Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (2008)

Well. I was hoping for a lot more out of this game. We all know there are so many insanely good entries in the Final Fantasy universe, so it's even more disappointing when these half-assed appeals to nostalgia are thrown at us.

I'm not going to do a good job at assembling a cohesive critical narrative about this game, so here's a rambling, stream of consciousness list instead.

1. I get why SE would release episodic content like this. And sometimes it works. Final Fantasy Dimensions is a really wonderful game structured in this manner. But here it just doesn't work. Each chapter offers a brief foray into the barely-there plot, and then leaves you to grind levels and farm the Challenge Dungeons. The grinding and farming takes multiple more hours than the story does. While character development is explored a bit, the plot barely moves, because there just isn't much of one.
2. When it all comes together in the last chapter, it doesn't improve. I was excited to take my huge team and mountain of treasures and explore the world and do fun things, but, that doesn't happen. You, once again, for the millionth time (millionth times two if you count the visits from FF4), revisit old places, fight some more, maybe find some Small Tails, and then immediately go to the last chapter, which is just one long, straight-line dungeon.
3. There are so many people in the cast in this game and absolutely no reason to use most of them. I rarely strayed from a core group of 6 people. Is anyone out there making a party with Calca, Brina, Leonora, Luca, Harley, etc etc...?
4. The main character (Cecil, if you don't count Ceodore) is unusable, then useless, for most of the game, and then useless once he becomes available because all he can do is hit for subpar damage or cast low tier white magic. At least he has Esuna?
5. The music sucks. The re-hashed music from FF4 has been made to sound like amateur MIDI remixes, and the new tunes offer nothing special. It's too bad because Junya Nakano really had some bangers on the FF10 soundtrack, but here his contribution mostly makes the game worse. Maybe they didn't pay him.
6. Some of the game is real hard, so some of the early grinding pays off. But then, depending on how you fared with Adamantite and tails, the gear you get makes the rest of the game trivial.
7. I did get to shake my team up a bit for the super bosses. But once you get Bahamut, that combined with having Edge throw Fuma Shurikens and Porom double casting white magic, makes Omega and Shin-Ryu a walk in the park. I also brought Rosa for extra healing and Cid to do 4x damage with the Thor's Hammer equipped. Edward also makes a good choice as a healer using Salve with the Economical Ring equipped, which turns X-Potions into Megalixers-lite.
8. The annoying end game. Oh hi last boss, here's the plot, here's some confusing stuff, okay bye!

I could go on. I don't know who asked for a sequel to FF4, but I think this game is fulfilling a need no one had. Very little of the game is new, the plot is thin and delivered mostly in the last moments, and can someone remind me why the Maenads were collecting the Eidolons? and it's just such a totally boring slog to get through. (For some reason, this didn't stop me from putting in 100+ hours getting everything in the game, but I'm terrible, so never mind me.)

Another rambly question: Why is the final dungeon called the True Moon if it's actually an artificial space craft? Isn't the smaller moon that's always there the "true moon?" So then, the Lunarian moon is the small moon that's there all the time? Or is that also a third thing, and a spaceship? It is right, because it leaves at the end of FF4-1 too? Am I remembering this right? Does the planet have no natural moons but spacecrafts that come and go? Or it does have a moon that no one thinks about, the Lunarian moon that came and went, and then the Creator's moon that came and went/got destroyed? Wait, if that's true, where was the Lunarian moon when the Maenads were attacking it and kidnapping Bahamut?

My final point is, avoid this one, unless you REALLY love Final Fantasy 4 and want to explore (and re-explore, and re-re-explore) its world in oddly segmented doses over and over again. And you really wish those dolls that were an annoying mid-game boss fight from the original were playable characters.

Interesting Episodic Format. Play as a hero to explore backstory of the Final Fantasy IV game. This is a bit herky jerky though. You constantly have NPCS join (and leave) your party. You Can do combined attack Moves (referred to as 'band' attacks) that become unlocked as you party together. However, it seems all aspects of this game are cut short. You play episodic structure, your team metes come and go, it feels very temporarl. Exploring and levelling up isn't rewarding in this like it is in any other RPG. The focus is on the 'story' (which lets be honest, isn't exactly a strong point in these kinds of JRPGs...) each episode last about 2-4 hours. Map areas and exploration are more linear. Dungeon pathing is very stripped down and simplified. Exploration isn't a factor. I tend to skip chests.

In time, you get to appreciate these characters more. I would be lying if I said i did not remember these characters (such as Cecil and Rosa) and get a feel for the cahracters in this game. It does jog my memory despite not having played it for a few years. Sort of a prequel kind of feel. The game expands on the events of the last game, despite being called 'after years' it is more like a prequel that explores underlying plot and caharacters. OK, lets be real. plot and character isn't really a strong focus of FF. This game seems to focus and fixate on that quite a bit, which isn't bad, just very different. I still dont quite grasp some of these characters and the nature of their conflict, such as Kane

Combat and exploring of the world is a bit dull and monooonous. Pretty sure all the enemies are the same. I think some of the maps/hidden areas are even the same (Baron Castle) Most of the music is the same. It is very much the same as FF4. And the FF3 remake as well. These are all so-so games, They essentially run in an emulator of sorts for windows. One thing that irks me a bit is TEXT in JRPGs that has something wrong with it. Whether that is blurry or a hard to read font. In this game the text is actually some kind of image file and you can see the defects in the text. It's faint and not glaringly obvious but gets on my nerves. There is a patch for it on steam. Still, there are scenes that use the most hideous comic sans like font to introduce new characters. Really, the person who did typefacing in this couldn't have done worse.

I found myself not liking this episodic structure. It makes it feel very strange, doesn't really suite the idea of RPG. They did do some interesting things though, such as character/party transitions, adding cahracters into combat and things like that. Sometimes you go solo for extra challenge... So, that mixes it up and makes a different pace for it to be interesting... It still just doesnt really feel right to me. You simply are to get through the story rather than build and level, etc. I feel its not a very strong title. It adds some interesting ideas and elements, but doesnt feel altogether. It also takes too damn long and does not provide the player with much of a reason to develop party. This is actually somewhat nice in that it feels like it is (faster) and more story focused (less grindy), however the later chapters really slow down, almost painfully and take this very much in the other direction (very grindy). You also seldom get opportunity to actually explore characters in combat, for the most part its generic. I decided to not complete the last chapter, due to time investmenet (it stacks up, and dtracted from the 'faster'). However, Supposedly the characters get to party together and are affected by how much progress you made within the game. There are some cool ideas like that in this game, but as you play it, it is a bit awkward. I found the cool retro Japanese styled box art character concept art at the close of each chapter, rewarding. One screen/spoiler:

Adding variety by mxiing up your party frequently is nice, but you do not really have a large incentive to learn moves, combos or even gear them up.

Adds backstory, but lackluster game in itself. Impressive CG intro video and nice N64 like geometries in rest of the cut scenes.I at least like them.

Ultimately, the game deserved better, and had a nice premise (a prequel/backstory/type revisitiation) but what came out was very much a mix of things not all there, that feels rushed. FF fans can only hope if square does something like this again they spend some more time on it rather than just churn something out.