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Final Fantasy IV......

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 19, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Being the first game I've played in awhile, Final Fantasy IV delivers the goods like it ought to. I'll admit, I played the Gameboy Advance version of this game and loved it but came into this one a little speculative about whether it'd be any good or not. Well, I'm here to tell ya' that it is the best Square Enix remake I've ever played. Matrix really did a good job with this remake. It easily trumps Final Fantasy III in every way. The story itself goes a little something like this....Cecil is the lord captain of the Red Wings of Baron. Bound by his duty to serve his king and country, his conscience is heavy with the sins that he is committing in their name. Returning from a mission to Baron's friendly neighbor Mysidia, he finally dares to question his king's motives. For his insubordination, Cecil is stripped of his rank and sent on an errand north to the village of Mist, where his destiny is revealed to him and his journey begins. The story itself is told in cinematic style prsentation with voice acting. Throughout his journey, Cecil is joined by a number of intriguing characters: Kain, his best friend and a dragoon of considerable skill; Rosa, his lady love, who became a white mage to support him on the frontlines; Rydia, a summoner capable of calling the legendary Eidolons (referred to as summon monsters in other games) to her aid; Tellah, a revenge-driven sage who's forgotten more than most have learned; and many more.

Make no mistake, though, Final Fantasy IV is only for the hardcore RPG fan. Why, you ask? Well, unlike FF3, the battles in this game are really hard. If you make it through a battle, you'll realize it isn't through luck that you did but sheer skill. Admittedly, I went away from the game feeling more satisfied that I did but was annoyed somewhat by it being so hard. Yet, I think it reaches that perfect challenge.

The graphics are simply amazing. Simply the best I've seen on the Nintendo DS. With easily the best character and world designs on any game.

Final Fantasy IV DS: A remake that cannot be missed!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 20, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Seeing that Final Fantasy IV (known as Final Fantasy II for the Super NES) was released around 15 years ago, there are a whole generation of youngsters and teens that never got a chance to experience this game.

And, for some of us, Final Fantasy II was one of the best RPG's we ever played.

So why remake a game that is over 15 years old, especially when so many other good FF games (including FFIII(VI), FFVII, FFIX and FFX) have come out?

First of all, FFIV introduced the Active Time Battle system into Final Fantasy games. This has been the standard (for the most part) ever since. Second, the story in FFIV is outstanding, and even surpasses other FF titles that have come out on next gen systems. Third, the game has been given all new voice acting, been retranslated, and made much harder than previous releases of FFII (the US got the "easy" version).

Graphically, this game pushes the limit of the DS. Both the CGI's and the Summon animations are outstanding. Backgrounds have been enhanced and look nothing like the blocky SNES ones.

As for sound, FFII had a great score (again, some would consider it the best of the FF games), and while some found the voice acting terrible, I had absolutely no problem with it and it added to the experience.

For the DS, a new Augment system was added, and pretty much is mandatory to learn and use if you want to beat the two new optional bosses in the game. It definitely adds a new level to strategy (and, you have to play through THREE times to get all the augments and special bosses!). The replay value was significantly increased by these actions.

However, the one thing that may hold FFIV DS back in terms of being perfect is the difficultly level. This is not an easy game. Whether you are a FFIV newbie, or played previous versions, you are in for a shock. Message boards have filled up with people dying in places that would have been considered ridiculously early in previous versions of FFIV. Be forewarned: Level grinding is definitely required in this version. And, I would not have this be the first RPG for someone, let alone they get frustrated and chuck their DS!

Overall, this game is an awesome walk down memory lane for some, and introduces others to just how great RPG's have been in the past.

Definitely pick this product up. For sure one of the top 3 RPG's on the DS, and miles above FFIII DS!

A worthy redux.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

While I have a few issues with the game, most of them revolve around grinding for the bonus items and the inability to skip through the text-only bits of the cinema sequences in the "New Game +" mode. That said, FF IV DS is a huge improvement over FF III DS on a technical level - it loads faster, you get into and out of combat quicker, and the game generally feels quite a bit zippier than its technical predecessor.

Having played FF IV back when it was the US FF II, and having played FF IV Advance, I feel each version has its plusses and minuses - while the "extras" in FF IV Advance may have added quite a bit to the characters and offered up more in the way of dungeons (there's plenty of bonus material to quest for in FFIVDS, but dungeons ain't on the list), the airship mode was awful and there were some funky combat timing issues that seriously limited the use of Kain and Yang's special abilities. FFIVDS doesn't suffer these problems.... and the fact that it works "as advertised" actually makes the game MORE challenging. :-)

The ability decant system is great, the graphics are fantastic (maybe not compared to the PS3 or whatever, but they're mighty fine for the DS). While the english voice acting is so-so, the new translation is fantastic, and it's great seeing the enemies actually MOVE. The game makes great use of the dual screens, giving the player a clarity of information display that wouldn't be possible on a single screen game. The Namingway quest is a great changeup of the Namingway character, though I'm sure many impatient players will be flustered by the infamous Rainbow Pudding.... whereas the patient grinders will doubtless find its eventual discovery rewarding.

All in all, FFIVDS is a worthy redux of the original SNES classic, and while it may be a bit rough in a few places, I'd still heartily recommend it to JRPG fans - especially if they missed it the first time around. I for one am hoping that Square proceeds with DS versions of V, VI, and (hope, hope) VII!

Hey square, if it ain't broke don't fix it!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 7
Date: July 28, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Ok first of all i've beaten FFIV at least ten times over the years since the Snes days so i consider myself very familiar with the series. First of all i'll start with the bad. Square raised the difficulty of the game significantly, and some of the boss battles will have you pulling your hair out. It personally takes alot of the fun out of a game that i've enjoyed for years. Again, i'm an rpg veteran, i'm used to grinding levels to beat a boss so i expect a certain level of difficulty but this was a bit much.

With the good, i don't really have to say much, you can look at a screenshot and tell the improvement in graphics and gameplay, though they added a few new skills that add a little more customization to the game.

Overall if you loved the old RPG's from the super nes era or if you are a final fantasy fan, you'll probably pick this up, but i didn't see the point in square adding so much difficulty and frustration to an already great game. I've still had alot of fun with this game, but i've used about every swear word in the book during a few boss battles.

IV's $40 Fourth Incarnation

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 10
Date: August 02, 2008
Author: Amazon User

And you thought the number of the beast was triple-six.

If ever there was any shred of doubt left in anybody's mind that Squaresoft is dead, and its replacement, SquareEnix, is little more than a money-generating machine, let this game remove it. This is the fourth time that Final Fantasy IV has been released in the United States. Number four. We've already had the SNES FFII (which, as everybody should know by now, was the original FFIV Easy Type as released in Japan--the old Square of America was unsure about the profitability of the Japanese II and III). We've already had the PSX Final Fantasy Chronicles (which packaged a relocalized FFIV Hard Type together with Chrono Trigger). We've even had a portable port, the GBA FFIV (which can be played on the DS, may I remind you), a slight update on the PSX version.

And now this. Granted, the addition of updated, three dimensional CG is nice. I have to admit, some of the new features are interesting. But I have to question just what kind of rubes SquareEnix takes its consumer-base to be to expect to make a profit simply by adding rudimentary 3D and a couple new shiny add-ons to a game they've released stateside three times previously.

To be blunt: in this day and age, internet piracy is rampant. You can get the original SNES versions extremely easily for free--I can't say I particularly condone that kind of thing, but let's be realistic here. A little more legally, you can get the PSX version and the GBA versions for $17 or $30, respectively, brand new direct from Amazon--and even cheaper from some very reputable 3rd parties selling through Amazon! I highly recommend getting one of them. FFIV is one of the best pre-PSX console RPGs, and definitely worth a play-through for any fan of the old-school style. But $40 for a few extra bells and whistles? That's what I call a scam.

Are there people who are going to be turned off the game by the old sprite-based 2D graphics? Yes. There's nothing particularly wrong with that--wanting an aesthetically pleasing experience to accompany your time spent playing is nothing to be frowned at. I would, however, contend that the kind of people who are turned off of games by old-school graphics like those present in the previous versions of this game likely wouldn't enjoy the old-school gameplay, or the old-school story, of FFIV. As enjoyable as I find it as a gamer who's been playing RPGs since the early nineties, FFIV is kinda dated, something that no amount of prettified graphics or extra distractions is going to cover up for gamers primarily interested in a more modern experience.

Graphically better, but it wears off

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: August 06, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The new 3D engine and graphics adds a lot of new life into this previous sprite rendered game, however, once the thrill wears off, you're left with essentially the same game, with minor updates. Other posters have mentioned some of the changes, so I won't touch too much on it, suffice to say that some are good, some not. I do not find the challenge an issue. It doesn't seem harder, just faster, which unbalances the strategy in this version. The stats are stronger for enemies, but not as many fit the screen, already changing it for the easier. Best features are the wonderful translation job, which is hands down better than any version. A big thumbs down to new features though, which are tacked on at best and do not add much to your experience except to appease your curiosity. Buy it if you have never played, if you have played it then decide if the new graphics are worth it - otherwise it isn't very different.

Great RPG for the DS

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I have never played Final Fantasy IV, so I imagine I am missing the point of this remake in many ways. But as a pure RPG, the type which is not coming out that often nowadays, on any system, this game is really good. The script is good, the combat is smooth and fast paced, and the storyline is genuinely interesting. The typical Square DS production values are all here, with full CG, voice acting, and a high quality music score (just use headphones!). My only minor complaint might be the 3D graphics, which look good and run smoothly - but the DS is not a 3D powerhouse and it shows.

The one thing I will say is that it is very challenging. It's clearly designed for the FFIV fan who knows the game thoroughly. But even as a non-fan, as long as you are careful and use strategy you should be fine.

Reborn Brilliance

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 26, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I envy those who have never played this game before. If you're a Final Fantasy fan and you started playing when Final Fantasy VII came out (as most people did) then I would strongly suggest you play through this game and find for yourself why it's considered one of the top two Final Fantasy's ever created. As for this DS version? I say bravo to Matrix Software with the Supervision of Square-Enix.

For those who played Final Fantasy II on the SNES, there are two things that stand out to me so far. The music is enhanced but still the same, brilliant. The dialogue has been improved like you wouldn't believe. No more 3rd grade dialogue, or horrible translation.

This role-playing game was a pioneer for those we play today. So pay it some respect. It'll be worth it's price.

A great remake

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 28, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I've played all of the other remakes Final Fantasy IV (actually, I think I own them all as well.) I have to say that this one is the only one since the first remake that really changed much. The 3D graphics are really nice, and the voice acting makes the game feel more modern. The biggest change, however, is the challenge. I remember plowing through the first part of the game without stopping. In the previous versions, one didn't need to stop progressing to level the characters until after the village of Myst. This version is way different! Even the battles in the beginning can wipe the group! Any hard core Final Fantasy fan will likely be very happy with this. Also, anyone that hasn't had the pleasure to play one of the other versions of this game should pick it up and experience one of the best Final Fantasy titles ever made!

Not to be missed for RPG fans

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 30, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Final Fantasy IV DS is a complete remake of what many American gamers know as Final Fantasy II for the SNES. IV was the first 16-bit FF game, and the story was more detailed, the characters more complex, and the graphics and sound more believable than ever before. The DS version keeps the complex and interesting story intact (with a better translation) and features vastly improved character and location graphics in a 3D world. This portable RPG holds its own against anything available for the DS/PSP and is a must-play for fans of Final Fantasy or those looking for a story-driven RPG. It is better than both previous reissues (GBA and PSX), because they were ports with minimal new features, and the Playstation version had long load times.

There are many plot twists that keep the player moving onward in uncovering the story details and defeating the ultimate enemy. Dark Knight Cecil starts as a pawn of the enemy, and ultimately weaves through a complex tale to redemption, while saving the world from a great evil. The supporting characters are some of the most memorable in Final Fantasy history, even more so because the player has no control over scripted events that decide who gets to be in your party. I loved FF VI (6) also, but some of the characters were non-essential to the story. In IV (4), every character has a purpose, and sometimes they show up to help out unexpectedly.

I'm about halfway through the DS version and it is both a nostalgic trip and a genuinely good RPG that paved the way for greats such as FF VII. I hope that Square Enix continues the remake trend with enhanced versions of FF VI and VII on modern consoles.

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