Final Fantasy IV DS

[Alferd Packer]

Perhaps it's because this game (its SNES incarnation, that is) was the first RPG I ever bumbled through, or perhaps it's because I thought Final Fantasy III DS was so well done, but I think this game is stellar. If you liked Final Fantasy III, you should definitely check this out. Some thoughts, catagorized generally:

Graphics - About as good as they're going to get with the DS' hardware limitations. I think the average framerate is slightly lower than FF3, but that's probably due to the fact that you have up to five party members and six monsters on screen in a battle. Still, the graphics really shine during the cut scenes, where the characters can move in any fashion as the story dictates. Battle animations have been given neat little touch-ups, such as the critical hits being a different physical maneuver than a normal strike.

Sound - Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. The entire score has been re-recorded and sounds better than it did on the SNES. The noise of the spells are mainly the same (Bio, anyone?), but updated. Finally, the voice acting during the cut scenes varies from meh to excellent. Frankly, the mere fact that there's voice acting in this game is damn cool.

Gameplay - Well, what can one say? It's familiar FF stuff. I will say that the ATB system has been implemented well, with distinct turn and action gauges. One of the coolest additions is augments, which allow your characters to learn new abilities (or abilities of other characters which have left your party).

For example, you can obtain Palom and Porom's Twincast ability, and equipped on the right characters, can unleash the most powerful spell in the game. In that vein, most of the secondary characters have been given extra abilities not present in the SNES game. Rosa can Pray, which allows everyone in the party to recover both MP and HP. Cecil (as a Dark Knight) can invoke the Darkness ability, which allows him to double his damage at the cost of some health. Tellah can attempt to recall one of forgotten spells in battle.

As a final gameplay note, Edward still sucks, just not as badly as before.

In all, it's game we should've gotten originally. There's more dialogue, better graphics, cut scenes with voiceovers, and new features. I'm guessing that if you're an obsessive bugger like I am, I'd say you're looking at around seventy hours' gameplay to completely finish it out completely. For $40 USD, that's a pretty cost-effective choice of entertainment.

[Vendetta]

For example, you can obtain Palom and Porom's Twincast ability, and equipped on the right characters, can unleash the most powerful spell in the game. In that vein, most of the secondary characters have been given extra abilities not present in the SNES game. Rosa can Pray, which allows everyone in the party to recover both MP and HP. Cecil (as a Dark Knight) can invoke the Darkness ability, which allows him to double his damage at the cost of some health. Tellah can attempt to recall one of forgotten spells in battle.

Famously, those abilities have been in every version of FFIV ever. Just not when it was released as FFII.

(also, in the GBA remake, where you could eventually have any character in the party at the endgame, Edward was horrifically broken at high levels, guaranteeing 9999 damage to pretty much any high level enemy)

[Natorgator]

Edward was worthless. I always used the "hide" command with him. I was glad when he left the party.

I wish they'd port these classics to a better system like the Xbox...I don't want to run out and buy a DS just so I can play them!

[General Zod]

Edward was worthless. I always used the "hide" command with him. I was glad when he left the party.

I wish they'd port these classics to a better system like the Xbox...I don't want to run out and buy a DS just so I can play them!

So get a DS for the other awesome games out there? Seriously, there's a lot more reasons to get a DS than just Squeenix remakes.

[Vendetta]

They do it for the DS and PSP because that's where the market is in Japan. These rereleases fly off the shelves faster than they can stamp out the cartridges over there (most recently Dragon Quest V got rereleased for the DS and shifted 600k first week)

[TheFeniX]

This was the reason I bought a DS about 2 months ago... well that and riding in a car or plane for 8 hours at a time for work was getting old.

Unfortunately, I mixed up the release date for it and FFIII. No big waste as FFIII brought me back more towards the FFI days.

The game is excellent for the most part and has enough new content for new and those who've played through it multiple times. I'm back at the sealed cave after some horrendous boss battles.

Squeenix has "reworked" many of the boss battles to make them more difficult, but this is completely untrue. It makes some boss battles insanely hard, while making others pathetically easy. The deciding factor is almost always luck, which means multiple reloads. This contrasts from FFIII where your decision of job classes can make or break major battles.

One of the toughest parts of FFIV was the fight with Valerus (wind fiend) after you lost your last Black Mage. So, you're just duking it out with her and hoping the cure spells go off at the right time. In the remake, once you hit her with slow, the only option she has after that is her counter-attacking. So, it's just plod along with an attack here or there and heal after the counter.

For instance (Spoiler Alert, but is it even needed for a game this old considering the storyline hasn't changed?):

The battle with Lugae was attrocious. The first time I fought his true form, he immediately cast "Reverse Gas (which he always does first thing, but it was poison gas in the original), then immediately hit my party with 3 consecutive "restore" spells before I could even cast slow on him. Needless to say, my entire party was wiped out in short order. I got maybe two attacks (on my own characters, to heal them), before he just piled it on.

So, I just spent a lot of time grinding, then finally beat him (through shear luck) the 6th time. It's literally just hope the reversal gas gets removed or put on at the right time.

So, I'm thinking "Jesus, no time to save the game and Rubicante has got to be harder than this." Not a fucking chance. One of the most difficult and rewarding battles of the original was literally me just pounding on Rubicante with Ice spells and raising whoever he actually managed to take out with Glare. The fight was over in probably 5 turns.

The game is awesome though. I've enjoyed pretty much 99% of it, especially Cid's voice acting. I just get annoyed at retarded difficulty ramping. I'm trying to wipe out Leviathon right now to get the Summon. I'm pushing level 50 and his opening attack wipes out half my party. No big deal, I expected that. But then before I get one attack, he gets in a Blizzaga. Then I get cecil to Cure and another Blizzaga. That's not "difficult" to deal with. It's insanity.

With the addition of the ATB system, a "Slow" spell at the beginning of a major battle is almost a must (as is liberal use of Haste). But some of these boss battles have me fighting just to use an item that casts either before my party is laid out.

[Ryushikaze]

Gameplay - Well, what can one say? It's familiar FF stuff. I will say that the ATB system has been implemented well, with distinct turn and action gauges.

Technically, it's been demonstrated better. FF4 was always ATB instead of turn, they just weren't obvious about it.

One of the coolest additions is augments, which allow your characters to learn new abilities (or abilities of other characters which have left your party).

For example, you can obtain Palom and Porom's Twincast ability, and equipped on the right characters, can unleash the most powerful spell in the game. In that vein, most of the secondary characters have been given extra abilities not present in the SNES game. Rosa can Pray, which allows everyone in the party to recover both MP and HP. Cecil (as a Dark Knight) can invoke the Darkness ability, which allows him to double his damage at the cost of some health. Tellah can attempt to recall one of forgotten spells in battle.

As said, those abilities were there previously, though they do work differently this time around. Darkness isn't an attack-all ability (that uses HP to function), it's a 2X damage buff that works for a number of turns that eats your HP every time you successfully strike an enemy.

As a final gameplay note, Edward still sucks, just not as badly as before. :D

On the contrary, he's almost somewhat spiffy. Set life anthem going and forget he exists.

In all, it's game we should've gotten originally. There's more dialogue, better graphics, cut scenes with voiceovers, and new features. I'm guessing that if you're an obsessive bugger like I am, I'd say you're looking at around seventy hours' gameplay to completely finish it out completely. For $40 USD, that's a pretty cost-effective choice of entertainment.

More than 70 hours. You get three playthroughs for a single file, and you can carry certain things over into the later ones. There are also optional bosses to tackle in the subsequent playthroughs.

Oh yeah. One tip- The ????'s love augment levels up with wifi whyt battles. Do that a few times, replace Cecil's attack with it, and he starts doing excellent damage (it adds the number of wifi battles you've had and saved onto your weapon power, than figures out attack from there).

As for Lugae, reversal gas changes the rules in general. Drop restores on him to hurt and nuke your party to heal. And I really didn't notice a difference in the 4 fiends from the last few iterations of the game I played. Babrariccia had the same issue with slow the last few times, and she's gained the ability to use her ultimate attack as a counter, now.

[SylasGaunt]

To be fair that 'will the spell go off in time' was an issue when it was FF2. I'm looking at you Bahamut battle.

[TheFeniX]

To be fair that 'will the spell go off in time' was an issue when it was FF2. I'm looking at you Bahamut battle.

For the record: don't even try casting reflect on all your characters because it won't do jack shit this time around. I don't know if the tactic worked in the remakes, but it did on the FFII SNES version.

I got exceedingly lucky that Fusoya survived the initial Megaflare. Doubly so as I just spent the earlier 30 minutes fighting Behemoths. Sure they aren't hard with liberal use of Blink, but they take forever to kill.

Just cast slow first thing or use a spider silk. Have Rosa cast haste on everyone she can (I started with Edge as his throws deal at least 3000 damage and have no prep time) and blast away with everything else. The only other attack he/she (it's a guy this time around) has is that he'll counter Flare with Reflect. Pray you survive the first Megaflare (I assume Fusoya did due to his high Magic Defense) and bring everyone back as quick as possible. I don't know if Summons are worth the additional prep time as I just didn't care and I knew they would bypass the reflect, but I just had Rydia pound him with Leviathan.

As for the Augments, few are all that useful. Cecil gets Counter, that much is a given and it works out extremely well (I just avoid giving him elemental based weapons on the off chance they actually help the enemies). Getting Focus from Yang is about as worthless as it was when he had it. The only use I could see is in the same instance I use it when he was in my party: fighting monsters that only counter. Just have Yang load up on three focuses and he would dish out around 3-4k of damage, which was generally a one-hit kill at that point in the game.

Fusoya's Bless is great (gradually restore MP for the entire party) and so useful in long term battles. I hope he gives it up when he leaves the party, but I'm not counting on it.

The only thing that sucks is that this game is so fun, I'll probably beat it before I get on the plane in two weeks for St. Croix (about 8 hours flight time total, including layovers). I can only hope the replay and extra content are just as fun.

[TheFeniX]

On the Playstation remake (which seems to be a direct port of the SNES one), I beat Bahamut with the best strat of all: make Kain jump right as the countdown gets close to avoid the Mega Flare. Kain barely survives, the rest of the party is toast, and Bahamut slowly dies.

I wanted Bahamut ASAP and also to use the benefit of having another White Magic user to help cast reflect on my party, so this means no Kain. It worked out in the end, but not the way I anticipated.

[Alferd Packer]

Fusoya's Bless is great (gradually restore MP for the entire party) and so useful in long term battles. I hope he gives it up when he leaves the party, but I'm not counting on it.

You do. You also get Omnicasting, which lets you multitarget any single-target spell (Haste everyone at once!), and Phoenix, which is basically a do-over ability. Equip it on someone and, when they die, they revive everyone else in the party with health equal to their percentage of MP they had. I gave it to Kain, since he never uses magic and, because of Jump, is usually the last to die.

The only thing that sucks is that this game is so fun, I'll probably beat it before I get on the plane in two weeks for St. Croix (about 8 hours flight time total, including layovers). I can only hope the replay and extra content are just as fun.

I hear it's a fucking grindfest, because you're looking for 1/256 drops to obtain Onion/Adamant Gear. Apparently, the optional bosses are insanely difficult unless you have this stuff and make good use of all the Augments.

[TheFeniX]

You do. You also get Omnicasting, which lets you multitarget any single-target spell (Haste everyone at once!), and Phoenix, which is basically a do-over ability. Equip it on someone and, when they die, they revive everyone else in the party with health equal to their percentage of MP they had. I gave it to Kain, since he never uses magic and, because of Jump, is usually the last to die.

That is fucking aces, if not horrendously over-powered.

I hear it's a fucking grindfest, because you're looking for 1/256 drops to obtain Onion/Adamant Gear. Apparently, the optional bosses are insanely difficult unless you have this stuff and make good use of all the Augments.

I got kind of annoyed at that in FFVII. My characters were strong enough to waste Sephiroths deranged form with little difficulty. In fact, the battle lasted about 30 minutes longer because, like a dumbass, I completely forgot that I needed to change parties to attack his other side. But in no way was I even in danger of losing a PC, much less the battle as a whole.

Then, trying to fight the weapons, I find out you need a specific combination of materia in order to make the fights even remotely beatable, and there were many I wasn't about to waste epic amounts of time on (Master Materia, Knights of the Round with the stupid chocobo breeding/racing).

The only thing really going for FFIV is that it lacks a lot of the depth (read: annoyances) of future (and perhaps older with the job classes in III) FFs. I shouldn't have to worry about a character (or two) being removed at the start of a battle or a ridiculous combination of abilities to counter certain bosses. But having 8 hours of mind-numbing boredom to blow through on a trip (one way).... it may not be that bad.

[Alferd Packer]

They do make the grind a bit more manageable: by using Alarms in certain areas in the game, you can guarantee a fight with the enemy you whose drop you want. With the Treasure Hunter Augment, you double the rate of all drops, so you have a 1/128 chance of getting what you need.

Incidentally, while I was finishing out the Namingway quest today, I happened to fight a Blue Dragon in the Eidolon cave and boom, got a Blue Tail and, thus, an Onion Shield for a my troubles. So now Cecil is immune to all status ailments.

As for the main quest, all I need to do is the final dungeon, whose difficulty, I hear, is just as bad, if not worse than Bahamut's cave. I'm looking forward to it.

[Natorgator]

Wow, I don't hardly remember anything of what you guys are talking about, since a lot of the spells you are referring to weren't in the SNES version. Is the DS remake substantially different in story line and quests?

[General Zod]

Wow, I don't hardly remember anything of what you guys are talking about, since a lot of the spells you are referring to weren't in the SNES version. Is the DS remake substantially different in story line and quests?

I've just started playing it. So far it doesn't seem too different, but they have fine-tuned the script quite a bit over the SNES version (thank fuck).

[Vendetta]

Wow, I don't hardly remember anything of what you guys are talking about, since a lot of the spells you are referring to weren't in the SNES version. Is the DS remake substantially different in story line and quests?

FFII for the SNES had a number of special abilities missing from FFIV SFC, it also dialled down the enemy stats somewhat and made otherwise difficult to obtain items quite common (Ethers, for instance). (Back in Ye Olde Days, before they started rereleasing it every few years with different twiddles, there were legends about the difficulty of FFIV, mostly silly, as it's generally not hard if you don't run from any battles)

The big thing in this one is the ability to move abilities around from one character to another.

[Natorgator]

Pretty cool. I played through it recently on the SNES version, and didn't run from any battles: it was ridiculously easy. I beat Kainazzo in one hit with Lit-3, for crying out loud.

Now I'm more curious about the new one more than ever.

[Alferd Packer]

It's definitely harder. I've been wiped three times in the final dungeon with an average level of 63, and that's before I've even reached the first save point. I can't imagine how insane it's gonna be on the lower levels, to say nothing of the final boss fight. It's quite frustrating and exciting.

EDIT: If I keep getting wiped, I'm probably gonna go back out and grind myself some Onion gear, which will hopefully yield me some extra levels.

[General Zod]

It's definitely harder. I've been wiped three times in the final dungeon with an average level of 63, and that's before I've even reached the first save point. I can't imagine how insane it's gonna be on the lower levels, to say nothing of the final boss fight. It's quite frustrating and exciting.

EDIT: If I keep getting wiped, I'm probably gonna go back out and grind myself some Onion gear, which will hopefully yield me some extra levels.

It may be the fact that I haven't played the original for awhile, but it also seems more difficult to gain GP to buy items with. Like they toned down how much monsters drop when you kill them.

[TheFeniX]

Wow, I don't hardly remember anything of what you guys are talking about, since a lot of the spells you are referring to weren't in the SNES version.

The spells have some different naming conventions, but otherwise: there are no new spells.

Wall > Reflect: bounces targeted spells back at the caster (or random member of the party).
Heal > Esuna: heals status ailments.
There's a few more like going from Cure1-4 to Cure, Cura, Curaga, and Curaja.

Also, there are more items in the remake that cast spells. Spider Silk is an item that casts slow and is very useful since Edge is usually first to act.

Other than that, the augments and new character abilities are what really cause gameplay changes. Edward isn't useless at all anymore. His heal song is a pretty strong version of Regen. Rosa now gets "Pray" which restores some health, but more importantly some MP. It won't always work though and seeing "Prayer goes unanswered" three times in a row is a bitch.

Some other minute gameplay changes are also there that you can lookup online. Cecil go no longer use a bow and arrow. Arrows are no longer bought in usable amounts: once you have them, you just equip and it's infinite ammo. Rydia's whips also seem to have a much higher chance to paralyze, so it's not completely useless to attack with her during random encounters. You can no longer pile on like 8 groups of Hi-Potions, you are limited to 99 (which blows).

Also, character HP limits have been messed with. I remember Tellah having around 900 HP when he first joined my party in the SNES version (which was a Hell of a lot more than Cecil as a Dark Knight). He now starts with much less making that stage of the game pretty difficult as you also have a low-level Rydia at that point (1-2 hits even in the back row and she's toast).

Is the DS remake substantially different in story line and quests?

For the main story: no. But they have expanded on a lot of the dialog. If you'll remember, most of the storyline was pretty bereft of dialog: "Oh, you did this, well go here and do this." Now there's a bit more explaining about character motivations. It's nothing on the scale of FFVII (read: lines of emo text) or FFX (emo voice acting instead), but it's a far-cry from some of the head-scratching stuff I remember.

It's like in the DS remake of FFIII: who the fuck was Goldor, where did he go, and exactly what crystal did he destroy and why does it matter? Why is the Earth crystal completely undefended unlike the other three? It plays a lot like FF1: you go places based on one single line of text from a few towns-people. FFIV does not have that issue, except the fact that Cecil is still an emo bitch up until the second time you rescue Rosa. Anyways, I'm ranting.

Towards end-game: a lot more options open up. There are side-quests for each character (or so I've heard) and a few other things to help bolster replay.

All in all: Squeenix did more than enough to let the old school guys play through again and still have a good time, and new players will not be left behind for not playing the original(s).

It may be the fact that I haven't played the original for awhile, but it also seems more difficult to gain GP to buy items with. Like they toned down how much monsters drop when you kill them.

I believe you're right. In the original, I would generally come away with enough gold from random encounters and the boss fights from a dungeon to pretty much buy everything I needed to restock and re-equip. In this version, I was grinding more for gold than XP.

[Vendetta]

It's definitely harder. I've been wiped three times in the final dungeon with an average level of 63, and that's before I've even reached the first save point. I can't imagine how insane it's gonna be on the lower levels, to say nothing of the final boss fight. It's quite frustrating and exciting.

The first time I beat FFIV (Translation patched SFC ROM) it was at an average party level of about 65, so that's about right. It was a hell of a fight at that level though. About 70-75 is the tip over point where it starts being manageable, and if you level up all the way it's effortless.

Other than that, the augments and new character abilities are what really cause gameplay changes. Edward isn't useless at all anymore. His heal song is a pretty strong version of Regen. Rosa now gets "Pray" which restores some health, but more importantly some MP. It won't always work though and seeing "Prayer goes unanswered" three times in a row is a bitch.

Unless they've changed it from every previous version of FFIV, Edward's heal is basically an ability that uses a potion on everyone. (Does actually use one potion from stock, but affects the whole party).

It sounds like they've fiddled around with some of the abilities though, as I recall Pray just being HP recovery before (and completely useless by endgame because it was so weedy).

The spells have some different naming conventions, but otherwise: there are no new spells.

The spell names have been transliterated exactly since FFVIII. In previous versions (especially on the SNES, but partially on FFVII as it had low res text) they didn't expand the name field to fit the longer English spellings, so, for instance, Thundaga, which fits in four characters in Japanese, had to become Lit3.

[Alferd Packer]

Perhaps they do that because the game is now much more difficult, and they expect you to grind at points anyway (for example, if you want Adamant or Onion gear, you have to grind the shit out of high-end enemies). Insodoing, you'll get the levels you'll need to progress, as well as the moolah you need.

Also, while the gil monsters drop is sometimes a little meh, certain enemies drop really valuable items with surprising regularity. The most handy example I have of this are the Malboros in the Sylph cave; they drop the Giant's Gloves, which you can sell for 10K. Without really trying (just playing through the dungeon normally, I got 5 of them. A little grinding there should solve any money woes you might be experiencing mid to late game.

[Ryushikaze]

Wow, I don't hardly remember anything of what you guys are talking about, since a lot of the spells you are referring to weren't in the SNES version. Is the DS remake substantially different in story line and quests?

FFII for the SNES had a number of special abilities missing from FFIV SFC, it also dialled down the enemy stats somewhat and made otherwise difficult to obtain items quite common (Ethers, for instance). (Back in Ye Olde Days, before they started rereleasing it every few years with different twiddles, there were legends about the difficulty of FFIV, mostly silly, as it's generally not hard if you don't run from any battles)

You mean compared to hardtype. Easytype was even easier. And no, 2us is not the same as easytype.

The big thing in this one is the ability to move abilities around from one character to another.

And make sure to give two augments to leaving party members (excepting the twins, who you give three total, and people in your final party), as giving them augments nets you more in return.
Different augments also change your stat growth at levels higher than 70.

[Vendetta]

You mean compared to hardtype. Easytype was even easier. And no, 2us is not the same as easytype.

It's not quite the same, but they share many of the same features (most of the monster stats are the same). Also, FFIV Easytype came out around the same time as FF2 did in the US. They're probably the same code base, with a few more tweaks to ET to make it easier (like giving you a lightning element sword just before Cagnazzo, or a non-metallic sword before the magnetic cave, and a new last boss sprite, and making the high end gear even more overpowered).

(And, of course "hardtype" is a colloquial name, the original release was just titled "Final Fantasy IV")

[Alferd Packer]

So, let the grinding begin! By mapping out everything in the game, I now have the Treasure Hunter augment. This will double the probability of all drops, so I now have a .8% chance of getting the tails I need. Woohoo?

Anyway, I've discovered the correct way of grinding for these items is to use Alarms, of course. You're guaranteed to encounter the enemy you need to fight, which was nice of Squeenix. The problem I foresee is simply running out of money, as Alarms cost 3000 gil apiece and very few encounters offer that much money. What I've taken to doing is this: I fight 20 or so battles, and if I haven't gotten my tail, I reset. This way, I don't have to worry about blowing all my money on Alarms, at the expense of probably gaining quite a few levels. Also, this will deflate my actual play time, as I imagine each item will necessitate me resetting four or five times to obtain it(unless I get absurdly lucky).