FINAL FANTASY IV Pixel Remaster

FFIV is legitimately where Final Fantasy became Final Fantasy. Everything people associate with the series' identity either starts here or gets its first real dry run here, and a lot of it goes straight into FFVI later. FFIV is the game that introduced the ATB system, battles stopped being fully turn based and started running in real time, giving fights actual urgency instead of everyone politely waiting their turn. Every ATB game after this owes its combat pacing to FFIV. It's also historically the first time the series gave every character a fixed, distinct class and identity instead of interchangeable generic party slots, Cecil, Kain, Rydia, Edge, Rosa, Tellah are actual characters with their own arcs, and the party composition keeps shifting throughout the game instead of locking in from hour one. The narrative does a great job at making party members leave thus opening a spot for a new one to join. And the stakes were real for 1991, characters actually die, get maimed, lose their memory, sacrifice themselves. That willingness to let the story hurt is the throughline connecting this to FFVI's much darker, more ambitious narrative. Uematsu's soundtrack here is also where he starts operating on another level, it's genuinely some of his best work and the pixel remaster arrangements are so good sometimes you just stop and enjoy. If you've only played the later, more cinematic entries and assume the older ones are just simple dungeon-crawlers, FFIV is the one that proves otherwise. This is the game where the series figured out what it actually wanted to be, and this thread runs through the main series until at least FFX.

What is there to say? It's a certified classic with nicer looking sprites and beautifully redone music by Uematsu himself. The story of a dark knight gone paladin and crazy moon traveling. A must play for any RPG fan.

FINAL FANTASY IV ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ With the fourth entry finally at a close, I believe that this initial investment that I took with the Final Fantasy series is beginning to pay off. Final Fantasy IV is a massive leap from the third game in nearly every way, but especially its narrative. There aren't a lot of RPGs that hooked me in the beginning quite as well as FFIV, and there are many interesting ideas that it puts into motion, especially near the end. I believe the inner conflict between light and darkness that Cecil, the main protagonist, faces is the most compelling theme it offers. I can talk quite a bit about the story here, but for the sake of brevity, I do believe it is the most emotionally engaging story so far, and I'm excited to see what the next entry has to offer. As for the new ATB system, it was... interesting. It was a cool novelty at first, being able to fight battles in what felt like real-time, but with enemies also attacking asynchronously, I felt pressured to decide what a party member would do ahead of time instead of carefully going through all of my options. Having to wait at the beginning of battle for the bar to build up first is also a very different experience. Maybe it's just me, and I just need time to get used to the system, so we'll see after Final Fantasy V. But overall, this game is great, and the best 2D FF so far. Give it a shot if you're interested. 8/10