Box Art
Game: Final Fantasy IV
First Released: July 19, 1991, Super Famicom
Developers: Square
Platforms: SNES, PlayStation, WonderSwan Color, Game
Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Virtual Console, PSP, iOS, Android
Rated: E-10, for Language, Fantasy Violence, and Suggestive Themes
First Released: July 19, 1991, Super Famicom
Developers: Square
Platforms: SNES, PlayStation, WonderSwan Color, Game
Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Virtual Console, PSP, iOS, Android
Rated: E-10, for Language, Fantasy Violence, and Suggestive Themes
How I Came To Play This Game
Castle Baron
I bought Final Fantasy IV while I was playing Final Fantasy III. It was at this point that I decided to do a whole run-through of all the main series Final Fantasy games.
Story
Fight With Rubicante
Most of Final Fantasy IV takes place on Earth, also known as the Blue Planet, Which consists of a surface world (or Overworld), inhabited by humans, and an underground world (or Underworld), inhabited by the Dwarves. An artificial moon orbits the planet, upon which the Lunarians live. The Lunarians are a race of beings from a world destroyed which became the asteroid belt, and are identified by a moon-shape crest on their foreheads. They created this artificial moon, resting until a time they believe their kind can co-exist with humans. A second, natural moon orbits as well, though it is never visited in the game. Final Fantasy IV begins as the Red Wings are attacking the city of Mysidia to steal the Water Crystal there. When Cecil, Captain of the Red Wings, afterwards questions the king's motives, he is stripped of his rank and sent with Kain to deliver a package to the Village of Mist. There, Kain and Cecil watch in horror as monsters from inside the package destroy the village. A young girl, Rydia, is the only survivor and summons an earthquake in anger, separating Cecil and Kain. Cecil awakens afterward and takes the wounded Rydia to a nearby pub. Baron soldiers come for Rydia; Cecil defends her, and she joins him on his journey. It is learned that Rosa, Cecil's love interest, followed him and is extremely ill with a fever in the town. Soon after this, they meet Tellah, who is going to Damcyan Castle to retrieve his eloping daughter, Anna. Anna is killed when the Red Wings bomb the castle. Edward, Anna's lover and the prince of Damcyan, explains that the Red Wings' new commander, Golbez, did this to steal the Fire Crystal for Baron as they had stolen the Water Crystal from Mysidia. Tellah leaves the party to seek vengeance on Golbez for Anna's death. After finding a cure for Rosa, the party decides to go to Fabul to protect the Wind Crystal. Here they meet Master Yang, a warrior monk serviced to the kingdom and the protection of the water crystal. The Red Wings attack, and Kain reappears as one of Golbez's servants. He attacks and defeats Cecil; when Rosa intervenes, Golbez kidnaps her as Kain takes the crystal. On the way back to Baron, the party is attacked by Leviathan and thus separated. Cecil awakes near Mysidia. When he enters the town, he finds that its residents hold him in utter contempt for the prior attack on their town. Through the Village Elder, he learns that to defeat Golbez, he must climb Mt. Ordeals and become a Paladin. Before embarking on his journey, he is joined by the twin mages, Palom and Porom. On the mountain he encounters Tellah, who is searching for the forbidden spell Meteor to defeat Golbez. Casting aside the darkness in him, Cecil becomes a Paladin, while Tellah learns the secret of Meteor. Upon reaching Baron the party confronts the King of Baron, only to discover that he had been replaced by one of Golbez's minions. After defeating him, Cid arrives and takes them to one of his airships. On the way to the Airship, the party enters a trapped room, where Palom and Porom sacrifice themselves to save Cecil, Tellah, Cid, and Yang. On the airship, Kain appears and demands Cecil retrieve the final crystal in exchange for Rosa's life. After the crystal is retrieved, Kain leads the party to the Tower of Zot, where Rosa is imprisoned. At the tower's summit, Golbez takes the crystal and attempts to flee. Tellah sacrifices himself to stop Golbez with Meteor, but only weakens him, although it does end Golbez's mind control of Kain. Kain helps Cecil rescue Rosa and Rosa teleports the party out of the collapsing tower to Baron. In Baron, Kain reveals that Golbez must also obtain four subterranean "Dark Crystals" to achieve his goal of reaching the moon. The party travels to the underworld and encounter the Dwarves who are currently fighting the Red Wings. They defeat Golbez in a battle, and are saved at the last minute by Rydia, now a young woman, rejoining the party during the fight, though they fail to stop him from stealing the Dwarves' crystal. They flee the underworld in the airship, and Cid sacrifices himself to reseal the passage to underworld. The party travels to the Tower of Babil where the crystals are being kept. When they reach the crystal room, the party falls through a trap door to the underworld. The heroes go to retrieve the eighth crystal before Golbez. Upon retrieving it, Golbez reveals he still has control over Kain, and takes the crystal. After learning of the Lunar Whale, a ship designed to take travelers to and from the moon, the party is rejoined by Cid, and travels to the surface and boards the ship. On the moon, the party meets the sage Fusoya, who explains that Cecil's father was a Lunarian. Fusoya also explains that a Lunarian named Zemus plans to destroy life on the Blue Planet so that the Lunarians can take it over, using Golbez to summon the Giant of Babil, a colossal robot. They return to Earth and the forces of the two worlds attack the Giant, including Palom and Porom, who have been revived. After the party breaks the robot, Golbez and Kain confront them, only to have Fusoya break Zemus' control over Golbez, in turn releasing Kain. Cecil learns that Golbez is his older brother. Golbez and Fusoya head to the core of the moon to defeat Zemus, and Cecil's party follows. In the moon's core, the party witnesses Golbez and Fusoya kill Zemus, but then quickly fall to his resurrected form, the spirit Zeromus. Cecil and his allies defeat Zeromus. Following the battle, Fusoya and Golbez opt to leave Earth with the moon. During the epilogue, Kain is atop Mt. Ordeals, promising to atone for his sins. The rest of the cast reunite to celebrate Cecil and Rosa's wedding and their coronation as Baron's new king and queen.
Pros And Cons
Story
Story Cutscene
The story is even more in depth than Final Fantasy II. However, this time the story isn't boring. It keeps you interested and willing to see what happens next.
Characters
Player Characters
The characters in this game are lovable. You feel as if they are your friends when you play this game, and become really dissapointed when some of them leave the party or die. Also, each character has their own specific Job Class. Returning Job Classes include Dragoon, Summoner, White Mage, Black Mage, Sage, Monk, Bard, and Ninja.
Gameplay
Overworld
The gameplay has still been left mostly unchanged from previous installments. However there is one major diffrence. A new idea was implemented into the battle system called an Active Time Meter. Each character and enemy has their own active time meter. They can only attack when their meter is full. It will fill up again over time. This can be a good thing since you don't have to withstand a full-scale attack from the enemies. However, you also can't attack whenever you want. Also new in this game, not everybody can use spells. Instead, only specific characters can use certain types of magic.
Graphics
The Red Wings
The graphics haven't really improved at all. It is just the same old SNES graphics that I'm used to from the first and second games.
Music
The music in Final Fantasy IV is awsome. To this day, I think this game has the best version of the Victory Fanfare. The Wild Battle and Overworld themes are also very good.
Releases
SNES Box Art
Final Fantasy IV was first released in Japan in 1991 for the Super Famicom. It was released in the United States in 1991 for the SNES, however, since Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III were not released there, the name was changed to Final Fantasy II to avoid confusion. a port was released for the Wonderswan Color in 2002. Another was released for the Gameboy Advance with updated graphics, sound, and extras. An enhanced remake was made for the Nintendo DS which used 3D graphics and better sound. The SNES version was put on Wii Virtual Console in 2010. Another enhanced remake was made for the PSP as part of the Final Fantasy IV: Complete Collection which included many bonus cotent and two sequels.
My Version's Extras
In my version, you can go to a place in Mysidia and swap out your party members with all the other playable characters. There is a secret cave called the Cave of Trials located on Mount Ordeals where you can fight bosses to get strong weapons. Another optional dungeon is on the Red Moon, called the Lunar Ruins. This dungeon is long. Every ten floors there is a quest for you to do. Each character has his/her own quest, so you'll have to make several trips to complete them all. At the end of the dungeon is the superboss Zeromus EG. It is actually from the easy mode exclusive in the Japanese Super Famicom release. They made him super strong and put him at the end of the dungeon for you to fight. I beat him, and it took a lot of work, but it was satisfying. All of these extras are also in the PSP version.
My Rating
I give this game a 10/10. I loved it as much as I loved the first one. The characters were lovable, the gameplay improved, and so much extra content.