Final Fantasy 4

-Developer: Square
-Platform: SNES
-Japan Release: 3/1991
-U.S. Release: 11/1991

-Final Fantasy 4 was the first final fantasy game released on Super Nintendo. Unfortuantely, when it was brought to the U.S. the game was made incredibely easier, and given a new name, Final Fantasy 2. (Because it was only the 2nd Final Fantasy game released in the U.S.) This version is oftentimes called the "easytype" version because it's so easy. Many items were changed for the better and made cheaper. The bosses and the enemies were made much easier. Thankfully though, the game has now been re-released along with Chrono Trigger (Another great game) in Final Fantasy Chronicles. This has the game in its original form. This version is often times called the "hardtype" because it's much more difficult than the easytype.

Music

-The music of Final Fantasy 4 is fairly solid. The battle and boss battle themes are some of the better ones in the series. A downside is that they often times overuse some of the music. the song "Into the Darkness" is used over and over again. It's a great dungeon theme but it gets very old. Check out my Music page to download some of the music from FF4.

Story

-In FF4 you follow Cecil, a dark knight and leader of the Red Wings. The Red Wings are an airship fleet of Baron, the ruling nation of the world. Baron's king starts to have Cecil steal the crystals from innocent people, causing Cecil to rebel against Baron. Cecil will gain many friends, and just like in every Final Fantasy game, the storyline will become much more complex.

Graphics

Although the graphics aren't that great by today's standards, the graphics in FF4 were very good for its time. It was the first FF game for the SNES so the graphics are much better than they were in FF3. The graphics aren't improved on very much at all in FF5 which says quite a bit about the graphics in FF4.

System

Although FF3 and FF5 are systems based upon changing jobs, FF4 isn't. In FF4 each character is an unchangable class. Cecil is a dark knight, Kain is a dragoon, Rosa is a white mage, and so on. Also, only certain people can use certain magic. Unlike FF5/7/8 it's not a game where anybody can learn anything. It's also the first Final Fantasy game where you have 5 character parties. FF1/2/3/5/6 all have 4 character parties.

Game Play

-One thing unique about FF4 is that you have 11 playable characters but you never have a switch characters option. The game always works out so that you never have more than 5 characters with you at one time. As far as the difficulty of the game is concerned, the "easytype" version of the game is obviousely easy. You rarely ever have to level up or have to worry about money. In the hardtype version, you'll have to level up several times during the game, especially late in the game. Put overall the game moves along fairly smooth.