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brendalaI finished the sequel to Final Fantasy 4 (only available via Wii download) about a month ago. I know most of my LJ pals are JRPG nuts; so I thought I'd give y'all an idea of what to expect with a fun review in fan-comic form. Enjoy!
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Yeah, if you want to download this game, be prepared for the INSANE encounter rate. The story is pretty good and its nice to see all the characters again (except Edward and Kain. They're still lame). But if you play this game for long stretches of time, you'll occasionally be consumed with the urge to fly to Japan and kill the S.O.B who decided that this game should have enemy encounters every time the characters take a f*&^king step.
Spoiler Free Review
The game comes in chapters that must be downloaded indivually (small chapters cost 300 Wii points and big chapters cost 700 points). Every chapter covers one character's journey and shows what they've been up to since the conclusion of Final Fantasy 4:
-Cecil and Rosa have a teenage son named Ceodore who is training to join the Redwings.
-Kain has been sulking on Mount Ordeals and is STILL creepily pining for Rosa. >_<
-Rydia and Luca are going on fun adventures together.
-Yang and his wife have a teenage daughter named Ursula who wants to train with the monks (but Yang is worried that his dainty little Princess might not be up to it).
-Palom is training one of Troia's Epopts to use black magic. And he has grown up to be a self-described ladies' man.
-Porom is protecting Mysidia and teaching white magic to new recruits.
-Edge is making sure that pesky Tower of Babil doesn't come back
-Edward is still crying about his dead girlfriend and forcing his prime minister to do his job for him (and he sucks even more in combat than he did in the first game!!).
-Golbez and Fusoya are still squatting on the moon and lamenting about how the Lunarians can't wake up from their cryogenic sleep until they have a technologically advanced world to wake up to. Why those two insist on leaving their people in the fridge instead of thawing them out and letting them get on with their lives is never explained. But I assume they did it that way so Golbez would have something to angst about after he and Cecil buried the hatchet back in FF4.
-And the final chapter brings all the old and new heroes together to fight the Big Bad in a monsterously huge dungeon.
Aside from the frustrating encounter rate and the fact that it's a bit over-priced (all chapters combined cost over $25 in Wii Points), Final Fantasy 4: The After Years is fun to play. The battle system is the same as the original except for some new combo attacks that can be done with certain groups of characters. And most of the dungeons have simple layouts; so at least you won't get totally disoreinted after every fight. Overall, I'd recommend this game to anyone who REALLY loved Final Fantasy 4 and is dying to see it's characters again (and is willing to put up with a lot of frustration in order to do it).
Page one
Page two
Page three
---
Yeah, if you want to download this game, be prepared for the INSANE encounter rate. The story is pretty good and its nice to see all the characters again (except Edward and Kain. They're still lame). But if you play this game for long stretches of time, you'll occasionally be consumed with the urge to fly to Japan and kill the S.O.B who decided that this game should have enemy encounters every time the characters take a f*&^king step.
Spoiler Free Review
The game comes in chapters that must be downloaded indivually (small chapters cost 300 Wii points and big chapters cost 700 points). Every chapter covers one character's journey and shows what they've been up to since the conclusion of Final Fantasy 4:
-Cecil and Rosa have a teenage son named Ceodore who is training to join the Redwings.
-Kain has been sulking on Mount Ordeals and is STILL creepily pining for Rosa. >_<
-Rydia and Luca are going on fun adventures together.
-Yang and his wife have a teenage daughter named Ursula who wants to train with the monks (but Yang is worried that his dainty little Princess might not be up to it).
-Palom is training one of Troia's Epopts to use black magic. And he has grown up to be a self-described ladies' man.
-Porom is protecting Mysidia and teaching white magic to new recruits.
-Edge is making sure that pesky Tower of Babil doesn't come back
-Edward is still crying about his dead girlfriend and forcing his prime minister to do his job for him (and he sucks even more in combat than he did in the first game!!).
-Golbez and Fusoya are still squatting on the moon and lamenting about how the Lunarians can't wake up from their cryogenic sleep until they have a technologically advanced world to wake up to. Why those two insist on leaving their people in the fridge instead of thawing them out and letting them get on with their lives is never explained. But I assume they did it that way so Golbez would have something to angst about after he and Cecil buried the hatchet back in FF4.
-And the final chapter brings all the old and new heroes together to fight the Big Bad in a monsterously huge dungeon.
Aside from the frustrating encounter rate and the fact that it's a bit over-priced (all chapters combined cost over $25 in Wii Points), Final Fantasy 4: The After Years is fun to play. The battle system is the same as the original except for some new combo attacks that can be done with certain groups of characters. And most of the dungeons have simple layouts; so at least you won't get totally disoreinted after every fight. Overall, I'd recommend this game to anyone who REALLY loved Final Fantasy 4 and is dying to see it's characters again (and is willing to put up with a lot of frustration in order to do it).
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Date: 2010-05-28 06:57 am (UTC)Another series that has a fantastic battle system is Grandia. The first Grandia blew me away (it was my the first JRPG I ever played). It's similar to Lunar in that the enemies walk around on the field and the actual battles rely more on strategy than just being a tool to pad the game's length.
As for Final Fantasy...I hate to bash the franchise as a whole because I really do enjoy those games (except FF8. That game should rot in a landfill with those infamous ET cartridges). And some Final Fantasies have brilliant battle systems.
But, yeah, a lot of FF games do have a pesky habit of forcing the player to spend HOURS level grinding just to do the sidequests. I mean, what's the point of getting to level 99, killing the super hard optional boss, and getting a sweet rare weapon that you don't even need because your characters are level 99 tanks? ESPECIALLY when you don't even have the option to carry your sweet rare weapon into a New Game+ like you can in most Tales games.