A throughly derivative rehash of my favorite game of all time.
User Rating: 6.5 | Final Fantasy IV: The After Years - Tsuki no Kikan WII
Final Fantasy IV was my first trip into RPG land before I knew what an RPG was and I've never since had an RPG experience quite like it. As such my unhealthy compulsion to play this game, combined with my disappointment at the lack of originally makes me viscerally sick. The plot, a second lunarian invasion complete with a mysterious villain (this time a nameless girl also lacking personality), monsters, mind controlled soldiers, and even a puppet ruler, has us (as Cecil's son Ceodore and his companion the Hooded Man) taking a slightly modified version of the route we took in the original game (complete with several nearly identical encounters and almost identical dungeonscapes) punctuated by switches to the original characters facing situations reminiscent to a number of episodes from the original. However, in the original, Cecil's pathos and interactions with a truly interesting cast of characters made you feel keenly for their troubles in the enfolding epic story that still feels as original when I replay FFIV as the first time I played it. This time Ceodore's extreme diffidence and needy personality is not nearly as likable as he is lead by the hand by the hooded man. The designers seem to know the new protagonist isn't really up to the job as the main character, so the main story ends on a cliffhanger with a focus on Kain (whose own role in the story is the most interesting, but is still a knock off of the original adventure).
If you haven't played FFIV, go out and buy one of the many versions available and play it...now, but if you don't you'll find the plot of this game incomprehensible. I doubt my review will stop too many FF fans who have played this game, but I warn you, this is far worse a knockoff than the Star Wars Prequels or the rape of Indiana Jones. At least in the Hollywood cases, we still get a new plot. One last reason to hate this, the need to pay for the content in installments, with much of the game still unreleased. I rue the day I break down and purchase the additional adventures to no doubt see more familiar characters taking familiar trips through familiar dungeons. The entire game will cost a whopping $37 to play it all, and no matter what I say, this game has all the attraction of a really bad train wreck. Its hard to take your eyes off it.
