Final Fantasy IV (PC) Review

The tale of Final Fantasy IV starts out simple enough. Cecil is a Dark Knight in service to his king, a king whom has recently started to become aggressive and willing to attack defenceless nations for his own personal gain. When Cecil raises his voice to question the motive of his own king, he is quickly stripped of his rank and sent out to deliver a gift with his friend Kain to a small village, degrading them to the role of 'errand boy.' As they arrive, they find that the gift that they were asked to deliver was a ring that could summon up bombs. As the village is destroyed and its civilians flee in panic, Cecil manages to rescue one young girl by the name of Rydia and takes her under his wing for protection, all while setting out to try and uncover what is really going on in the world.

Right from the get-go, the strongest elements of Final Fantasy IV are on full display for all to see and it never once lets up. Those elements are its well-made story and characters. From the forgetful sage, Tellah, whom seeks to protect his daughter, to the cowardly bard, Edward, and many more characters whom end up aiding Cecil on his quest, one thing quickly becomes clear: none of the characters are weak and all are just amazing to see unfold. Before the first hour is up, Rydia has started to go from a young girl, terrified of the man who destroyed her village and is now protecting her, to start to progress along to becoming a mature adult despite her youth, and she is far from alone in such growth.

Of course, there are many other aspects to the game as well beyond its great story and characters, such as the solid gameplay. As one of the original games to use the Active Time Battle system in which a small bar fills up for each character, allowing them to attack when full, it could be forgiven for thinking that Final Fantasy IV only contains the barebones of such gameplay, experimental notions kept around more for the sake of remaining true to the original instead of updating it for a modern era. However, the game does not do this for one simple reason: there is really not much that can be improved in the first place. That isn't to say that there aren't things that can be done better, but when a game is capable of mixing strategy, timing, and contains many creative fights and methods of victory such as reflecting powerful spells back at an enemy to ensure players don't die and the like, most improvements would end up being lateral ones and rebuilding the game with a different engine would outright harm what the it offers.

There is no denying that the variety is immense, and it only goes uphill once augments are introduced. Augments are special abilities that can be granted to a character at any time and are fairly straightforward in their use on the whole. Give an augment like, say, auto-potion to a character and they gain that ability. In auto-potion's case, the character to whom the augment is given will use a potion when they are damaged. It's a small little ability but being able to give it to, for example, Rydia who is frail, can alleviate a lot of issues with healing.

It isn't always that straightforward, though, and there are many augments that can't just be hunted down via killing monsters as some require giving specific augments to specific characters. That auto-potion can also be given to a character who, if they don't have an augment by a certain point in the game, will not grant a better one, so it's wiser to give them a low-value augment in favour of a potentially powerful one that may be gone or end up on a bad character. While this adds a bit of experimentation to finding all the augments and encourages trying out new ones on each character, it can also result in some frustration to find out that a requirement for an augment has failed without knowing it.

The PC version of Final Fantasy IV also faces a truly unique problem specific to it, namely that the game is pretty much a port of the Nintendo DS version with a few minor alterations. For whatever reason, one of the alterations was not compensating for the fact that PCs only have one screen. This might not have been an issue but there are several elements on the DS version that required the screen, such as maps. Working through dungeons on the DS, a map would be filled in and when the map was fully filled in, a small reward would be given for doing so. This was great for dual-screened system and encouraged exploration, but on the PC, without the map on the lower screen, all it leads to is seeing a little box popping up at random informing of the map being filled in and a reward dished out. While free items are nice, the little box is no more than a reminder that this is merely a port of the old portable iteration.

In addition to this, there are other reminders that this is simply a port from the DS and not its 'own remake.' The visuals, for example, reek of having been designed for the small screen with limited power instead of having been designed for a non-portable system. It is easy to see the pixellated colouring system and, while it could be easily argued that this was an attempt to update a 2D game to a 3D era, not only would the 2D visuals, even if done in low-resolution, been fine, but there was no reason to make it so obvious. While much of the game is clearly harking back to the original (just look at the battle screens), and this is a GREAT thing to do (updating it while keeping even minor visual tricks like that to remind people of its origin), if the game was going to go 3D and not be just a port of the DS version it would have been nice to see a bit more effort put into at least smoothing the edges of the colours.

Ultimately, however, there is one simple truth about this game. No matter what is said, no matter how 'dated' or 'bad' its visuals are, this has excelled at passing the test of time. All the characters are well-made and presented, the story that is very mature (dealing with atoning for unwittingly killing a little girl's mother in the first hour, and that's just the start!) without becoming overly dark and grim, well-made gameplay, and the like, there is little doubt as to why this game can still be remembered despite how old the original is. It is a well-made, well-crafted, and simply enjoyable game to play and a reminder of what Final Fantasy, and JRPGs in general, can do so exceptionally: tell an amazing and timeless story.

The fact that this can elicit misty-eyed memories simply from its opening song and teaser that it is going to be an amazing rendition is unquestioned. The only real question is if the modern gamer, more focused on high-action and multiplayer, will be interested. That is not a question that can be answered, especially in a review, but for those who do seek a great story, Final Fantasy IV will more than fulfil that need.