Final Fantasy IV Advance
by Square Enix
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Video Game Reviews of Final Fantasy IV Advance
Customer Review: After 15 Years, Bards are Still Spoony
Summary: 5 Stars
Here is a blast of nostalgia for your Gameboy Advance. Final Fantasy IV Advance aka Final Fantasy II aka Final Fantasy IV Hard-Type is a treat for old-school RPG players. Back in its hayday, Final Fantasy IV was the gold standard for what an RPG should be. The first in a series of remakes of that wonderful streak that was the SNES Final Fantasies, Final Fantasy IV is back and better than ever.
The story is as good as it ever was. Final Fantasy 4 did what Final Fantasy 2 (Japanese numbering) tried to do: mixed a well developed story with memorable characters with good if simple gameplay. This is the story of Cecil the Dark Knight who renounces his loyalty to the corrupt kingdom of Baron. Baron has been making war against the other nations of the world to capture four elemental crystals. When his king commands him to kill the innocent, Cecil sets out on a quest to make things right that will take him around the world, to the center of the earth, and to the moon. As he unravels the mystery of who is really behind the actions of Baron, he is joined by a cast of over ten playable characters. Each of them has a reason to join the fight. Characterization may not seem much by today's standards, but this game was made in an age when Square believed less was more. You revealed a motive once and then you moved on instead of going over and over the same psychological problem again and again.
Unlike the Playstation port that had absolutely no upgrades beyond its retranslated script, FF4Advance has a few minor visual tweaks. Some of the game sprites seem to have been tweaked abit to have more definition and character portraits have been redrawn and put in the dialogue boxes to indicate who is speaking. Most of the new portraits are fairly close to the old ones, Edge's and Rydia's are actually an improvement, but the new one's for Rosa, Paladin Cecil, and Edward in particular aren't so nice to look at. There are also two new dungeons and the ability to tackle the final boss with any of the other (still living) playable characters than with the fixed party of five like in the original. All of these new features are very unobtrusive so you can take advantage of them if you'd like the extra challenge or ignore them altogether. Instead of using the script from the original release that contained numerous spelling and grammatical mistakes and was censored due to Nintendo of America's then extremely strict guidelines, FF4A contains a more accurate revamped version. Of course, the "You spoony bard" line has, thankfully, been left intact. It's a classic.
If not for one issue I'd say that this is undoubtedly the best version of the game available. Final Fantasy IV was a really hard game. FF4A is not that hard at all- at least early in the game. I don't know if the difficulty was scaled back because they thought that people didn't want to waste GBA battery life on hours of leveling up or because I've played this game many times before, but it just seemed too easy. Anyone whose played it when it first came out should remember at least super tough boss battle be it Baigan, the Magnus Sisters, Evil Wall or something else. This time through they where like a cake walk. Also it seems that the Active Time Battle is set up in such a way as it gives your party the advantage. Your party seems to regain their turns twice as fast as the enemy. About half-way through the game, that legendary difficulty starts creeping back and by the final trek to the core of the moon you'll be thankful for any break the game will give you.
Final Fantasy IV shows in this port that it stands the test of time. Instead of feeling hoary, old, and outdated, it feels just as much fun as it was fifteen years ago.
Customer Review: Awesome!
Summary: 5 Stars
I grew up on NES and SNES, so seeing these games with new graphics and some bonus features was a very nice surprise for me. I had just as much fun playing through this game as I did playing FFII for SNES. Fortunately there were some improvements made in the dialogue, which made it much easier to follow and the characters a little deeper. Square added in some items and extra equipment. Also, you have the option to switch between all the characters towards the end of the game, which gives the game a new flavor. There are some small bugs in it, but most don't hurt the gameplay too much. The only downfall of this remake is that they took away the weapon-doubling cheat... :-( Thus, no more stacks of 99 Excallibur swords for Edge to throw...Customer Review: Gameplay great, Variety fantastic, Story superb!
Summary: 5 Stars
By the look of this game, I knew it was going to be maginificent. There are many towns, in which carry different armor, weapons, potions, and antidotes that is, mostly, specific to it's environment. That was a great show of CLASSIC RPG. I loved the classic-renewed graphics of the game, and even though the graphics aren't as good as some of the recent games like SOM or Goldensun, this game portrays many possible role-playing selections that neither of those games have had. In FFIV, you can switch characters swiftly, use various amounts of magic spells and summons, have specific weapons for specific characters, and has great and imaginitive settings.
Overall, this game is fantastic. It gets extremely challenging at the end, but that is what makes it more fun. In the beginning, the monsters are small, tiny, and weak. But soon, the monsters are big and the art is done fabulously.
I think that if you love fantasy, adventure, RPGs, action, or even tactical games, you should go buy this game RIGHT NOW! =)
Customer Review: A GREAT REMAKE
Summary: 5 Stars
When I heard that Square was going to remake Final Fantasy IV (originally Final Fantasy II in the U.S.) I was very excited. This game is considered to be one of the greatest Final Fantasy games of all time. All in all I would recomend this game to anyone who is a Final Fantasy fan.Customer Review: Even better than the original!
Summary: 5 Stars
I just bought this game last month, and have played all the way through it, including the unlockable side quests.
I'm not going to write much about the games story here, there are plenty of other reviews for that already. All I'm going to write about is the game itself.
Anyway, after playing all the way through the game, I have to say that I like it even more than the original. The script is much better, and the music sounds much better on the GBA.
One thing that I particularly liked about this game was all of the new unlockables! After beating the game, you unlock a new dungeon to explore, as well as a really cool music player! If you go down to extra and select "Music Player" in the main menu, you can listen to all of the tunes and melodies that you heard throughout the game! My personal favorites include, Hey Cid!, Rydia, Theme of love, Chocobo-chocobo, and Dancing Calcobrena.
The unlockable dungeon, Lunar ruins, is very cool! To fully unlock every room in the dungeon, you have to beat Zeromus once as each character. After that, you get to do some really cool extra tasks as each character! I wont spoil them for you, but just having them in the game highly increases the overall replay value of this game.
Now for the pros & cons of this remake...
Pros:
It's the same old game that you used to love, but with some cool upgrades and additions to game play.
New Quick Save feature allows you to save inside of dugeons and towns.
Some of the text from the old game has been fixed so now all of the magic spells aren't abreviated. Example: Meteo has been fixed to read Meteor.
Has new unlockable Music Player and side quest dungeon!
The music sounds much sharper on the GBA, you can really hear the seperate instruments playing in unison.
This version has the old, unedited script, which is far more convincing durring game play.
Cons:
Unlike Final Fantasy Chronicles, this game does not include Chrono Trigger.
They changed the sound effects for some of the moves, and changed the names of some of the moves. For example, Meteor doesnt make that screechy noise anymore, (which I thought sounded cool) and Nuke has been changed to Flare.
In battle, there seems to be a lag in reaction time when pressing down the buttons... (You press the button, but it takes a second to register the command.)
50/50:
None of the graphics have been upgraded, but if you're like me, that doesnt really matter.
If you're like me, and have already played Final Fantasy II for the snes or Final Fantasy Chronicles for the PSone, buy this game! It's well worth the price!