Review

My First Final Fantasy. And a pretty good one to start with! I played the DS and that's what's in my heart but this version is fine. FF4 feels to me like minimum viable Final Fantasy. I no longer feel like I'm playing a sort of glorified tech demo. Where we've got most of a concept going but everything's too basic to properly recommend to anyone else. We've made it. We got a story, we've got gameplay. I like Cecil. I like the characters. We've got "twists". Yes, a little generous. I think FF4 casts a bit of a spell where it has enough going on that you round up in its favor. We're really not that far ahead of previous entries. You're still largely meandering around the world making your numbers larger than the many many random encounters' numbers. But it just feels like we've passed a threshold where I can now unfocus my eyes and feel like I'm playing something classier than I am.

In retrospect the constant character switching is just funny. But when you're going through the game the first time (and when you're thinking back on the game) it adds to the melodrama of it all. That's how I described this era (4-6) in my FF3 review. This era is my personal favorite version of "Final Fantasy" (the tulpa of the thing in my head, the thoughtform). I enjoy the feeling that what I'm seeing is more happening on a stage than a real dramatic series of events. Once we get past this point, everything takes itself a little too seriously for my tastes. But in this 4-6 era, it feels like we're in on the joke. The first 3 character "deaths" are tragic. The 4th (and more) is just funny. And I think the game knows that.

Much has been said about the giant space flea from nowhere. I just have a lot of affection for us going to the moon, delving into its crystalline caverns and defeating the Emperor with the help of Darth Vader...It's over the top, it's fun. People want me to hate it. They want Golbez to be the final boss because it's more narratively straightforward. I just cannot bring myself to care.

Gameplay-wise I do miss the augments of the DS version. I don't know that they were all that additive. There were verifiably right and wrong decisions you could make with them. Felt like they really really expect you to be playing the game multiple times and collecting all the augments multiple times over. But since we're all reasonable people here who don't do such silly shit and our first playthrough is the only real playthrough we're doing, it highly benefits you to plan out who gets what augments ahead of time. It's not necessary. But if you do that (and who would spoil themselves like that?) you can do terribly silly shit. Your mages dual-casting nukes like it's nothing. Edge blubbering his stupid face out before Kain embraces his sith ways and becomes a meteor that wipes out multiple civilizations. Etc, etc.

Another big negative with this version is the lack of Shakespeare. What happened to our stupid thees and thous? I wasn't aware that was a DS version thing. I loved that. So sad to see people speaking like a regular person here. Gives the game way less character.

On to Final Fantasy 5