It's my LIFE!

Final Fantasy IV was first released in 1991 on the Super Famicom in Japan, and had been ported to the SonyPlayStation , WonderSwan Color, and Game Boy Advance and eventually, a full remake on the Nintendo DS; which is exactly what I want to review about.

The epic story of love, betrayal, and redemption is reborn better than ever in glorious 3D.

Something unique about Final Fantasy IV is that players were not given a few generic heroes and tasked to stop the evil wizard and save the world; instead, they were introduced to a wide assortment of realistic characters who struggled with complex adult issues such as love, hate, honor, duty, betrayal, and redemption.

Now, this epic saga has been entirely remade in 3D on the Nintendo DS (as compared to all other remake, which are 2D), and whether Cecil, Kain, and Rosa are new faces or old friends, this is one adventure that you shouldn’t miss.

Cecil is a man with a dilemma. Though bound by his duty as the lord captain of the Red Wings of Baron to serve his king and country, his conscience is heavy with the sins that he is committing in their name. The formerly loving and caring king who took Cecil in as a child and taught him the ways of the dark sword has become a sinister and greedy tyrant who covets the sacred crystals of the world for reasons unknown.

Upon returning from a mission to Baron’s friendly neighbor Mysidia, in which Cecil and his men were forced to steal one of the crystals like common thugs, 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 of atonement begins.

Throughout his quest, Cecil is joined by a number of intriguing characters: Kain, his best friend and a dragoon of considerable skill; Rydia, a summoner capable of calling the legendary Eidolons to her aid, and many more. Together, they represent some of the most diverse and thoroughly fleshed-out characters in the long history of the Final Fantasy series.

Though class-specific abilities aren’t anything new, in this DS remake you now have the power to customize your characters by giving them additional abilities called augments. Augments can be found throughout the world, given to you by leaving party members, or even stolen from certain enemies, and they can do everything from passively increasing stats such as HP and MP to granting class-specific abilities like darkness or recall to normally nonqualifying characters.

A majority of the bosses require very specific strategies to defeat, and the uninformed will likely perish several times in these encounters before they grasp how to claim victory. Even if you’re a seasoned veteran who knows all of the tricks, don’t expect things to be simple; some bosses have changed just enough to throw you off of your game, and all of them are a lot tougher than you remember.

Besides the radical addition of the ability to customize your party, several other minor gameplay tweaks have been made. The characters in your party now share their thoughts with you on the menu screen, offering personal anecdotes and potentially helpful advice about the current situation.

Final Fantasy IV is easily among the best-looking 3D games on the Nintendo DS. The heavily stylized characters are impressively expressive, from the manner in which Cecil broods as he reflects on his guilt to the way that Rydia hops up and down and waves her hands to get your attention at a shop when you find something that she can equip.

Now that dungeons are rendered in three dimensions, there is a vast sense of size and depth (particularly in the final dungeon) that wasn’t previously there, and it makes your journey seem that much more awe-inspiring and epic.

Although it has been rereleased several times throughout the years, this full remake of one of the most celebrated stories in video game history is in many ways more poignant and impressive than it was all those years ago, despite minor irks with the voice acting.

With a cast of memorable characters and villains, a more accurate and authentic translation, a new skill – customization system, and a few important new story elements that help to better explain key plot points, this is the definitive version of Final Fantasy IV that everyone should experience.

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Info/images source: GameSpot, Google, Wikipedia

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