Final Fantasy IV

Final Fantasy IV

SNES - USA - 1st edition.

Developer Square Publisher Square, Nintendo of America Published 1991-07-19 Platforms Game Boy Advance, SNES, WonderSwan Color Genres Exploration, Role-playing game Themes Adventure, Fantasy Series Final Fantasy Distribution Commercial

Final Fantasy IV is a fantasy role-playing video game developed and published by Square on 1991-07-19 for the SNES. It is the fourth game in the Final Fantasy series game. It was later ported to the PlayStation by Tose.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	Yes.
Finished	2011‎-11-08.

I remember seeing this game being played by a friend after I had seen Final Fantasy VI, so it seemed quite dated to me. I made a joke about it, but my friend explained that it's actually a great game. Many years later, I played through and found that it is indeed a good game.

Review

7	7	6	7	6

Best Version: ?

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The game is entertaining to the point where you want to keep playing and the story is compelling enough to want to see what is going to happen next.
• I like the variety of different characters and classes. It allows you the ability to appreciate the subtleties of the combat engine.
• For its time, the graphics are quite nice.
• The battle complexity is not too simple or too hard to enjoy. You have many different attacks to choose from, and the monsters have many different abilities to take into account.
• You only need to do a small amount of grinding in each section to be plenty powerful enough to stay alive through the game.
• The game comes with a fantastic manual that doubles as a strategy guide for a large portion of the game.
• Having played Final Fantasy VI first, I wasn't that impressed by the music in this game when I first played it. However, I think this is the very first SNES game for Nobuo Uematsu, so he may not have had enough time to familiarize himself with the new audio architecture, or the driver may not have been as powerful. After awhile, it grew on me, and now I appreciate it a lot more.

Bad

• The story is very linear meaning the game is identical every play through, and, with only a few side-quests, you will see almost everything the game has to offer the first time you beat it.
• The story overdoes several elements. Porom and Palom, Sid, and Yang all martyr themselves, and are later found to be alive. Edward, Sid, and Yang all end up bedridden through the remainder of the game with no way to get them back until the very end.
• I would have liked to see more weapons and armor for the spell casters and ninjas. They're often stuck with old equipment for long stints while the fighters keep getting upgrades.
• Like most RPGs, the game suffers from having a wide variety of spells that are either too weak or completely useless. Piggy never works on enemies, Psych never stole more than 1 MP, Drain doesn't steal nearly enough HP to be useful, etc.

Ugly

• Normally, dialog boxes are closed with the A button, but this game allows the D-pad to close dialog boxes. This caused me to miss numerous messages without any way to go back and read them.

Media

Box Art

• 

  This is the original Japanese SNES box. The little chibi characters are fitting to the game's art, and their costumes nicely indicate a fantasy setting, but the white field is a bit dull for my tastes.

• 

  The North American SNES box art is my least favorite. It's just a sword with a shimmer on its blade. Lame.

• 

  The Japanese-only PS1 release uses a watercolor from Yoshitaka Amano. I'm not a huge fan of his work, but this is a pretty good painting.

• 

  The Japanese-only WonderSwan Color release again uses a painting by Amano, this time of an air ship. The faded art doesn't really reveal much about the game.

• 

  The US Game Boy Advance box art also uses Amano's work, but this time it focuses on three characters from the game. Their garb is clearly fantasy themed. This is my favorite box.

• 

  The Japanese GBA box uses monochrome line art from the US box art. Pretty dull comparatively.

Documentation

• 

  Manual - SNES - Japan.

• 

  Manual - SNES - USA.

• 

  Manual - SNES - USA - Rev 1.

• 

  Manual - GBA - USA.

• 

  Manual - GBA - USA - Digital.

• 

  Manual - Wonder Swan Color - Japan.

• 

  Maps - SNES - USA.

• 

  Final Fantasy Chronicles strategy guide.

Maps

• Maps

Videos

SNES Works, review 1/3.

SNES Works, review 2/3.

SNES Works, review 3/3.

Comparing all ports.

Obscure facts.

Displaced Gamers.

Longplay, SNES.

Play Online

Game Boy Advance (Europe), Game Boy Advance (Japan), Game Boy Advance (USA), SNES (USA), Super Famicom (Japan), WonderSwan Color

Representation

Strong female character?	Pass	Rydia and Rosa, and, to a lesser extent, Porom, are helpful party members.
Bechdel test?	Pass	When the party is led by a female, talking to another female NPC passes the test.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	Although it uses an anime style and race isn't described, every major character is drawn as though they're white.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English (Original American)	Final Fantasy II
English (Re-release)	Final Fantasy IV
Japanese	ファイナルファンタジー	Fainaru Fantaji IV	Final Fantasy IV

Links