With the power of Final Fantasy IV in the palm of your hands, bathroom breaks just got a whole lot more engaging.
Final Fantasy IV Advance will appeal to different gamer demographics for different reasons. The nostalgic RPG fanatic will undoubtedly snatch this one up, in search of memories locked in the mind's sunken vault. Those looking to get into RPGs for the first time will find something that's simple to pick up, but challenging to survive. The hardcore RPG players will get a lengthy and involving portable quest with challenging bosses. The end result is the same: an enjoyable, high quality adventure.
Those who wax nostalgic will want to know if their little baby has grown up too much. The great news is that it's kept intact all the great moments that sent shivers down many a spine. The localization team touched the dialogue up to clear up some of the ambiguous points in the story, which immensely helps character development. For example, whatever vague hint of rashness Sage Tellah exhibited in the previous game, it's here in full force now. We can clearly see that his ultimate actions fit his characterization - something that wasn't entirely transitioned smoothly in the SNES original. Names have been cleared up, and the "White" spell is now "Holy" - free from the censorship shackles imposed upon anything religious-sounding circa 1991. Most importantly, possibly because the localization team knew that the commercial and critical success was absolutely riding on this highly critical point, the bard is still as "spoony" as ever. It's taking all the effort in the world for me to keep the tears out of my eyes.
For RPG newcomers, it gives what seems to be a no-frills experience where you can learn the ropes. Much is due to technical limitations of course, but there are no long-winded cutscenes, the to-the-point yet well-written dialogue is absorbed as fast as you can read, and summoning monsters won't give you time to file your taxes. There is no complex "system"; it's just straight up turn-based battling with a dynamic real-time twist.
Called "Active Time Battle", this prevented players from taking all day to make decisions, and has been a staple in many RPGs since. Instead of selecting each party member's actions and then watching them play out, each combatant has a standby state and a ready state. It takes everyone - including enemies - a different amount of time to go from standby to ready, so oftentimes you'll find yourself attacking with martial artists (inherently a quicker type of party member) more often than you cast spells with mages. What's more, battle participants reach the ready state even when the player is sifting through menus.
As it did in 1991, this can be set to "wait" so that time effectively stops when item menus are brought up or spells are in the middle of being cast. The speed of the battle, too, can be adjusted. This way, newcomers can ease into the dynamic battle system, and when ready, try out faster battles with "wait" mode turned off.
Something that tends to scare away newcomers is the presence of some micromanagement in many RPGs today. In Final Fantasy IV Advance, characters level up statistically and learn new spells automatically. There are no relics. There are no symbiotic materials that "grow" with your characters. There is no class-changing. About the only real management to be done is keeping a character well-equipped to do battle. A role-playing newbie can then focus on learning the enemies' tendencies, weaknesses and resistances.
Hardcore RPG fans, please stay for the rest of the show. It's got personable characters, an epic story that literally spans across worlds, and optional side-quests that transcend the annoying fetch-quest stereotype. The simplicity of the game as a whole shouldn't deter you from experiencing this grand adventure, because this game's appeal lies in the way many of the other RPG contrivances gel together in this title.
Are we surprised? After all, this game practically created those contrivances. As the story progresses, the rabbit hole becomes deeper and deeper as the game world expands. Morpheus would be proud. Suffice it to say, one world is clearly not enough to contain our heroes. The side quests that you find in these worlds are all engaging. They're not simply to earn more money or give you a trite item. No, these side quests give you potent armaments and spellcasting abilities to better equip you for the final confrontation. They also expand a bit on the characters you've come to know and love, instead of just randomly adding a new trivial character that doesn't fit the existing context of the game.
With Active Time Battle fully turned on and at max speed, the game isn't a cakewalk either. Many enemies have certain counterattacks that you'll discover the hard way. You'll have to figure out the best way to put the suckers down, which may be the slowest or the most tedious. You might experiment to find their weaknesses and take them down in one blow. Still other enemies, similar to your own mages, will support their much stronger cohorts. Fail to prioritize defeating the supporting cast and you may perish. Boss battles are prime examples of this; take the three Magus sisters, one of which attacks, one of which protects her sisters against spells with a reflective magic barrier, and the last of which can revive fallen sisters. After a few rounds, you figure, "Ah - so this is how I need to defeat them." Where some newer RPGs may descend into mindless menu clicking, here at the very least you need to strategize your attacks.
And then, you've got the challenge. Where the nostalgic ones may have cringed at the relative breeze Final Fantasy VII was, recently molded hardcore RPG fans may balk at the numerous amount of random battles and the relative challenge that Final Fantasy IV Advance is. In fact, even those familiar with the 1991 SNES version will do some double takes. That Heal item that gets rid of ALL ailments? Gone. Think you've beaten the game? Check out the trials found in the newly-opened 50-level dungeon. And here's my question to Square Enix - since when did Prokaryotes do 787 damage to a level 45 Cecil wearing Diamond armor?? This, then, may be the only offputting element of the game to anyone averse to repetition - leveling up, or "grinding" as it were, is absolutely critical to surviving. It's easy to get into the game early on so that you appreciate leveling up, but it won't sway the opinions of those who are vehemently against random battling and simply want to progress with the story.
No matter the type of gamer, however, it could probably be agreed upon by everyone that the visuals are classic. Not classic in the timeless, always-look-great sense. More like, classic as in the old, dated sense. Mind you, this isn't a bad thing necessarily. The source material was cleanly colored, and everything was easily identifiable. Every character sprite - from your heroes to the gruff looking bearded shopkeeps - has a certain charm and personality. All of this has been touched up slightly; where the source material's coloring tended to be on the minimalist side, the colors here are richer. The blue of the ocean sea is more pleasing to the eye, and battle backgrounds don't seem so nearly monochrome. The overall visual presentation is more sophisticated as well, with redone, enriched character portraits accompanying dialogue. It's just that, for all of the touching up, Final Fantasy IV Advance is still less lush looking than Final Fantasies V and VI for the Super Famicom - games that are a decade old.
The sound holds up very well, partially due to the fact that the source material was above and beyond anything the visuals had to offer even in 1991. In fact, the music was quite possibly the highest quality to be heard in the 16-bit era until Square's next Final Fantasy hit the SNES in 1994. Even newcomers may find that the musical score contains the same amount emotion and thematic quality to match today's epics. The tunes are all intact here save for a note here or there in two tracks, and the instrument quality is even better in some cases. The harp that plays during the Final Fantasy theme and the overworld music is one example - it rings with more clarity. The oboe sounds like an actual oboe too, instead of some weird muffled cross between a pipe organ and an ocarina. However, much of the bass sounds descend into Gameboy Color land. This has unfortunately become a necessary evil with GBA games, though I'm convinced by games like Golden Sun that indeed a GBA game CAN exist without ancient sounding 8-bit effects and instrumentation.
The odd thing about Final Fantasy IV Advance is the fact that, even though it's supposed to be a polished version of an old classic, is that there's a fair share of minor, niggling bugs that are easily noticable even when you're not looking hard. Most of them are found in battle, while minor visual nitpicks can be found in the overhead maps. During battle, perhaps the most important defect you'll find is that characters don't always reach the ready state according to their time bar. When the time bar gradually fills up, that instant is when the party member is supposed to be able to act. However, sometimes they act before the bar is even halfway full. In some cases, I had a character ready for action twice in a row, which - without any special magic spell or relic applied - is unheard of in any Final Fantasy game.
The rest of the defects are related to visuals and overall flow. In battle, you may experience some slight lag between button presses and the in-game reactions when sifting through menus. This is particularly jarring when you're trying to scroll down to a much-needed spell and the menu stops cooperating with you. You will also notice some slowdown when scrolling specifically when an attack is being carried out, or a spell is being cast. On the map screen, you'll also notice some rather rough scrolling problems in dungeons or in the overworld when in an airship. The problem seems to be much less apparent when not playing on a Gameboy Micro. Thankfully, the most game-changing defect has been repaired - you can no longer duplicate items for extra cash as you could in the SNES original.
Bugs aside, Final Fantasy IV Advance still stands as the premiere worldwide version of the source material to date. The SNES version had a vague and nearly mangled translation, with a toned down challenge for "inexperienced Americans" and that untested, balance-breaking item duplication bug. The PSone remake was horridly saddled with unforgivable menu loading time bugs, which no amount of fancy FMV could make up for. The Gameboy Advance version not only fixes these problems, but continues on to add significantly new content and a fun addition to your options going into the final challenges. This addition will remain unspoiled.
You'll find out what it is soon enough anyway, because it would be behoove you to run out to your local merchant and barter your skins for a copy of this fine game. Modernizing old NES classics for today's gamer (e.g. Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls) is one thing. But what Square-Enix has done boils down to improving an already amazing accomplishment that set many standards, to the point where it's unquestionably worth spending another six Abe Lincolns and forty hours on fifteen years later. The nostalgic, the newbie and the hardcore should equally give this game countless playthroughs. With the power of Final Fantasy IV in the palm of your hands, bathroom breaks just got a whole lot more engaging.
[This review was originally written for and published on TRIGAMES.NET by MrCHUPON.]