by Brooks Brown on November 15, 2008

Short on the heels of my completion of Final Fantasy 3 for the Nintendo DS, Square Enix releases yet another remade classic game. Moving slowly down the line to Final Fantasy 4 (soon, no doubt, heading to 5 and 6, but never 7) in order to destroy the time I have only recently freed up. This remake, like the others, offers very little in terms of new game play, obviously relegating itself to little more then a ‘Made for DS’ version of the beloved classic.

This means that it’s a fantastic RPG that will be considered ‘too hardcore’ for newbies but sate the appetite for time wasting that the lack of new RPG’s has created in many of our lives. But this review is not to determine whether or not Final Fantasy 4 is good. It is. It is a perfect RPG, with a brilliant story line that makes you think, great game play that pushes core concepts within the Final Fantasy style, and enough game play to justify the purchase many times over. But that’s not the question. The question is whether this version is justified in existing. And the answer is a loud … sorta.

It’s a fantastic port due to the amazing 3-D renderings throughout and above-quality music and sound. In successfully bringing the eye-candy-hungry generation of gamers the visuals they require, Squeenix has outdone themselves. The story, too, is possibly the best in the franchise, following Cecil as he discovers the evils within his kingdom, fighting against the evil Golbez. As Cecil travels, joined by his girlfriend and best friend, he discovers where he came from and the truth of his own heritage. It makes for an engrossing and fascinating read – and in DS form, a great deal of it is spoken. It’s a masterpiece and few games since have kept up.

But underneath it all, the game is still a port. The original game was created in a time of minimal controls and incredible lack of writable memory, the age of the game shows greatly. And I call a serious foul on any portable game-maker who doesn’t allow you to save anywhere, or at least give players an auto-save. When a game is this engrossing, it’s not difficult to forget to save your game, and playing through the first 4 hours of the game a second time is a bit of a pain. Trust me.

Whether it is the lack of balance carried over from the previous version or the lack of an open world, Final Fantasy 4 feels different then it did before. Perhaps, now playing it with the perspective of thousands of hours of other, more innovating RPG’s, it just doesn’t stack up. It is, actually, a rather simple bit of gameplay when put up against the depth of the latest Final Fantasy incarnation. Or perhaps it does stack up, instead laying the blame on me. Maybe I’m just not as hardcore as I was back in the day. Final Fantasy 4 will make you question exactly how hardcore you are.

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