A Template for Competency
Final Fantasy IV represents an entire era for the industry. It’s an exercise in competent pacing, world design, and character development; during a time when no others dared to be as ambitious. Not only was the JRPG genre was forever changed by its progressive reformations, but it’s one of the early SNES titles that contributed towards its future legacy. I’ll admit, there are aspects of Final Fantasy IV from a mechanical standpoint that time has not aged gracefully, but it’s absolutely still a classic among other role-playing games.
The original Final Fantasy for the Famicom saw an initial release of 1987 in Japan from developer Squaresoft. Its sequels, Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III, came out in 1988 and 1990 respectively. After the production of Final Fantasy III was officially finished, work immediately went into two different titles in order to bridge the gap between console generations. These games were Final Fantasy IV for the Famicom, while Final Fantasy V would be for Super Famicom and SNES. However, financial constraints began to strike the gil that real-life Squaresoft had at the time, so Final Fantasy V ultimately became Final Fantasy IV. From that, Final Fantasy IV as a last-generation game was completely scrapped, holding back production on the fifth game in the series until IV was done.
With a development team totaling only fourteen people, the original game was fully designed within the course of just one year. The full script had to be reduced to one-fourth of the size it originally was, but cartridge space said otherwise to this work. Final Fantasy IV would be released for the Super Famicom in July of 1991, but the US edition for the SNES would be a rather strange story. Since the original Final Fantasy wouldn’t come out until 1990 for North American audiences, Final Fantasy II and III wouldn’t come out. As a result, since Final Fantasy IV was already translated into English, it would come out as the confusing Final Fantasy II. However, it also came at a cost of Square completely dumbing the localization down. It retained the storyline, graphics, and sound of the original, but the developers significantly reduced the difficulty for no other reason than they figured the US players couldn’t handle it. Granted, it wasn’t the first time we had seen this alteration within a localization, but it’s still dumb that it happened.
Upon the game’s first release off the SNES, it instantly became a classic amongst players, and what resulted was some of the most re-releases for any game I’ve ever even heard of. We’ve got the SNES, PlayStation, WonderSwan Color, GBA, FOMA 903i/703i, DS, Virtual Console, PSP (the version I played through), iOS, Android, and finally PC; all of which vary in some way, though some way more significant than others. This PSP version is my personal favorite, especially in favor over the over-simplified SNES edition and the way too difficult DS version. As a bonus, you get two other games as a part of this excellent package - Final Fantasy IV: Interlude and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, but those games are for another day. Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection would officially come stateside in April of 2011.
Welcome to, well actually, Earth. The Earth surprisingly serves as the overarching setting for Final Fantasy IV, but this version of the big blue and green is bisected. Most of the game takes place entirely on what is called the Overworld, which consists of rivaling nations such as the great kingdom of Baron. This is the part of the universe where a majority of our cast of characters hail from. However, underneath the Earth lies the Underworld, which is a volcanic area that is inhabited by dwarves that yell the awesome “lali-ho!” The Earth that Final Fantasy IV presents is probably one of the best-realized settings the series has accomplished, as the plot has you going around the entirety of almost every continent it has to offer. You will quickly learn the way of the land throughout the course of the narrative, fully ready to explore once you gain that long-awaited airship.
Its story essentially begins with you being forced to commit an act of terrorism; immediately causing personal questions for our protagonist. You take on the role of Cecil, a dark knight and the leader of Baron’s Red Wings. After questioning the morality of their attack on the town of Mysidia to his king, Cecil is stripped of his command. Afterwards he is forced to now personally go to the town of Mist with his friend Kain, but that too is ploy by the king to burn it to ashes. Now conflicted with his actions and separated from Kain, he takes care of a young summoner named Rydia who survived the attack. He then allows her to tag along for his adventure as an individual against the nation of Baron. Is that the extent of all? Absolutely not, this is a JRPG after all, and to explain anymore would no doubt enter spoiler territory.
What I will say is that, aside from the occasional bad writing, I was rather impressed with the way the narrative unfolded. Final Fantasy IV is part of the reason why the JRPG genre has been deemed too derivative, as this is the game that set that standard. We’re talking about a tale that successfully deals with redemption and revolution, with one rad scene following the last. It had a great villain, interesting interactions, and memorable character send-offs. However, notice that I said “memorable” and not a synonym for “good,” because this is the root of what I think is this story’s most glaring issue. Throughout your journey, you’ll meet several characters that are willing to accompany you on your quest, but due to specific scenarios, some succumb to death by plot device. Some of those respective scenes were stand-out moments amongst the entire experience, but then the game just completely ruins it for itself. At the end, nearly all of them are randomly alive again, not only breaking the narrative’s illusion of believability, but it quickly transitioned into pure nonsense in seconds flat. Not that it inherently destroyed the entire game, but it was a rather unnecessary addition to the plot that definitely didn’t help it at all.
From a gameplay perspective, chances are you already know what to expect. This is a classic Final Fantasy title, but it should be known that this one game has defined the genre ever since its initial release. Role-playing products were generally lacking from a story point-of-view, and Final Fantasy IV helped popularize an instance that defied that before. The SNES was brand-new at the time, and Final Fantasy IV was part of what originally brought it towards fulfilling its full potential. Combat may not be as deep as its sequels, but this was the first time an action element was introduced into these kind of games with the ATB gauges.
Yes, Final Fantasy IV has all the trappings you’d expect from a JRPG; a world map to roam aimlessly, random encounters, turn-based battles, exposition dumps, towns to visit, equipment to mess around with, and an anime aesthetic. However, this game does it all with such competency that there ends up being next to nothing to complain about. That said, there was one thing that drove me insane that I think should be mentioned; save points. Throughout my entire trek, I was rather pleased with the spacial distance of the game’s various save points, as it was fair yet not overused. The last save point of the entire game is a different case though. Not only is the encounter rate completely jacked up, but you can’t run from most of the spontaneous fights and the areas you have to walk through are fairly large. This same instance happened in Final Fantasy X, and I couldn’t believe a similar annoying difficulty spike was seen here as well. You won’t hear me criticize anything else about this title, chances are you already know if this style of game suits your interest, but that one collapse at the end is noteworthy. Other than that, the battles remained engaging, the exploration was consistently assuring, and the item management was good; we’ve just seen it all done before in 2016.
I played the PSP version, and this version on the Complete Collection is a technical achievement. The sprites couldn’t look better, the wide-screen format is fitting, and Nobuo Uematsu’s classic score has never sounded more pristine. This is contrary to the original SNES version, noticeably an early adopter to the technology, it simply hasn’t aged as gracefully as, say, Final Fantasy VI. The DS update, while also being insanely difficult from a gameplay perspective, looks slightly better than an N64 title - I’m personally not a fan of that edition at all. If you’re looking to play this game in any format, I can’t recommend the PSP version enough. Those character portraits may be somewhat obnoxious, and I still can’t believe Edward is a guy, but this is still no doubt that this is the definitive version of this RPG classic.
In 2016, Final Fantasy IV may be a tougher sell to a new player than it once was. I praised a lot of this game’s aspects, but I can say with certainty that this is one of my least favorite mainline Final Fantasy games (other than 1,2,3,5, or 12, which I don’t have enough experience with). At the end of the day, it’s game that fell under the “I’ve seen that before” umbrella more often for me, but that’s because Final Fantasy IV set so many of those standards. Is it still worth playing today? Yes, but don’t expect anything to blow you away in 2016. If nothing else, Final Fantasy IV is a template for competency; still retaining successful elements that I think the newer Final Fantasy games could learn from, at least from a character and pacing study. Come into it with the right mindset, and it may still become a beloved game for you.