Final Fantasy IV Turns XV

Jeremy Parish, keeper of the retronaut flame, has a nice post on his personal site marking the fifteenth anniversary of FFIV. Released in the states as Final Fantasy II for the SNES, the game chronicles the adventures of dark knight turned paladin Cecil and his wacky band of cohorts. It's still one of my favorite games in the series. From the article: "Tiny sprite theatrics notwithstanding, FFIV had something called moxie. It boldly featured one of those videogame plots where things happen for seemingly arbitrary reasons and there's a lot of traveling back and forth and into dungeons on mini-quests to justify endless killing random monsters and fighting bosses. I guess that's not moxie, really. But whatever it was, it drove dark knight Cecil Harvey across the entire world, into the dwarf-infested depths and eventually to the frickin' moon, so it would be silly to split hairs."

Comments

A new holiday!

[sc0ttyb]

I declare July 19th National Spoony Bard Day!

Slow news day?

[Valdrax]

I'm a huge fan of Square and the Final Fantasy series, but isn't celebrating the 15th anniversary of the 4th game in a series kind of stretching it?

Re:Slow news day?

[neonprimetime]

This is worth at least 4 beers tonight.

Odds are you'll be enjoying those 4 beers from the comforts of your dorm room, alone, playing final fantasy IV, reminiscing about Star Trek, and setting the kitchen timer so that you remember to call your mom before 9pm and wish her a happy birthday.

Re:Slow news day?

[Ryan Amos]

The series turned to crap the day it went 3d and turned into a teen angst soap opera. FF7 was okay but FF8 was the death of the series as far as I'm concerned.

Re:Slow news day?

[ReverendLoki]

But FF38 will be the pinnacle of the series

Fixed your typo of a correction of a typo of a correction of a typo. No need to be temporal bigots, after all.

Re:Slow news day?

[Pluvius]

the combat system encourages (nay, demands!) that you spend massive amounts of time drawing cards instead of having fun.

Ah, here's another one. You don't "draw cards," BTW.

Also, the characters are interchangeable.

If you mean gameplay-wise, they're much like those in most of the other FFs. The characters in FF2, FF3, and FF5 are completely interchangeable (and FF1 as well if you bring the character creation screen into consideration), while those in all of the FFs from FF6 on are nearly completely interchangeable. Except maybe FF9, I don't remember much about that one.

As for FF8's plot, it was pretty weak. The game didn't really gear up until about Disc 3, and at least one scene that's important to understanding Squall's character development is optional. But the story (which, as you should know, is not the same as the plot) is pretty good, certainly better than FF6's or FF4's. (FF6's plot was worse than FF8's too; it fell totally apart halfway through.)

The combat system can be horribly abused in the late game to make everyone into hideous nuke characters (if you power-level), but for the majority of the game, there is rich diversity in the characters abilities that most later FF games has not had.

That diversity ain't that rich. There's very little difference between how Cyan's sword techniques distinguish him and how Squall's Renzokuken distinguishes him, for instance. The only real difference between the two is that you can use Cyan's techniques at any time. (And you can use Squall's limit break at almost any time if you know what you're doing.) The only diversity in FF6 is the sheer number of characters, and that damages other parts of the game far more than it benefits the battle system.

As for the differences between the Junction system and the Esper system, there aren't that many as far as interchangeability is concerned. Just as it takes a while to hard-level everyone into using the best magic in FF6, it takes a while to build everyone's GFs and magic stocks up in FF8. The difference is that FF8's advancement methods are far more enjoyable--if you know what you're doing, of course.

Rob

Re:Slow news day?

[7Prime]

One of the many reasons that it's actually my favorite game in the series, just ahead of FF9 and FF6. It's a love or hate game, I've found. I know MANY die-hard Final Fantasy fans (and I mean, people who have played over 50% of the series, including at least one pre-FF7 game), who think it's the finest game in the series... I also know many that think it's the worst thing ever made. I tend to find myself liking games/music/movies that are the biggest polarizers. While I was off at college, about 9 out of 10 die-hard FF fans I knew thought FF8 was the best in the series... but among more casual players, it seems to be a real point of contention. Interestingly, it often gets accused of being a game made for 13 year old boys, but from my experience, 13-year-old boys are the biggest critics of the game, since it revolves around a love story... "GAAAAYYYY!!!!" FF7 was pretty amazing, but I don't think it's anywhere near FF8, I just think it offered a lot of cliche's that were very popular at the time... the characters had a certain charisma (especially Sephiroth) that everyone loved, and I detested. I like FF8 because the characters are all fairly uncharasmatic, and they feel far more realistic that way.

conFused

[neonprimetime]

Final Fantasy IV Turns XV

In non-mathematics major terms : Final Fantasy 9 Turns 15

Re:conFused

[lexarius]

IV = 4, not 9.

Most Compelling Set of Characters

[Pacifist Brawler]

The one thing that I thought was really good in FFIV was that the characters were given reasonable motives and grew in hard to predict but reasonable ways. I don't think you get that in many other FF games -- FFIX and FFX try, but I think that FFIV might have had the best character development.

Even if you disagree, it certainly had the best ninja-sorceress love affair ;P

Re:Most Compelling Set of Characters

[IAstudent]

Second that. Strangely enough, I found myself drawn more to FFIV than FFVI for several reasons.

FFVI's story might have been more grandiose, but after the first half it just tappered off into individual story lines. There's nothing wrong with gaining insight on your individual character's struggles, but FFIV's story seemed more concise throughout the whole game.

Also, while FFVI does have possibly the best RPG villian of all time (I will give it that cred), it was easy to see from a mile away that the rest of the game would lead to him. FFIV had that charm with its behind the scenes-maniuplator-unknown-till the last part of the game.

In reference to storyline, FFIV just held for me a greater sense of exploration. Caves, underworlds, 100 foot towers, robotic innards, and of course, going to the mooooooooooonnnnnnnn!

Then look at weapons. FFVI had the Atma Weapon. Nice, a glorified lightsaber, ho hum. FFIV had the spoon dagger, c'mon! If you thought those Guiness guys made silverware deadly, you haven't seen a ninja utilize untensils like Roger Clemmens.

Finally there was the difficulty. FFIV had restricted characther roles, yes, but it also made you utilize each character to their own unique strengths to win the toughest battles. By the time you reach FFVI's conclusion, with enough cactaurs you could Ultima every danged thing into nonexistance.
 
/END comparison

Re:ff7

[Mattintosh]

Actually, Final Fantasy defined the genre. (Don't start with DQ/DW, since those were fundamentally different "back in the day".) Final Fantasy 2 and 3 set the pace. Final Fantasy 4 took that torch and ran with it. And when it ran, it ran. FF5 merely continued the work that FF4 started, while setting the stage for the "OMG OPTIONS!" games made for the PSX. FF6 was the pinnacle of storytelling and party configuration.

FF7 was a tech demo and an unfinished, poorly-told story, and is where the series started falling apart. Did anyone understand the FF7 storyline on the first (or even the second) time through the game? Yeah, me either. The characters were awful. By the end of FF7 I was hoping that Sephiroth would win and wipe out all these whiny asshats and their little angst, too. The only thing that was revolutionary was the ZOMG 3D graphics, and even they were poorly done and grainy.

FF8 and FF9 were more of the same pre-rendered BS with half-done stories written by crackheads. FF8 had an interesting (though annoying) magic system. FF9 was completely unremarkable. I gave up on Final Fantasy after that, so I can't comment on FF10. Maybe it truly is better, but I'm more inclined to believe that it's about as "better" as FF7.

This fanboyism and weird love for FF7 is just another example of the rift between gamers who remember what games were like before Sony destroyed the industry by making it "cool" and gamers who remember their "first Playstation". This is not a rant about how all games were better or how we only had 2D and we liked it uphill both ways forty miles butt naked in the snow. It's a rant about how Sony threw money at dev houses to steal them from Nintendo and produced a whole generation of EA-style overhyped, underdelivered, shoddy, games that cater to people who buy games because of how "cool" a game is. FF7 is "cool". I only wish that Squaresoft had actually bothered to finish the game and make it "good" as well.

Re:Oh yeah, tons of plot emphasis in FF7-on

[Anonymous Coward]

You're unfairly minimizing the complexity of the storylines. I mean, the main character is a young man...who hates his father! He sort of likes a girl...but doesn't know how to tell her! And he thinks he's been doing the right thing...but he's been doing the wrong thing all along. And even though he's a badass, which you can tell by his spiky hair and his implausibly large sword, he's sensitive... he cries a whole lot, way more than the female characters, who are all so tough that they fight evil in anime fanservice outfits. And OMG, major characters die, sometimes after as little as 3 hours of foreshadowing cutscenes- we're talking about out-of-the-blue shocks! And chocobos! All in all, the storylines in the later FF games are deep as hell- I mean like Shakespeare raised to the power of Tolstoy levels of depth!

Re:ff7

[Mattintosh]

Uhh... you haven't played FF6, have you?

FF4 was pretty lame in the villain department. Zemus/Zeromus hated Earthlings so he wanted to destroy them by using the power of the crystals or something. No backstory was given for why he hated them. So your criticism stands.

But FF6 is a different matter entirely. Kefka starts as a general in the Imperial army. The Empire is greedy for land and power (obviously, or it wouldn't be The Empire). So Kefka is already a powerful goon in the goon army. He's also a prick. So he hatches a plan to not only usurp the emperorship, but also to take over the world and rule it to his greedy ends. In the process, he "blows a lot of shit up and kills people". It also seems that he's mentally unstable, and by that, I mean that he's batshit-fucking-loco. All of this qualifies as both motive and personality.

As for gameplay, well, it's all about deciding what happens and when. FF6 is quite a bit less challenging than FF4 in this department. FF4 definitely had the best balance of any FF game. It was the first FF game that wasn't strictly turn-based, but had attack timers (the Active Time Battle system), and yet it hadn't degraded into the realm of FF6-and-up where by the end of the game every attack does 9999 damage. You actually could get to the end of the game and have your ass handed to you by the enemies you met wandering the final corridors of the game. And yet, every step of the way you were constantly getting it handed to you, so it wasn't a matter of the rest of the game being too easy. And my experiences are based on the US version, which is based on the Japanese "easytype" version! Now that's gameplay!

Re:ff7

[Pluvius]

This fanboyism and weird love for FF7 is just another example of the rift between gamers who remember what games were like before Sony destroyed the industry by making it "cool" and gamers who remember their "first Playstation".

Oh, God, not this crap again. How many times is this chestnut going to get trotted out before someone finally decides to shoot it and turn it into glue?

I've played FF since it came out in 1990, and I still think that FF7, FF8, and FFX are superior to any of the ones previous. And if you really want me to measure my geek dick for you, I'll add that FF3 (that's the real FF3, not FF6) has the second-best gameplay of the entire FF series. I bet most of you so-called "true FF fans" haven't even played that game at all.

So stop it with that "only noobs like FF7" crap, it's not true.

Rob

The Point

[Rydia]

A lot of people miss the point of why FFIV was so great.

Complicated situation re: villian? Check.
Complicated relationships with multiple party members (other than angsty crap)? Check.
Good balance between different characters (a huge rarity in FF post-IV)? Check.
Good music? Check.

There are also a few VERY important things that FFIV did that others mostly do not:

Tie the characters around the story (class change as plot device, the designers' ability to create dungeons with a set party in mind).
It was an pretty good bit of technological workmanship, considering it was almost wholely designed for the NES.
First to do ATB.
ATB.
ATB.
Did I mention Active Time Battle?

People talk about how "deep" the newer RPGs are compared to the older ones. This is completely untrue. People often confuse "depth" with complexity, and say that either something is deep being it is overly complex, or because the writer hides the ball. One need only look to shakespeare to show that it is quality, not quantity or complexity, of character that makes a good plot. FFIV didn't have overly complex characters, nor massive amounts of dialogue to flesh them out, but the game used every bit that it did to create quality characters that worked well off each other.

Cheers, FFIV. Still the best.