic game for getting into the series, and a landmark in gaming as a whole. However that doesnt mean this game doesnt have faults, for example having 3 completely worthless party members, a bunch of stupid fakeout deaths, and the only real death having you cheering because the character sucks so much as a party member and you had to deal with him for 67% of the game at this point.
I feel like i had to babysit the worthless old men a lot more this run. Im never 100%ing this shit again btw the mindflayers and flan princesses were agonizing.

después de jugar el 1 al 3 en orden, es increiblemente refrescante, tanto por la introducción de las barras de tiempo, como la mejora general del gameplay, los personajes definidos mínimamente memorables e interesantes y las innovadoras formas de narrativa para la epoca.

la forma en la que los bosses implementan la mecanica del tiempo real en combate es muy creativo, y en general, este juego tiene momentos muy buenos en su trama, especialmente la introducción.
aunque por suerte o por desgracia, la trama a mitad del juego se va un poco de madre, y empieza a ser bastante caotica.

no es realmente una buena historia, pero por lo menos se me hizo divertida a su manera, en general, es un juego divertido y refrescante para la saga, un paso muy importante en su historia