Final Fantasy IV
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| Final Fantasy IV {{#if:{{{image|}}}|<tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;">{{{image|}}} | |
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| Developer(s) | Square Co., Ltd. {{#if:{{{publisher|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Publisher(s)<td>{{{publisher|}}} |
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| Genre(s) | Role-playing game |
| Mode(s) | Single player {{#if:{{{ratings|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Rating(s)<td>{{{ratings|}}} |
| Platform(s) | Super Nintendo Entertainment System (see below for later rereleases) {{#if:{{{media|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Media<td>{{{media|}}} |
Final Fantasy IV (ファイナルファンタジーIV Fainaru Fantajī IV), often abbreviated to FF4, is a console role-playing game developed and published by Square Co., Ltd. in 1991. Originally released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the game was subsequently re-released for the PlayStation, the WonderSwan Color, and the Game Boy Advance.
Final Fantasy IV was a landmark game in the Final Fantasy series, with many innovations that would become staples of the series, and of role playing games (RPG)'s in general. Because of its emotionally intense character-based plot, the very effective use of the new technologies available on the 16-bit game systems (such as Mode 7 graphics), and the famously beautiful scoring by Nobuo Uematsu, this game has been considered widely by many players and critics as one of the greatest video games ever made.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
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Gameplay
Image:Final Fantasy IV JAP Battle.png Gameplay in Final Fantasy IV is standard computer role-playing game fare. Players assume the roles of various characters as they traverse an overworld to fulfill requirements of various quests. Along the way, the characters use towns to replenish strength, buy new equipment, and discover clues. During overworld travels and dungeon quests, characters fight monsters at random intervals.
Final Fantasy IV introduces Square's Active Time Battle (ATB) system, which differs from previous Final Fantasy games and most RPGs up to that time in that players must give orders to their characters in real-time. The ATB system would appear again in the next five games in the series, as well as making appearances in other games produced by Square, including Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy X-2.
In battle, each character has certain strengths and weaknesses, including either spellcasting powers or other special abilities. Like other Final Fantasy games, characters gain abilities as they gain battle experience. Magic is divided into several different categories: "White", healing and support magic; "Black", offensive magic; "Summon" (or "call") magic, used to call forth monsters to damage the enemy or perform some special function for the party such as healing; and "Ninjutsu" magic, a specialized type of offensive and support magic used exclusively by an individual character. Spellcasters, which account for eight of the twelve playable characters, gain magic spells at preprogrammed experience levels or fixed events in the story; for this reason Final Fantasy IV's ability development system is considered the simplest of any game in the series.
Final Fantasy IV is a very linear game; at most points in the game players may advance through the story in only one way, with limited opportunities for side quests or alternate paths.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, some small side quests can be undertaken. For example, there exists a secret room where characters representing the game's programmers can be found. Additionally, in the basement of Castle Baron, the party can encounter an enemy, who, if defeated, can later be summoned as an ally.
Story
Image:Final Fantasy IV JAP Airship.png The most powerful nation in the world, the monarchy of Baron, begins utilizing its unparalleled air force called the "Red Wings", and its legions of Dark Knights to attack peaceful nations in search of four Crystals, each corresponding to a different classical element. However, this disruption will soon spiral into a disaster spanning multiple civilizations.
Cecil Harvey, a Dark Knight and leader of the Red Wings, begins to question the king's motives after forcibly stealing the Water Crystal from the wizards' town of Mysidia. Upon questioning the king, Cecil is stripped of his rank and sent, along with his friend, the dragoon Kain Highwind, to deliver a package to the Village of Mist. However, the package contains explosives that destroy the entire town and kill most of its inhabitants. The aftermath leaves Kain missing, while Cecil encounters a young female survivor named Rydia. Cecil, now angered with King Baron and the Red Wings, initiates a quest to stop them.
On his journey back to Baron, Cecil encounters his lover, Rosa Farrell; an elderly wizard, Tellah; the cowardly and emotional prince of Damcyan, Edward Chris von Muir; and the powerful monk of Fabul, Yang Fang Leiden. Cecil also encounters Kain who is proceeding with the theft of the remainder of the crystals for King Baron. During a skirmish, Rosa is kidnapped by Kain. The party soon discovers that a man named Golbez is manipulating Kain and Baron in order to retrieve the Crystals. After a ship attack by the sea monster Leviathan, Cecil becomes stranded in Mysidia, where he is forced to repent for his previous crimes by becoming a holy Paladin. It is here that he also meets the apprentice mages Palom and Porom.
Image:Final Fantasy IV WSC Screenshot.png Afterward, Cecil and his comrades reunite and attempt to invade Baron, but they are forced to escape on Cid Pollendina's airship. Cecil soon encounters the brainwashed Kain, who forces Cecil to retrieve the final Crystal in exchange for the life of Rosa. Kain then leads the group to where Rosa is being held by Golbez, where they unsuccessfully attempt a preemptive strike on Golbez. Consequently, Tellah is killed; however, the spell on Kain is shattered, allowing him to reveal that Golbez has not retrieved all of the Crystals. Four more, called the Dark Crystals, are hidden in the underground land of the Dwarves, and Golbez has already stolen two of them.
With the help of Cid and the other allies, Cecil manages to chase Golbez around the Dark World. However, even after the invasion of the Tower of Babel and the aid of the ninja prince Edward "Edge" Geraldine, Cecil's party comes up short; Golbez apprehends the two remaining crystals with ease. Golbez then retreats to the planet's second moon. In order to discover what plan Golbez has for the Crystals and hopefully stop it, Cecil follows Golbez to the second moon using the ancient starship the "Lunar Whale" hidden beneath Mysidia's ocean.
Image:Final Fantasy IV - On The Moon.png On the moon, Cecil meets FuSoYa, who explains that Cecil is descended from a race known as Lunarians. Cecil's father is a heroic, yet deceased Lunarian named KluYa. Moreover, some Lunarians, led by Zemus, plan to wipe out all life on the planet for Lunarian inhabitation. In order to achieve this, Zemus manipulated Golbez and Kain to obtain the Crystals needed to revive a giant destructive android, the Giant of Babel. On the planet, the forces of the world are hopelessly attacking the Giant. With the help of FuSoYa, who can neutralize the Giant of Babel's force field, Cecil group breaks into the Giant. Inside, FuSoYa breaks Zemus' control over Golbez and Kain. While the Giant is being destroyed, Cecil learns that Golbez is his brother. Golbez and FuSoYa head to the core of the moon to attempt to defeat Zemus, and Cecil's party follows. Cecil watches Golbez and FuSoYa defeat Zemus but quickly lose to his ultimate form, Zeromus. It takes the united life force of all beings, combined with a special Crystal provided by Golbez, for Cecil and his party to defeat Zeromus. Golbez and FuSoYa decide to sleep with the other Lunarians, as they wouldn't be welcome on the planet. After a year, the whole party gets reunited for Cecil and Rosa's wedding, and they become Baron's King and Queen. Template:Endspoiler Template:Further
Musical score
Image:Final Fantasy IV Celtic Moon.jpg The musical themes of Final Fantasy IV are composed by Nobuo Uematsu, who has worked on most games in the Final Fantasy series. For this game, Uematsu composed many well-loved pieces, which he still uses in his Final Fantasy concert series. <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The track "Theme of Love" has been taught to Japanese school children as part of the music curriculum.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Three albums of Final Fantasy IV music have been released in Japan: Final Fantasy IV: Original Sound Version, the 44-track original soundtrack; Final Fantasy IV: Celtic Moon, a selection of tracks from the game arranged and performed by Celtic musician Máire Breatnach; Final Fantasy IV Piano Collections, performed by Toshiyuki Mori, an arrangement of several tracks for solo piano, which began the Piano Collections trend for each successive Final Fantasy game. Several tracks from the game have appeared on Final Fantasy compilation albums produced by Squaresoft, including The Black Mages and Final Fantasy Pray. Independent but officially licensed releases of Final Fantasy IV music have been composed by such groups as "Project Majestic Mix", which focuses on recording video game music.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Development history
In 1990, after the completion of Final Fantasy III, Square intended to develop two Final Fantasy games, one for the Nintendo Famicom, and the other for the forthcoming Super Famicom. The Famicom title would be released under the name Final Fantasy IV, while the Super Famicom title would be released under the name Final Fantasy V.
However, due to financial and scheduling constraints, Square was forced to drop plans for the Famicom game and to continue development of the Super Famicom version, which was retitled Final Fantasy IV. It is not clear how far development had progressed on the Famicom version before its cancellation. A mock-up screenshot was produced for a Japanese magazine, but almost no other information exists about the aborted title.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Graphical improvements
An early Super Nintendo game, Final Fantasy IV contained graphics greatly improved from those of previous Final Fantasy titles for the NES and even stood out from other Super Nintendo titles of the time.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Super Nintendo's Mode 7 technology was used to give magic spells greater visual impact and make airship travel more dramatic by scaling and tilting the ground.
Remakes
Final Fantasy IV has been ported to variety of different platforms. Each version tells the same story, stars the same characters, and features similar graphics, sound, music, and gameplay. Nonetheless, there are certain key distinctions between each version. To date, Final Fantasy IV has had an 'easy version' made for the Super Famicom, and has been ported to the Super Nintendo in 1991, the Sony PlayStation (in 1997), the WonderSwan Color (in 2002), and the Game Boy Advance (in 2005).
Easytype
Image:Ff4ebox.jpg A modified version of the game was released for the Super Famicom in Japan under the name Final Fantasy IV Easytype. While the game retained the storyline, graphics, and sound of the original game, the game engine had been modified so as to make the game substantially simpler, and the finished product was marketed at "beginning" gamers. There were many changes to the game, including the removal of some magic spells, special attacks, the reduction of shop prices, some specialized enemy weaknesses, and even changes to some enemy sprites.
Final Fantasy II (North America)
Image:Ff2usbox.gif Because the previous two installments of the Final Fantasy series had not been released to North American audiences, Final Fantasy IV was instead released under the title Final Fantasy II for the purposes of maintaining continuity. Subsequent enhanced remakes of the game have been released in North America under the original title. The game was not released in Europe until the release of the PlayStation port as part of the European version of Final Fantasy Anthology in 2002.
This version lost some content to Nintendo of America's censorship and poor translation when localized.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In addition to a number of awkward or stilted sequences, the English script is substantially shorter and omits several subplots, most notably an ongoing story about Kain's background and relationship to his father, and the motivation for Zemus's plans regarding colonization of Earth.
Other changes included, but were not limited to, the removal of any overt Judeo-Christian religious references from the script and the graphics. The most notable instance of this is the renaming of the magic spell "Holy" to "White." This was in keeping with Nintendo of America's content guidelines at the time, and similar examples can be found in the original North American translations of Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest and Final Fantasy VI (released as Final Fantasy III). All references to prayer are eliminated as well; the Tower of Prayers in Mysidia is renamed the Tower of Wishes, and Rosa's "Pray" command is simply dropped from the game.
The extreme differences between the North American Final Fantasy II and the original "hardtype" Japanese Final Fantasy IV prompted an English language fan translation of the original Japanese game, produced by J2e Translations.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
PlayStation
Image:Ff4jpsxbox.jpg The Playstation re-release was published by Square Co., Ltd., designed and directed by Kazuhiki Aoki, supervised by Fumiaki Fukaya, and produced/game produced by Akihiro Imai. It was released in Japan on 21 March 1997 on their CD-ROM format.
This version is mostly identical to the original Final Fantasy IV. Some minor tweaks introduced in Final Fantasy IV Easytype have been left in, but they are extremely minor in nature. The most notable change in the PlayStation release is the inclusion of a full motion video opening sequence, the ability to "run" in dungeons and towns by holding the Cancel button, and the ability to perform a "memo" save anywhere on the world map.
The PlayStation remake was released in North America as part of Final Fantasy Chronicles, and in Europe as part of Final Fantasy Anthology The North American and European localization featured an entirely rewritten translation which addressed most of the discrepancies between the original game and the SNES Final Fantasy II. However, certain sections, such as the line "You spoony bard!", were kept intact, as many of them had achieved cult status.
WonderSwan Color
Image:FF4 WSC boxart.jpg This version was published by Square Co., Ltd. only in Japan on 27 March 2002, utilizing it's 32 megabit cartridge. This version lacked the FMVs of the PlayStation version, had decreased screen resolution, and downsampled music and sound effects to meet the specifications of the device.
However, a number of graphical enhancements were made to character sprites and backgrounds by providing additional details and color shading. The original character portraits were replaced with new, smaller portraits. Also, certain boss sprites were changed to those featured in the Japanese Easytype version of the Super Famicom game. The game also featured revamped difficulty that is different from both the original and the Easytype versions of the game.
Game Boy Advance
Image:Final Fantasy IV NA GBA Boxart.jpg The Game Boy Advance port titled Final Fantasy IV Advance was released in North America by Nintendo of American on December 12, 2005, in Japan by Square Enix on December 15, 2005, and in Europe on June 2, 2006. It had a rating given by the ESRB of (Everyone 10 and older) and by CERO for all ages, and utilized 64 megabit cartridge. In Japan, Final Fantasy IV Advance was sold alone and as a packaged bundle including both the game and a limited edition Game Boy Micro with a themed face plate featuring artwork of Cecil and Kain.
There are many differences between this version and the original SNES version, such as graphic improvements in the battle backgrounds and in the conversation boxes for player characters, enhanced music and sound effects from the WonderSwan Color version, new locations to explore, and greatly improved translations of the dialogue. The story reads much more naturally and many details that were not clear in the original translation have been added. Some minor bugs can be found in the game, notably in the battle system, possibly as a result of merely porting the game from an existing platform instead of fully optimizing the game for the GBA hardware.
Also added to the game was the ability to change characters among Edward, Yang, Porom, Palom and Cid after completing the Giant of Babel; Cecil must be in the party at all times. There are also two new dungeons: a new cave at Mt. Ordeals where the five addition characters can gain their "ultimate weapons" and some powerful armor (the character must be in the party to fight the monster to get the weapon), and the Lunar Ruins, which can only be accessed at the end of the game; there are trials for all the characters, and these can only be accessed if that character has beaten Zeromus. In here are some of the best items in the game and dark versions of the summons, much like the dark aeons on FFX.
Reception
Major reviewers, such as IGN and Gamespot, have called Final Fantasy IV one of the greatest video games of all time and the popularizer of many common computer role-playing game features.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Sales were brisk in Japan, totalling over 1.44 million copies.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Many criticized the original Final Fantasy II, Square's first North American localization, for the poor quality of its English language translation.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Game Boy Advance remake has been well-received by most reviewers,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> though a few have questioned how well the game holds up today in visual presentation, especially when compared to subsequent installments in the series, particularly Final Fantasy VI.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
References
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External links
- Nintendo Final Fantasy IV Advance Official Site (English)
- Template:Ja iconSquare Enix Final Fantasy IV Advance Official Site
- Square Enix Final Fantasy Chronicles Website - Includes an FF4 Overview (English)
- Gamespot.com - Greatest Games Of All Time
- IGN.com - Greatest Games of All Time
- ign.com Final Fantasy IV Advance Review
- Final Fantasy Wiki category list for Final Fantasy IV
- Moby Games Final Fantasy IV Listing
- Collection of official game art at Caves of Narshe
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