Enjoyable to be sure, but it never felt like it truly captivated me. I still have a lot to say about it, though, 'cause of course I do.

I found the pacing to easily be the most impressive thing about this game, moving about at a solid clip that only really slowed down for a couple bumps in the road and never got too overly quick either. I would have liked for there to be more opportunities for the party to interact with each other as that felt lacking due to how near-breakneck the pace often was.

I gotta say, I don't really like ATB! I already hadn't liked it back when I played some of these games as a kid, and now it's not really felt any better. The lack of direct party synergy (think Chrono Trigger's combo techs) made the system in this game feel much like traditional turn-based battling with extra steps that waste time. What made it feel most tolerable in FF4, though, is that the game is paced and balanced pretty damn well to the point of having no notable grinds, meaning simply taking most battles as they come and using autobattle where needed is enough to get through relatively unscathed. It's horribly unengaging as I've found ATB to typically be, but again, it became tolerable for virtue of its brevity.

The different classes and growth for the party were a piece I did enjoy plenty, with some asterisks. First I found it a little anticlimactic how Rydia and Tellah both sort of just... got most of their powers all at once instead of them coming over time. However, I think those were balanced out by the sheer breadth and variety of different classes that made up the party by the end of the game, with pretty much everyone being unique and memorable save for the twins (whose 'generic' roles were by design!). Learning about how endgame stat growths change is really cool and gave me even more respect for the good ol' spoony bard Edward. Spells felt mostly well balanced and all the various weapons had their use cases come and go, plus armor and weapon progression felt natural and flowing instead of abrupt or too repetitive. In short, a lot of the more subtle background elements of this game's mechanics that one easily takes for granted are honestly really well done when put under a microscope.

When considering the writing of this game, I found some of the characters were compelling even with things moving along too quickly for comfort. Cecil comes to mind, of course, but also Edward and to a degree Rydia have a lot to show for themselves. Most of the rest of the cast was enjoyable, but their lack of scenes and interactions felt particularly hefty whenever sacrifices were made and congratulations were had. I found it hard to feel invested in the characters when they only had one or two scenes each to even get a feel for their characterizations on average. It often felt as if the plot were simply happening to them and they were along for the ride rather than really reacting to it, once again save for the three characters I mentioned above (and Cid).

The plot as a whole was surprisingly rich for how tiny the world felt and how frugal the game's sense of efficiency was. It was straightforward in a pretty charming way and I found that it was executed as a whole pretty well. I'd call it concise but interesting, with very little feeling like bad filler aside from Edge's everything. Nothing was too terribly deep when it came to the worldbuilding, but I didn't mind much. The world of the game in general is quite puny so trying to be too overly epic would feel off. I wish the world of the summons/eidolons would have been expanded upon more, though, as much of Rydia's development there happening entirely off screen felt disappointing and like a huge well of untapped potential.

To give some very brief thoughts on my favorite characters of FF4, I found Cecil's redemption to be at times more subtle and slow-burning than I've seen people give it credit for. Edward being interactable after many major story events while he's bedridden was a great touch for a character whose whole screentime was both memorable and enjoyable. As a result, I found that despite his lack of prominence in the latter half of the game he still felt plenty present. His scene of playing a song to help the party in the cave was extremely heartwarming and hit me way harder than expected for such a light one. As for Rydia, she was cooler in concept than in execution, but she got far more characterization from the earlygame than most of the rest got across the whole thing, so good for her! She and Cecil feel almost like very mild foils in a way that I considered endearing for them both.

I'm not sure where else to put this, so I'll add it here: I felt that there was an occasional weirdly sexist tint to this game that it couldn't quite shake off. Rosa's lack of meaningful characterization other than "she loves Cecil" for 90% of the game felt almost artificial when one recalls her one personality-filled scene with Rydia. She had a sense of fierceness and mystique there that felt more magelike and even sagelike than pretty much any of the actual mages and sages in the game ever did. Rosa presented in just one moment some effective wisdom, a mix of blunt truthfulness yet gentle understanding. It felt as if, if they had tried or realized they could, the writers could easily have passed the Bechdel test in plenty of scenes, but for whatever reason they just had to dumpster their women instead.

For the expected party compositions throughout the game things were arranged such that the player nearly always had a reason to put the women in the back and the men in the front with only the one male child being the exception. Even when paired with a more frail male party member like Edward or Tellah, one still felt encouraged to have them up front with Cecil simply because the twins or Rydia felt more frail, or Rosa needed more bodies in front of her to avoid being pummeled and lose the player their healer. Rosa as something of an object was treated as a prize for Cecil's arc as a 'necessary' story piece despite the arc in a vacuum being the reward in itself. He's also given a whole kingdom afterward which is also a little random. That weird scene toward the end where Edge seemed to call both grown women 'kids' while he helped shoo them off of the ship away from danger with the other men agreeing? Yeah, that was dumb too. Edge in general was pretty slimy and shitty in a way that felt more like he was intended to be quirky but failed horribly.

Yet, the vague misogyny of sorts also felt almost too awkward for itself and to me seemed unfitting of the game. I admired the takes on traditional socially-imposed notions of masculinity being shed in favor of a more whole and true self that Cecil's arc had baked into it. I liked that he was not immediately forgiven by everyone everywhere, let alone fully by himself, after becoming a paladin. These things counter what one would expect from a male power fantasy type of arc or story -- it makes the tacked-on bits of uncomfortable 'tradition' seem all the more flimsy, including the free kingdom he was given as mentioned earlier.

The virtuousness of the party aligns fairly directly with their disregard for adhering to common (gender) roles. Yang's straightforwardly warm nature as opposed to a monk's expected stoicism and Cid's more traditional masculinity being channeled into helping and protecting others are both shown to be positive and mature contrasted with Palom and Edge's immature, irrational macho toxicity. Edward and Tellah foil each other well in a similar fashion with their reactions to and subsequent resolves stemming from Anna's death. Lust for revenge through ultimate power is Tellah's undoing that he himself realizes and regrets while the sickly Edward grows into true courage, with his postgame stats even reflecting such. Rydia returns from childhood with a newfound air of agency and independence that make her feel free to be exactly who she is, nothing more and nothing less, and absolutely not tied down by others like Edge trying to infantilize her due to her sex. She finds her own family in the feymarch and it's satisfying.

These things are all here! They're all visible! And it isn't like there's anything wrong with Porom being an emotionally mature feminine presence to contrast with Palom, or with Rosa being in total love with Cecil all game, either! It's just that there are weird bits and pieces of slightly uncomfortable stuff that pop up at seemingly random times. It's inconsistent. It seriously makes me wonder just how much was due to orders from higher up, differing views of level/mechanical designers and writing staff (and art staff, even), or whatever else. The problem is that with how bare the writing often is due to the lack of it, those bits and pieces stick out so much more than they otherwise would. There's a sour taste that was left in my mouth that I wish would have been diluted by more writing, but there wasn't any to do so.

It's due in no small part to the above that I found myself a little nonplussed at times in this playthrough, but I certainly didn't find myself deeply underwhelmed to the point of disliking the game. Again, a lot of what the game does just works. It doesn't have any really huge pitfalls, most of its weak points aren't damning, and it has plenty of small things going for it. Hell, the fact that I'm here ruminating on what it all means suggests that it had quite a lot to think about despite how bare its text was overall. I'd consider that both impressive and valuable. It's almost an enigma just how thought provoking FF4 is through being so vanilla and straightforward and sparse.

I think more than anything else it was absolutely worth playing even just for history's sake. I don't think this would make a favorites list of mine anytime soon, but it definitely felt like the first of these games to challenge the first entry and it did a solid job of it. I can only imagine things get a lot better from here, though. There's plenty of room for it.