A great game to pick up for anyone nostalgic for old-school RPGs. The story is pretty formulaic, but the writing has some nice moments and the characters are pretty memorable, even as little as they get to say sometimes. The gameplay takes some getting used to, even coming from Bravely or other FF job systems, but its unique systems are really fun to play around with once you get used to them. Overall, definitely a really cool homage to SNES-era Final Fantasy, and the aesthetics and soundtrack help it feel a lot more low-key than a lot of other RPGs out there, making it good as a "cozy" game. Loses a point for the story not being as built out as it probably should be, but definitely a must-play for its target audience!
one of the cutest sheep models in a video game. the aesthetic is insanely on-point but i realllllyyy did not like the combat at all sadly. it's also a spiritual predecessor to bravely default which is cool and nice imo.
Es un juego que está bien, sin más. Funciona, es divertido... Pero le tengo que dar una valoración un poco mayor de lo que debería porque gracias a él existe Bravely Default. Entonces... Gracias, 4 Heroes of Light
Loved how you could equip your party and it would show in the game's graphics.
This game looks fantastic, the music is charming and catchy, and it comes with an overall laid-back vibe that I found comforting and adorable.
The combat involves auto-targeting (i.e. you don't get any say in who your characters attack), and that is going to turn a lot of people off right away. There also is no MP in this game; instead, you operate with five "Action Points" that determine what type of attack/ability/spell you can use, and each action takes a specific amount of action points depending on the strength of the attack. Spells are determined by tomes that are kept in your frustratingly tiny inventory, along with your equipment and accessories. These two things greatly simplify the strategy, until you start messing around with crowns. Crowns are this games version of job classes, and they're very important for boss battles. Buffing and debuffing are extremely important in this game, as are equipping your characters with armor that has specific element resistances. You can easily get wiped by common scrub enemies at the beginning of the game if you're not careful, and some of the bosses can be downright nasty for the same reason.
There is a ton of backtracking in this game (basically every dungeon), and while the story beats at least attempted to try and mix things up when you revisited towns, it did nothing for having to traipse through full dungeons again. This, along with a certain boss sequence at the end of the game, left it feeling very repetitive. There's a lot of fun character interactions and party dropping/swapping/moving, but as someone else mentioned your party basically becomes mute halfway through the game and all of those fun interactions just vanish. It takes a lot of the life out of what was already a mediocre story, and I wish they'd kept those interactions going.
I don't regret my playthrough of this game, but a middling story and tedious re-treading of areas ultimately kept it from being anything memorable.
The combat involves auto-targeting (i.e. you don't get any say in who your characters attack), and that is going to turn a lot of people off right away. There also is no MP in this game; instead, you operate with five "Action Points" that determine what type of attack/ability/spell you can use, and each action takes a specific amount of action points depending on the strength of the attack. Spells are determined by tomes that are kept in your frustratingly tiny inventory, along with your equipment and accessories. These two things greatly simplify the strategy, until you start messing around with crowns. Crowns are this games version of job classes, and they're very important for boss battles. Buffing and debuffing are extremely important in this game, as are equipping your characters with armor that has specific element resistances. You can easily get wiped by common scrub enemies at the beginning of the game if you're not careful, and some of the bosses can be downright nasty for the same reason.
There is a ton of backtracking in this game (basically every dungeon), and while the story beats at least attempted to try and mix things up when you revisited towns, it did nothing for having to traipse through full dungeons again. This, along with a certain boss sequence at the end of the game, left it feeling very repetitive. There's a lot of fun character interactions and party dropping/swapping/moving, but as someone else mentioned your party basically becomes mute halfway through the game and all of those fun interactions just vanish. It takes a lot of the life out of what was already a mediocre story, and I wish they'd kept those interactions going.
I don't regret my playthrough of this game, but a middling story and tedious re-treading of areas ultimately kept it from being anything memorable.
this game is an arguable contender with ff3 for worst game ive ever played. Enemies and your characters cannot be targeted. The enemies scale to you which sucks in most of the games its actually implemented in. I died in the tutorial area like 3 times because theres a big dude who just one shots you, so that was fun. The music sucks ass, for being a ff game, they couldnt even let them use the standard theme for when you win a battle? This is a game that wants to be ff3 made by the people who did the remake. There is a reason for why people dont enjoy the shitty nes ff game, and its because it has a lot of issues that only become more exaggerated in this game. It plays exactly like the ff3 remake but the art is nice so i can give it that. I'd rather play ff1 and 2 over this game any day of the week.
Lot of drops. But i made it.
Wanna play all of the bad parts of FF AND DQ and none of the good parts?
As a huge fan of the Bravely games, I wanted to play the games that shaped the series into what it is, namely this and Final Fantasy V. It's cool seeing the bits and pieces that were obviously used as inspiration for Bravely ("Crowns" for Asterisks, "AP" for BP, "Boost" for Default, etc.) while having a charming simplicity to it like Final Fantasy III (which happens to be my second favorite mainline FF entry) so there's that. I think there's times where the game can be too vague, however, and I wish there was more reason to use more than a handful of the plethora of crowns in the game. Ah well, I still enjoyed it for what it was.
You like FF3 and FF4 DS. Well how about a new game created solely for those that like those games with a laid back and stripped story and a pure classic FF gameplay with all it's bells whistles and stains. That's basically what this is pure classic FF gameplay without anything else of note.
This game is a grind to proceed into a story, but the story is boring and the grind is long. There are so many better Final Fantasy games. Not worth it.
Bravely Default si lo hiciesen los nazis
tried to play this to prepare for trying bravely default, but man was it a slog to go through those hours i went through even with fastforwarding. cute style and attractive simplicity, but feels like it could be so much more
Full review on my website: https://www.nepikigaming.com/reviews/final-fantasy-the-4-heroes-of-light/
''The biggest problems with Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light are the many questionable- and restrictive decisions made. The game is built around these exclusions, but that still doesn’t excuse the inability to target enemies- or allies. Allies being split-up to focus on character development is a good idea on paper, but the execution was done rather poorly. Most of the issues that I did have however, were almost all negated in the second half of the game where the heroes united. While the first half was still good but occasionally frustrating for me personally, the second half had me far more excited due to giving me a lot of strategic freedom and the story also having an interesting twist. The Crown system in and of itself saved most of the battle system’s shortcomings due to how flexible it is, and the story started focussing on a singular goal for all the heroes after each of them were given their own spotlight. This storybook approach of telling the story was one I appreciated very much, and will definitely be one of the defining factors that I will remember from my journey through this game.''
''The biggest problems with Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light are the many questionable- and restrictive decisions made. The game is built around these exclusions, but that still doesn’t excuse the inability to target enemies- or allies. Allies being split-up to focus on character development is a good idea on paper, but the execution was done rather poorly. Most of the issues that I did have however, were almost all negated in the second half of the game where the heroes united. While the first half was still good but occasionally frustrating for me personally, the second half had me far more excited due to giving me a lot of strategic freedom and the story also having an interesting twist. The Crown system in and of itself saved most of the battle system’s shortcomings due to how flexible it is, and the story started focussing on a singular goal for all the heroes after each of them were given their own spotlight. This storybook approach of telling the story was one I appreciated very much, and will definitely be one of the defining factors that I will remember from my journey through this game.''
i feel like no one ever talks about this game. it was endearing and light-hearted, which is surprisingly rare for final fantasy games these days. i still strongly dislike how it has enemies scale to your level, because the only FF that ever managed to pull that off (VIII) did so because it demanded a level of competency with the junctioning system. there is no junctioning equivalent in this game, and while the class system is cute, it's not very deep or intricate. i also question the choice to not let you be able to choose your target for actions, design choice or not.
Another generic final fantasy spin-off.
Not bad, but there are many better JRPGS.
Not bad, but there are many better JRPGS.
Proto Bravely does show its age and concepts still being half baked. Combat is a bit clunky and feels sort of one note and rough around the edges. Most of the classes felt very fine on a first run through. Music was wonderful, with the battle theme is a mainstay in the rotation. Visually, I would kill to have another game with the same style. The DS is the perfect home to such a cute, cozy game.
Someone point me in the direction of a good poster of the box art
Someone point me in the direction of a good poster of the box art
Auto-targeting is turbo ass
The good in this game is everything not involving gameplay. The bad is everything else. If you try to power grind levels, the final boss can kill you easier because its own power scales exponentially with your level. The auto-targeting on attacks is also bogus. I wish the exact aesthetic for this game was used for something else, but unfortunately it got strapped to this awkward mess.
Hey, remember Bravely Default? This is it's dad.
I was obsessed with this game as a kid. I think I've played through most of this at least 3 times. I have formative memories where this game was present. I think the character arcs for the characters are neat and tidy little things, with not a lot of depth exactly but they get the job done. There's a lot of jobs to try out, some of them better than others, although you can just break the game in half if you run certain party comps. It's sort of tough to try out all the jobs in this one though. You need gems to upgrade the jobs (called crowns in this game), so you never really get an idea of what a class can do until you dump some gems into it. Some of these gems are really hard to find because they generate randomly (with some areas spawning more of a certain kind than others, but I don't know how you're supposed to figure out that one without a guide). All of this leads up to it feeling unrewarding to experiment very much with higher-level strategies. I'd much rather have had a game where you have to grind and are assured that progression instead of screwing around with RNG and hoping you get what you need. The other thing that drags down this game for me is the fact that the story just kind of stops halfway through. The characters stop talking and become just like the FF1 party. You don't get to see what sort of people they're like after their character arcs conclude, and there isn't really enough happening around them to make up for that. It's a massive bummer.
The areas you visit are pretty cool to make up for that though. There's a bit of backtracking involved, like it's spiritual sequel although it's not nearly as mind-numbing. They do the whole "revisit past areas you're familiar with, but now they're different and alien" a lot better in regards to how intriguing the differences are, not with how the characters react (because they largely... don't). I won't talk much more about that to avoid spoilers, but it's pretty neat. With the little bit of leeway you have to experiment in this game, it is fun to see how the classes mesh together. The mechanics are actually pretty simple in this one. It's kinda a "baby's first jrpg" in a way. There's no MP, you only have 5 action points that you can either allocate to using normal attacks or to casting spells and abilities. All your spells are tomes that you must keep in your characters' limited inventories, along with their armor and any other items you'd like to have on-hand. To recover more than 1 action point per turn, you need to defend with the "boost" button. It's a simple to learn system, but still fun to tinker around with. Some of the bosses can be a bit tough too, if you don't learn how to use the systems correctly.
If you want to see what Bravely Default built off of to become what it is or play a newish old-school jrpg, I think this game is worth a shot. All in all, it's a fun little game.
I was obsessed with this game as a kid. I think I've played through most of this at least 3 times. I have formative memories where this game was present. I think the character arcs for the characters are neat and tidy little things, with not a lot of depth exactly but they get the job done. There's a lot of jobs to try out, some of them better than others, although you can just break the game in half if you run certain party comps. It's sort of tough to try out all the jobs in this one though. You need gems to upgrade the jobs (called crowns in this game), so you never really get an idea of what a class can do until you dump some gems into it. Some of these gems are really hard to find because they generate randomly (with some areas spawning more of a certain kind than others, but I don't know how you're supposed to figure out that one without a guide). All of this leads up to it feeling unrewarding to experiment very much with higher-level strategies. I'd much rather have had a game where you have to grind and are assured that progression instead of screwing around with RNG and hoping you get what you need. The other thing that drags down this game for me is the fact that the story just kind of stops halfway through. The characters stop talking and become just like the FF1 party. You don't get to see what sort of people they're like after their character arcs conclude, and there isn't really enough happening around them to make up for that. It's a massive bummer.
The areas you visit are pretty cool to make up for that though. There's a bit of backtracking involved, like it's spiritual sequel although it's not nearly as mind-numbing. They do the whole "revisit past areas you're familiar with, but now they're different and alien" a lot better in regards to how intriguing the differences are, not with how the characters react (because they largely... don't). I won't talk much more about that to avoid spoilers, but it's pretty neat. With the little bit of leeway you have to experiment in this game, it is fun to see how the classes mesh together. The mechanics are actually pretty simple in this one. It's kinda a "baby's first jrpg" in a way. There's no MP, you only have 5 action points that you can either allocate to using normal attacks or to casting spells and abilities. All your spells are tomes that you must keep in your characters' limited inventories, along with their armor and any other items you'd like to have on-hand. To recover more than 1 action point per turn, you need to defend with the "boost" button. It's a simple to learn system, but still fun to tinker around with. Some of the bosses can be a bit tough too, if you don't learn how to use the systems correctly.
If you want to see what Bravely Default built off of to become what it is or play a newish old-school jrpg, I think this game is worth a shot. All in all, it's a fun little game.
cute
I loved this game as a kid and replayed it a few years back but lost my save data after my old ds broke. Was going to grind to beat it but I'm content with where I ended. The art is really nice and the music is extremely nostalgic for me.
Sure, the game is pretty oversimplified. Sure, the game's job system is kinda bad. However, I still really vibed with this game. If anything, this game was experimental and it tried a whole lot of new stuff. For the most part, I can pardon the crown system. It was cute, and I wasn't too terribly worried about the minutiae of most of the jobs I was choosing. However, I do think that hiding later abilities and what they do from the player until they unlock them is pretty awful. The biggest gripe I personally had with the game is that you can't choose targets yourself. It makes some tense situations crapshoots if you'll have to restart the fight or will be able to beat it. That was an awful design choice, easily worse than having just straight up AI controlled characters.
The game was charming, and I really liked its quirks. I'm also kind of biased due to my love for Bravely Default and Bravely Second, as this was their predecessor.
8/10 - It has flaws, but it's charming and I liked it
The game was charming, and I really liked its quirks. I'm also kind of biased due to my love for Bravely Default and Bravely Second, as this was their predecessor.
8/10 - It has flaws, but it's charming and I liked it
An interesting game to play given it was what Bravely Default was supposed to be. And what 4 heroes of light was supposed to be was a FF1 remake... funny how that works.
Sure it's a grind, sure only half of the classes are even that useful, and some then are only useful for brief moments, but aside from a few balancing critiques and level-scaling which can unnerve some people, I find this entry to be quite the gem!
Of course there's what everyone praises, the style, and yeah it kind of makes excellent use of the DS hardware by opting for diorama style storybook backdrops and simplistic low-poly art that conveys simply some really fantastic art design. All the locations look pretty unique, save for the hallway dungeons and a couple port towns, but still, there's a lot to look at.
The battle system has it where you defend to get to your stronger abilities, which I think sounds similar to what Bravely Default has? It only gets annoying when you have to boost twice in a row to unleash something devastating, but once you get the hang of it you can strategize pretty well.
The game also just has a really big feel, and the dark "chaos" world is always something I like, even when it's just an excuse to make your backtracking to every town in the latter half feel like "expansion", but really it is nice when you finally get to hop on the dragon and fly around the whole world freely.
This game feels like a love letter of sorts, taking on the old motifs of FF1 and 3 not only in job class, but in the fact that there's not a lot of substance behind events. Characters show up out of the blue and alter the whole world or situation in some ridiculous way, at one point you gotta deal with being turned into a talking cat, etc. It's the ridiculousness fans of the series will be nostalgic for, and it plays out with tongue firmly planted in cheek. I wish some of the characters had more distinct personalities, but hey they're at least a step above Onion Knights.
Gotta say my favorite aspect of this has to be the music. The gameboy-esque chiptunes feel like they're carrying on the legacy of the early SaGa games(known in the west as Final Fantasy Legend).
Of course there's what everyone praises, the style, and yeah it kind of makes excellent use of the DS hardware by opting for diorama style storybook backdrops and simplistic low-poly art that conveys simply some really fantastic art design. All the locations look pretty unique, save for the hallway dungeons and a couple port towns, but still, there's a lot to look at.
The battle system has it where you defend to get to your stronger abilities, which I think sounds similar to what Bravely Default has? It only gets annoying when you have to boost twice in a row to unleash something devastating, but once you get the hang of it you can strategize pretty well.
The game also just has a really big feel, and the dark "chaos" world is always something I like, even when it's just an excuse to make your backtracking to every town in the latter half feel like "expansion", but really it is nice when you finally get to hop on the dragon and fly around the whole world freely.
This game feels like a love letter of sorts, taking on the old motifs of FF1 and 3 not only in job class, but in the fact that there's not a lot of substance behind events. Characters show up out of the blue and alter the whole world or situation in some ridiculous way, at one point you gotta deal with being turned into a talking cat, etc. It's the ridiculousness fans of the series will be nostalgic for, and it plays out with tongue firmly planted in cheek. I wish some of the characters had more distinct personalities, but hey they're at least a step above Onion Knights.
Gotta say my favorite aspect of this has to be the music. The gameboy-esque chiptunes feel like they're carrying on the legacy of the early SaGa games(known in the west as Final Fantasy Legend).
Overall, extremely mid game.
The progression system sucks, as for a good chunk of the game you rely entirely on enemy drops to upgrade your crowns (jobs). Later on you get a crown that lets you get lots of gems, and farming them doesn't even really take that long, but it's boring because it's not mindless enough OR enganging enough. There's also level scaling for enemies on top of that, but it's not TOO bad. Trash mobs remain trash.
Which on that note, this game's combat system is literally NOTHING during random battles. Bosses fare better but only in the second half. Most bosses are nearly trivialized by equpping the right elemental gear in the first half, and in the second half you combine that with certain skills and become nearly unstoppable save for physical attacks, which you can only mitigate by farming gems to upgrade gear. Still, I did enjoy those second half boss... until I had to fight them again but without full access to my crowns. Nice last minute padding. The final boss was pretty cool, though.
Oh yeah and before I forget, random battles are made even lamer by the fact that it feels you fight the same set of enemies all game long. They get recolored for the second half though! EPIC!!!!
Story is whatever, nothing special, and the characters' entire depth is what you see in the naming screen descriptions, but nobody's playing this for story so whatever. The ending was neat but cheesy as FUCK.
Having inventory limited to 15 items per char is annoying but not a big deal. Seems kinda pointless.
Another one of the shitty things about the game is some pointless oversimplification, such as not letting you manually pick targets in battle. It has some logic to it which I had to look up once my black mage's stupid ass cast Fira on a fire enemy instead of the ice enemy, because they don't aim based on weaknesses. That didn't stop my white mage from constantly healing the wrong characters though. Possibly the dumbest most pointless design decision I've ever seen in a game.
The jobs system sucks, because you never know (without googling) which abilities you can get later on without investing gems onto them. You only know the next ability. Couple this with my progression system complaints. Also most jobs seem either extremely situational or just not really good, while others are way above them. There's like no sidequests aside from 4 extra tower dungeons that I could not be assed with.
The soundtrack is good, particularly the battle themes. The dungeon theme gets old real quick because it's used all game and some town themes are meh. The battle themes and low health theme really do go hard though. Also I really like the presentation, very charming graphics and style that looks good within the DS limitations. However even the presentation is flawed because there's no way to tell buffs/debuffs aside from the battle text on the bottom screen when they're applied or removed. This text clears itself really quick, too. Ailments are also hard to see because of the the tiny icons on characters' heads.
The game has a lot of charm, and I did enjoy it a good bit at parts, but charm doesn't make the game less mid. A good way for me to gauge how much I enjoyed a game is to just think about how happy or sad I feel when the credits rolls. I was very happy to see this one end, glad to be over with.
Frankly, I mostly played this because I was letting my sis play Persona 5 Strikers so I couldn't use my PC lmao. Its biggest pro is that it made me WAY more interested in Bravely Default.
I was gonna rate this 3 or 3.5 but 2.5 seems more apt, I just found it really mediocre even though it somehow compelled me enough to finish it.
Edit: Bravely Second has made me think of this game again and I'm remembering how much it fucking SUCKED so I'm lowering its score even more.
The progression system sucks, as for a good chunk of the game you rely entirely on enemy drops to upgrade your crowns (jobs). Later on you get a crown that lets you get lots of gems, and farming them doesn't even really take that long, but it's boring because it's not mindless enough OR enganging enough. There's also level scaling for enemies on top of that, but it's not TOO bad. Trash mobs remain trash.
Which on that note, this game's combat system is literally NOTHING during random battles. Bosses fare better but only in the second half. Most bosses are nearly trivialized by equpping the right elemental gear in the first half, and in the second half you combine that with certain skills and become nearly unstoppable save for physical attacks, which you can only mitigate by farming gems to upgrade gear. Still, I did enjoy those second half boss... until I had to fight them again but without full access to my crowns. Nice last minute padding. The final boss was pretty cool, though.
Oh yeah and before I forget, random battles are made even lamer by the fact that it feels you fight the same set of enemies all game long. They get recolored for the second half though! EPIC!!!!
Story is whatever, nothing special, and the characters' entire depth is what you see in the naming screen descriptions, but nobody's playing this for story so whatever. The ending was neat but cheesy as FUCK.
Having inventory limited to 15 items per char is annoying but not a big deal. Seems kinda pointless.
Another one of the shitty things about the game is some pointless oversimplification, such as not letting you manually pick targets in battle. It has some logic to it which I had to look up once my black mage's stupid ass cast Fira on a fire enemy instead of the ice enemy, because they don't aim based on weaknesses. That didn't stop my white mage from constantly healing the wrong characters though. Possibly the dumbest most pointless design decision I've ever seen in a game.
The jobs system sucks, because you never know (without googling) which abilities you can get later on without investing gems onto them. You only know the next ability. Couple this with my progression system complaints. Also most jobs seem either extremely situational or just not really good, while others are way above them. There's like no sidequests aside from 4 extra tower dungeons that I could not be assed with.
The soundtrack is good, particularly the battle themes. The dungeon theme gets old real quick because it's used all game and some town themes are meh. The battle themes and low health theme really do go hard though. Also I really like the presentation, very charming graphics and style that looks good within the DS limitations. However even the presentation is flawed because there's no way to tell buffs/debuffs aside from the battle text on the bottom screen when they're applied or removed. This text clears itself really quick, too. Ailments are also hard to see because of the the tiny icons on characters' heads.
The game has a lot of charm, and I did enjoy it a good bit at parts, but charm doesn't make the game less mid. A good way for me to gauge how much I enjoyed a game is to just think about how happy or sad I feel when the credits rolls. I was very happy to see this one end, glad to be over with.
Frankly, I mostly played this because I was letting my sis play Persona 5 Strikers so I couldn't use my PC lmao. Its biggest pro is that it made me WAY more interested in Bravely Default.
I was gonna rate this 3 or 3.5 but 2.5 seems more apt, I just found it really mediocre even though it somehow compelled me enough to finish it.
Edit: Bravely Second has made me think of this game again and I'm remembering how much it fucking SUCKED so I'm lowering its score even more.
Yeah, the art style is fantastic, and yeah, the game's just really cute and charming in general, but I want to tell you a story.
Let me tell you a story about enemy level scaling in JRPGs.
No.
Let me tell you a story about enemy level scaling in JRPGs.
No.
The game's story is told as if it came from a children's book. There has light violence, and as I remember there are no aspects involving social problems in general; everything involves the world itself, and that's what matters. The hero's journey, or rather the four heroes journey.
Speaking about the game experience, the game is not that hard, but it is like an old RPG game that you need to pay attention to the story or you will be lost. The battles are repetitive and this does not make the game boring, after all, it's Final Fantasy-like.
The game has hard progress and is too different from the other Final Fantasy games, no MP, no selectable enemy, no Chocobos; in other words, it's not Final Fantasy.
The soundtrack is one of my favourites, the boss battle themes.
This is one of the best games I have played.
Speaking about the game experience, the game is not that hard, but it is like an old RPG game that you need to pay attention to the story or you will be lost. The battles are repetitive and this does not make the game boring, after all, it's Final Fantasy-like.
The game has hard progress and is too different from the other Final Fantasy games, no MP, no selectable enemy, no Chocobos; in other words, it's not Final Fantasy.
The soundtrack is one of my favourites, the boss battle themes.
This is one of the best games I have played.
FF 4 Heroes of Light trouxe ideias bem bacanas relacionadas a jobs, já utilizado previamente em FFs, apesar de não trazer uma história tão empolgante.
Larguei sem terminar, mas pretendo ir até o fim.
Larguei sem terminar, mas pretendo ir até o fim.
Stumbles in spots, but this is still ultra charming and sweet.