I'd find it impossible to not recommend Final Fantasy IV to anyone remotely interested in either Adventure or RPG games.
Now the story of Final Fantasy IV isn't really original, in fact it's very cliché, but for it's time the story for Final Fantasy IV was highly complex, something very unusual at the time for RPG's. The story goes that Cecil (the games main playable character) is under the orders of his King, the King of Baron, to find and collect the world's four elemental crystals, at no matter the cost to innocent lives. But when Cecil questions the Kings orders he gets stripped of his role as the captain of Barons honourable Red Wings.. But the King's current state of mind is hugely unlike him, and as Cecil soon finds out he is under the control of a man called Golbez. But Golbez's reasons for wanting the elemental crystals are unknown to Cecil. So it's up to Cecil (and a few of his companions) to thwart the evil Golbez's plans.
So yeah the story does sound a lot like a typical Final Fantasy plot. But like I said at the time of its release Final Fantasy IV had an extremeley deep and complex story (a trend of which latter games in the Final Fantasy series have expanded upon).
As well as been important for elements such as its story, Final Fantasy IV is mostly remembered for the addition to the series of the Active Time Battle system. The first three games in the series used a traditional turn-based battle system. At the beginning of each battle phase you chose the commands of your characters and they and the enemies executed their attacks before the process was repeated. Well what the Active Time Battle system did was it made battles faster and more fluid. The battles were still turn-based, but you never had battle phases like the first three games. The Active Time Battle system allowed for the enemies to attack while you were issuing commands to your characters. And your characters attacked quicker if they had a higher Agility statistic too. The Active Time Battle system revolutionised the franchise because it worked so well, it was to no wander why Square incorporated the system in to the six games in the series following Final Fantasy IV.
Now the most important thing that the Final Fantasy games are now famed for are its wonderful array of characters. Well expect a great cast of playable characters in Final Fantasy IV. Final Fantasy IV has twelve playable characters for you to use throughout the game, and that was significantly more that the games prior to it. Now although Cecil is the main character, there are some other characters that are just as important to the game as he is. Apart from Cecil you have Rosa, A friend of Cecil who has strong feelings for him; Kain, a Dragoon and life-long best friend of Cecil; Rydia, a summoner from the village of Mist; Yang, the head monk from the Kingdom of Fabul; Edward, a bard and the Prince of the Kingdom of Damcyan; Tellah, a world-renowned Sage; Palom and Porom, mage siblings from Mysidia; Cid, the chief engineer from the kingdom of Baron; Edge, a ninja and the Prince of the Kingdom of Elban; and finally Fusoya, a mysterious man the characters encounter during their quest. Each of the twelve characters have their own unique backgrounds, and they all fit into the story so well because they all, for some reason or other, bear a grudge against Golbez. The one problem I had with the characters though was, well, it wasn't realy a problem with the characters as such. Because of the ammount of characters in the game there will be times in the game when you'll not be able to use certain characters, and while this isn't that much of a problem, to me it felt like the game never really let me develop my characters and party really to my liking. And also because a you'll be swapping and changng party members all the time you'll not really learn a lot about the characters, aside from maybe Cecil and Rosa.
Visually Final Fantasy IV was a decent looking game for it's time, but it wasn't the best the Super Nintendo had to offer in the visual stakes. At the time of it's release it was a great title, but another release title for the console The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past out-shone it visually, as did a lot of the latter games in the Super Nintendo's life-line.
But musically Final Fantasy IV is superb. Just like in most of the Final Fantasy games it was Nobuo Uematsu who was tasked with scoring the game, and as usual the legendary composer didn't disappoint. Now I'll admit that the soundtrack for Final Fantasy IV isn't his best work, but it's certainly one of his best works, and it's certainly one of the best sounding games the Super Nintendo has to offer.
Final Fantasy IV is a long game too. The game should take you between 35-50 hours to beat, but the time all depends on how much grinding you do and whether or not you complete the games side-quests. Final Fantasy IV is also a hard RPG. While the games main quests contains no puzzles, and while you always seem to know which way to go and what to do next, the game houses the hardest collection of bosses of all the Final Fantasy games I've played. In fact I regard the games last boss as the hardest ending boss I've ever faced in a videogame.
Final Fantasy IV is a fantastic game. It laid the blur print for the six games in the series that followed it by introducing elements like a complex story and the Active Time Battle system, and it will forever live on as one of the most revolutionary RPG's ever made. I'd find it impossible to not recommend Final Fantasy IV to anyone remotely interested in either Adventure of RPG games.
Review by: James Widdowson
Score: 9.6/10