OTHER VERSIONS

Final Fantasy IV has a slew of versions and it can be easy to get mixed up. Final Fantasy IV was released on the Japanese Super Famicom in 1991. When it was released in North America as "Final Fantasy II" later that year, it underwent some major alterations: a ton of character abilities (like Cecil's "Dark" power) and spells were removed, several items were taken out (mostly dealing with specific status ailments), a few potentially "objectionable" images were censored (mostly the porn book item and the dancing girl in Kaipo, who throws off her clothes, revealing a bathing suit), and enemies became much easier to deal with. Thanks to this first North American port of Final Fantasy IV, many JRPG fans are to this day are under the mistaken impression that it's standard practice for Japanese companies to reduce the difficulty level of their English ports for the benefit of the lazy and stupid American consumer. The neutered North American version was simplified even futher and then released in Japan as Final Fantasy IV Easytype. (For whatever reason, the last boss has a totally different sprite in this edition.)

Thanks to relatively low audience expectations when it came to localization, the almost embarrasingly poor translation (by today's standards) didn't keep Final Fantasy IV from being a hit with English-speaking audiences when it was released for the SNES. It wasn't until several years later that fans clamored for a chance to play the original Final Fantasy IV -- without the "Easytype" changes and with a more cogent English translation. It's worth noting, by the way, that Ted Woolsey was not responsible for translating the SNES release.

From 1997 to 1999 Square ported its three 16-bit Final Fantasy titles to the Playstation. These were all Japan-exclusives. American fans grumbled in 1999 when Final Fantasy V and VI were compiled on the PSOne as Final Fantasy Anthology, but Final Fantasy IV was nowhere in sight. It finally made its PSOne appearance in North America along with Chrono Trigger as the Final Fantasy Chronicles compilation, marking the first time it appeared in its original, non-castrated form. In addition to the restored difficulty weapons, items and abilities, Square gave it a whole new translation. While it still uses the ugly monospaced font of the SNES game, the rewritten, uncensored dialogue is vastly superior to the initial English release. It also introduces a Run button, as well as a "Memo" save, which will temporarily save your game to RAM (although not to the memory card) in case you're killed

The original Japanese release was plagued with load times, but nearly all of these were fixed for the American version. The only loads are at the beginning of the game and when saving - everything else is just as quick as the SNES version. Also, other Square RPG ports like Final Fantasy V, VI and Chrono Trigger suffered from degraded music. The Final Fantasy IV port uses streamed music recorded straight from the SNES game, so other than some fadeouts when a song plays too long, it's practically perfect. Only the sound effects are slightly degraded. There's also a very poor CG movie. The intro only shows the first part - you get the view the whole thing when you beat the game, which shows various highlights from the game's plot.

In 2002, Square brought Final Fantasy IV in portable format to Bandai's Wonderswan color console. Some of the graphics - mostly the background tiles - were redrawn to feature more detail, so the game looks a bit better. The system wasn't quite powerful enough to handle the Mode 7 scaling, so some of the effects, like the airships flying, don't look quite right. The music has also taken a significant downgrade, although it still sounds pretty cool listening to the classic tunes in PSG synth.

After Square-Enix kissed and made up with Nintendo, in 2005, they took the Wonderswan version and ported it to the Gameboy Advance. This version features a new introduction before the title screen, even more redrawn background tiles, changed character portraits (which now appear inside the dialogue boxes for some reason), and yet another reworked translation. Square Enix tried to market it to newer, younger fans as an inexpensive, accessible version of an old classic, but also included some brand new content to entice old veterans who already played the game on the SNES and/or PSOne. There are new weapons, new abilities, and the option to mix up your party after a certain point toward the end of the game. Instead of being forced to stick with the usual Cecil/Kain/Edge/Rosa/Rydia crew, now it is possible to shred through the last dungeon with, for example, a Cecil/Yang/Edward/Palom/Porom team. There are also some new sidequests and dungeons, including personalized "trials" for every character, battles with "Lunar" versions of Rydia's summons (akin to the Dark Aeons sidequests in Final Fantasy X International), and the "Easytype" Zeromus sprite appears as a new boss called Zeromus EG. In order to keep it up to snuff with Final Fantasy V and VI, the ATB bars are now visible in battle, so it's easier to see whose turn is coming up next. As expected, the music has also taken a hit - it's far better than the Wonderswan version, but it's still fuzzy compared to the original SNES synth. Unfortunately, the port was handled by TOSE, an outside developer known for sloppy porting, which resulted in a handful of bugs, the most significant of which screwed up the turn order in battles, in addition to some slowdown. The bugs were fixed for the European release, at least.

There are a ton of weird differences between the translations in all versions. The SNES one in general is significantly dumbed down, toning down elements like Cecil's and Rosa's romance. At the beginning, Kain will also break the fourth well and instruct Cecil to talk to everyone with the A button. .However, at the beginning of the game, the King gives an item to Cecil and Kain to take to the village of Mist. In the SNES version, it's just called a "Package", whereas the other versions calls it a "Bomb Ring", which is far less subtle. THE GBA version features a few slightly amusing pop culture references, like having a little kid call Dark Knights "totally sweet" a la the Ultimate Ninja Home Page. However, all English translations keep the "SPOONY BARD" line.

In 2007, a mere two years after the Gameboy Advance release, Square decided to completely remake Final Fantasy IV and release it on the DS. This version features totally new polygonal graphics, drastically altering the look and feel of the original. Like the remake of Final Fantasy III, this was done by Matrix, so it feels a bit similar. Although the brand new CG intro features character designs reminiscent of the PSOne-era cinemas (which is also significantly better than the PSOne intro), the in-game character artwork seems to be more based off 3D renditions of Yoshitaka Amano's character artwork. They still all look a little bit super deformed, and Cecil in particular looks like one skinny, skinny dude, but it looks decent given the limited 3D abilities of the DS. Unlike the DS Final Fantasy III, which was a bit slow and cumbersome, Final Fantasy IV moves at a much brisker pace. The battles still feel a little bit slower than the original, due to the addition of extra animations, but it's not overwhelming. Unlike FFIII DS, the camera maintains the classic side viewpoint during, but it switches to an over-the-shoulder camera during certain major fights. The action takes place on the top screen, and the bottom shows the ATB bars, as well as important stats about the enemies and abilities being selected.

There are also several cutscenes rendered with the ingame engine, most of which are fully voiced. They detail the most important plot points (The Red Wings at the beginning of the game, Cecil's night time conversation with Rosa, the bombing of Mist, etc) and are all fantastically directed. It's surprising how much emotion they can conveny, especially how low-tech they seem, and it really adds a lot of drama to the game. However, according to developer interviews, there was a significant chuck of the original SNES game that was left on the cutting room floor, implying that the plot would be significantly reworked a la Lunar: Silver Star Story for the PSOne. Unfortunately, this isn't the case at all - the plot and even the dialogue is almost exactly the same as the original version. There are a couple of extra cutscenes - most significantly, some background detailing Golbez's origins - but those expecting some of the loonier plot points to be altered will be disappointed. However, you can view the lead character's thoughts by bringing up the menu, which features their comments on the current events of the plot.

Strangely, none of the enhancements added to the GBA port were carried over to the DS version, so you're once again stuck with the same five characters for the final dungeon. Instead, there's a brand new ability called the "Decant" system, which is meant to allow players to customize their characters, a feature absent from all previous versions of Final Fantasy IV. Although all of the party members still have their inherent abilities, you can also obtain abilities from elsewhere. For instance, when Palom and Porom leave the party, you get a Decent ability called "Twin". You can then equip this on whatever character you want, basically allowing you to inherit their specialties. There are far more than just party member abilities too - you can learn commands and abilities from bosses and subquests, most of which should be familiar to Final Fantasy vets. The catch is, once you equip a Decant ability, you can't remove it, thus forcing you to customizing characters without making them interchangable like the Materia from FFVII.

Fans of FFIV know that certain characters leave your party for good at certain points in the game. Naturally, they'll give you at least one of their special abilities as a Decant. However, if you've already assigned any additional Decant abilities to them, you won't get those back - however, you'll been given other, new Decants in return. This is only way to get some of the best Decants in the game, which is weird, because you're it essentially encourages to sacrifice some Decants for others. For instance, if you don't equip any Decants on Yang, he'll just give you his Charge power. If you equipped one, you'll get both Charge as well as Kick. If you equipped two, you'll get a Gird ability, which reduces damage by quite a bit. There are also extra subquests to undertake to get other Decants.

Also brand new is an additional summon monster for Rydia called Pochika. When you first get him, you can draw your own face on him. You can also play a variety of minigames to customize his abilities. Once summoned, he takes Rydia's place in battle instead of simply showing up for a single attack like all of the other summon beasts.

Other abilities have changed too. Cecil's Dark attack works like the Dark Knight abilities in Final Fantasy III. In the original FFIV, it attacked all foes on the screen - now, you need to charge it for a turn, and while it can only be used to attack a single enemy, the ability will stay active for a few turns. You can also select specific songs for Edward to play, so he's not quite as useless as he was before. Arrows are now unlimited, in addition to other small changes. Finally, the difficulty in general has been increased quite a bit. Specifically, many of the bosses have different and more powerful attack patterns, which will challenge even old school FFIV veterans.

The dungeons are nearly completely identical. However, the bottom screen features an automap, which definitely helps due to the zoomed in camera. Also, FFIV fans may remember Namingway, the fellow which had previously allowed you to rename your characters. In the DS version, you meet him right at the beginning of the game, where he offers his services. However, he realizes that he can't change them (due to the names being used in the voiceovers) so he runs off. Later, he takes on different jobs and changes his name - he becomes Mappingway and offers to give you bonuses every time you uncover 100% of a map, and later becomes Livingway and opens up the bestiary. He also unlocks several other functions, the sound and cinema galleries.

The music composition is all the same, but they've been rearranged to accomodate the DS synth. Even though some may miss the distinctive sound of the SNES, the DS music sounds pretty good. Some of the samples sound a bit strange, but they elicit the same flawed charm as the original SPC chip, even if it does sound different. Certain songs, like Rosa's theme and town theme, feature some Celtic influence, undoubtedly inspired by Final Fantasy IV"s arrange album, Celtic Moon.

The DS version isn't quite perfect - the 3D graphics still look a bit primitive, the designers could have done more to fix some of the sillier elements of the plot, and the Decant system isn't as versatile as it could be. And yet it's still fascinating to see such a classic adventure totally revisited with brand new graphics and a more balanced game system.

Final Fantasy IV -- with its stubby characters, straightforward ability system, fairy tale setting, and admittedly dated graphics and sound -- bears very little resemblance to today's JRPG's, and that really might be a good thing. It's old school enough to have that retro charm, but still far from feeling primitive and dated. I'll spare you the SQUARE HAS GONE TO THE DARK SIDE rant (for now), and just say that this is Final Fantasy the way Allah intended. It's cartoony, fast-paced, packed with monstrous bosses, and while it's got a story to tell, it's more interested in striving to be the best video game of its kind than the best interactive storybook. I want the SNES back.