Final Fantasy IV - The Later Years???

[K.C.]

Whoa...I knew nothing about this but Square apparently released a sequel to the SNES Final Fantasy IV (Final Fantasy II on the catridge, but IV in reality) a couple days ago on WiiWare.

Anyone play it yet?

That game was just a notch below VI (III on the Catridge).

[angrymissy]

Whoa...I knew nothing about this but Square apparently released a sequel to the SNES Final Fantasy IV (Final Fantasy II on the catridge, but IV in reality) a couple days ago on WiiWare.

Anyone play it yet?

That game was just a notch below VI (III on the Catridge).

OMG It's out? I didn't know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_IV:_The_After_Years

[HBox]

This was announced a couple months ago but I did not know it was out yet. Awesome.

[K.C.]

Downloading it now...I may play for an hour or so tonight...

It's got WiFi to play online with people. This looks fantastic.

[angrymissy]

Is it the entire game or just one of the chapters?

[K.C.]

Is it the entire game or just one of the chapters?

I'm not sure yet.

From the looks of it, the main game is everyone associated with Baron, and then you can purchase add-on content, which I think is the other 'chapters',to the game...the first is Rydia's story, which I assume is everything that character has done to get to the point in the story where the game starts out.

I think it's supplemental material, though, not purchasing the game in increments.

You get a full game with what you buy, I believe.

[K.C.]

Ok, so I was wrong.

The series is being released episodically.

Right now, there's the first chapter which deals with Ceodore (and something else, but to actually explain what, spoils it).

And then there's Rydia's tale which is downloadable right now as well.

It took me about five hours to beat the first chapter. I was digging it a lot...it's a bit harder than the original game, and they incorporated some new things into the battle engine.

I kind of like them spacing the game out like this, but with $8 for the first download, and likely $3 for all the subsequent chapters, it'll probably cost close to $30 for the entire game.

That said, it looks very promising so far.

[KingGeno]

Dyin to play this. I finished Final Fantasy IV more than any other game I've ever played.

Sold my Wii last year.......... :(

[GameRelatedSig]

I'll wait until they release the whole thing on the DS or something.

[angrymissy]

I'm going to wait to DL it until they release all the chapters. My sensor bar is fucked right now anyway.

[K.C.]

Downloaded the three new episodes yesterday -- Yang's tale, Palom's tale, and Edge's tale -- beat Yang's and am about half way through Palom's.

So far, these second batch of episodes are pretty good.

Each episodes introduces new characters, and there's a lot of crossover in the storyline, because, the first episode ends where the last episode will begin.

Everything in between happens before that. So you're suppose to piece together a timeline of events as you play, and things that didn't quite get explained earlier in the game, get explained later on.

The battles are a little different. They added 'bands' which is similar to the joint attacks from Chrono Trigger, but you have to figure them out yourself through trial and error. I think in a lot of these early episodes, there's not many to figure out. They'll come in later in the game.

They also added a 'phases of the moon' effect which will enhance both you and the enemies attacks, or hamper them, depending on what phase the moon is in.


The one thing that may piss people off is there seems to be a LOT of battles. Some dungeons you'll get one every couple of steps. I've only really gotten frustrated with it once or twice while playing, but if you don't like leveling up type of stuff, you might hate this game.


The story is pretty interesting, and the way they tell it even more so...they repeat a lot of the old dungeons (and some of the old bosses), but they introduce 1-2 new dungeons per episode.

If you only played the SNES verison, you know how chopped the text was on translation...it's a much more thorough text to the game this time.

All in all, it's pretty fun. I'm about halfway through Palom's tale and I probably like it the best so far.


This is such a money-maker for Square if they decide to do this with other games.