Final Fantasy 4 DS First Impressions (Best DS game?)

[Julius Seeker]

I am currently just past the Ice wall on Mount Hobbs (So I'm through Baron, Mist cave, Kaipo, the water cave with Tellah, Damcyan, and the Antlion's Den) so I am a fair distance into the game.

First of all, they updated everything up to the FF9 standard. So Summon Creatures now are called Eidolons, Blizzard orbs are Arctic Wind, etc...

There's a lot of minigames, Rydia gets an Eidolon which she can train with the Big Chocobo (who you meet a lot earlier now) using games that seem to resemble brain-age type games.

Namingway reminds me of the Moogles from FF9 and forward, actually, there's a funny little surprise early on that I won't talk about.

The player gets bonuses for clearing maps, for example, for clearing Mist Cave you'll get 5 potions as a prize. This means exploring every room in the dungeon. It's a nice little addition, it makes exploration feel very rewarding.

The encounter rate seems to have dropped a lot from the previous versions. I haven't found myself leveling up yet, so the balance seems to be alright.

Auto-battle has also been included, this makes things very convenient unless you're using items for magic (ie, Ice staff for the Blizzard spell).

Characters have more abilities

The voice acting and animations are very well done, the characters feel very lively compared to before. Kain is especially cool in this game.

The script is WAY better than the last game, but it still contains the classic lines like "You spoony Bard!".

This is without a doubt the best version of the game. Everything about it feels better, more lifelike and more to do, more rewarding. It is a huge improvement over the last version though that doesn't mean the GBA version is pointless to get now; it has all sorts of cool stuff at the end of it that fans will find VERY rewarding.

I am REALLY enjoying the game so far.

[RentCavalier]

I will buy this game ONLY if they actually have the spoony bard line in voice overs.

PLEASE. Is it voice-acted?

[SineSwiper]

Heh, auto-battle. That peaked my interest.

[Julius Seeker]

Auto-battle has been a very nice addition, I have found. Especially with Yang (just assign his auto-battle command to kick).

[SineSwiper]

Auto-battle has been a very nice addition, I have found. Especially with Yang (just assign his auto-battle command to kick).

Is it AI generated or just auto-commands? I was thinking of my FFT Auto-Battle FAQ, which was AI-based.

[M'k'n'zy]

I will say this the dificulty jumped a hell of a lot once you get to the tower of Zot, I cleared the lodestone cave fairly easily, then got wiped out in my first battle in the tower. And yes, I did have my gear re-equiped

[Julius Seeker]

The Auto-battle is fairly simplistic. Essentially you choose the command you want your character to use (kick, attack, defend, etc...) and the character will use that every turn. It has some limitations, you can't put item selection or magic on auto-battle; and that would have REALLY helped in my opinion.



On the difficulty, yeah, I did notice that it was up a bit. I thought it was just me, but it is certainly more difficult. Milon (or whatever they call him now) almost killed me. I also noticed that it was similar to Breath of Fire in that you don't seem to have way more money than you need, you usually have just enough for what you need (including selling things). Right now I am about to invade Baron castle.

[SineSwiper]

Hmmm...I guess a game with an auto-battle system like that -AND- it's actually useful, it just goes to show how simplistic the combat engine and strategy really is, especially for most of the "melee" characters. FF3 really did expand the unique abilities with the characters a lot better.

[Julius Seeker]

I will say this the dificulty jumped a hell of a lot once you get to the tower of Zot, I cleared the lodestone cave fairly easily, then got wiped out in my first battle in the tower. And yes, I did have my gear re-equiped

It is one type of enemy in the tower of Zot, the ice creatures that cast blizzard, the best thing to do is to either silence them or run. They're not very common. Aside from them the Tower of Zot wasn't that much of a jump in difficulty. I actually think the Dark Elf was more difficult of a boss battle than the Magus Sisters and Barbariccia (What they call Valvalis now; I think they took a lot from the Divine Comedy for this game).

[M'k'n'zy]

I am quite far in now, to the point where I just got the Falcon and am getting ready to head to the final dark crystal where the seal is. Still strugling somewhat, but compensated with it by overleveling a bit.

[Blotus]

It's almost a necessity to inflict status ailments on certain enemies in this version unless you grind like a madman. Casting slow on an enemy (recently Leviathan for me) can make the difference between a completely unwinnable battle and a pretty easy one.

Berserk/Haste still owns.

Yang is a monster this time around. If you could get him in the endgame as in FF4A, he would easily do 9999 dmg without even needing to Focus.

The augment abilities are neat but mostly useless so far (I'm just heading to the moon now). The only ones I've found useful so far are counter and focus.

The magical items are still mostly as useless as ever and clutter up your inventory. The ones that cause status effects are worthwhile, but shit that casts fire, bliz, thunder, etc. are pointless.

I was thinking going in to this game how I could probably replay FF4 forever, given that I've been through it at least a dozen times. However, it's really feeling like a chore this time. Thank fuck for the auto-battle option.

I love it, I hate it, I want it to realize how many goblins I've offed in my lifetime and give me a damn pass to the end of the game so I can be finished with it.

[M'k'n'zy]

I am on the moon now as well, and its KICKING MY ASS

[Blotus]

Also, THE DARK ELF DOES NOT SPEAK IN ALL CAPS SO THIS CAN NOT BE THE DEFINITIVE VERSION.

[RentCavalier]

All of your nostalgia badgering aside, I'm at a conundrum.

Which should I buy:

FFIV DS?

Or Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2?

I'm leaning towards the latter, but I imagine a few of you have played both...which is worth the 40 dollars?

[Blotus]

which is worth the 40 dollars?

R4.

[Zeus]

which is worth the 40 dollars?

R4.

Geez, am I the only one here who actually buys games anymore?

[Flip]

I almost want to rent a DS and this game for a week just to see what the heck you are talking about in regards to difficulty. I just cant imagine this game being hard, but for the one wall battle that eventually squishes you. For as much as i played it on the SNES, i never came away thinking it was very difficult... I also do not remember a whole lot of side quests or hidden amazing items in FF4, which is why i think i liked FF6 a lot more. There was simply more to do.

[Eric]

The only FFIV fight I found difficult was that fight against that fat bitch, small cunt, and tall whore sisters in the tower of zot, GOD I hated that fight.

Excuse my language.

[kali o.]

I almost want to rent a DS and this game for a week just to see what the heck you are talking about in regards to difficulty. I just cant imagine this game being hard, but for the one wall battle that eventually squishes you. For as much as i played it on the SNES, i never came away thinking it was very difficult... I also do not remember a whole lot of side quests or hidden amazing items in FF4, which is why i think i liked FF6 a lot more. There was simply more to do.

I used to over-level Cecil at the switch-to-Paladin mountain. Then later, when you encounter the Puppet masters (aka Summoners - I think Rydia's underground home is where I'd first use it), I'd just weight down my controller overnight and wake up to near max level.

I liked FF2 more than 3...but ya, I don't remember tons of side content (there was some though, mostly the summoned stuff and some weapons).

I watched a Youtube video of the DS version...I gotta say, personally, I think it looks like ass. All polygonal and shit...

[Blotus]

Flip- Every enemy in the game has more HP and deals much more damage than any other version of the game to date. Example: Tower of Babil, you're surprised by two of those flaming dogs. Both use their blaze attack that hits every member of your party. You die. It's totally common for regular enemies to one-hit kill your weaker party members in the back row. I've had regular battles where I've used more than ten phoenix downs.

I think in previous versions of the game, elemental shields and armor would absorb opposing damage (ie, fire shields absorb ice damage as HP). In this one, they only half the damage. In fact, I'm almost finished the game now and there isn't ANY equipment yet that absorbs any element.

Eric- You suck. Even in this version they're easy. Go home and be a family man.

Kali- It looks like a really good PS1 game, which is pretty impressive on the DS. The character models in this one are somewhere between charmingly stylized and disgustingly pointy (like FF7).

[Oracle]

Beat it, moon was hard (particularly the 2 dragon random battles, plus it was one of the treasure chests... had to end up using a "stop" item on them).

Is there a bonus dungeon in this game?

[Blotus]

(particularly the 2 dragon random battles, plus it was one of the treasure chests... had to end up using a "stop" item on them).

Grr... got almost to the save point, but got killed at the crystal shield chest by those fucks. Both cast ice breath before I get a turn, I get off a quick slow and curaja, and then both ice breath me again and kill everyone.

No bonus dungeon as far as I know.

[SineSwiper]

No battle should be that hard. You should at least get a chance to break even, until you figure out exactly what you need to do. Not even Digital Devil Saga was that hard, since you could run away from every battle except the ones with obvious save points, and that's only if your skills wasn't set up right.

Reminds me of that famous one-hit kill with Wiegraf in FFT. It was the one-on-one with Ramza; Wiegraf goes first and kills me with a critical without even getting a turn. That was the first time I saw the battle, so I thought that it was supposed to be part of the game until I was presented with the load screen.

[Flip]

Reminds me of that famous one-hit kill with Wiegraf in FFT. It was the one-on-one with Ramza; Wiegraf goes first and kills me with a critical without even getting a turn. That was the first time I saw the battle, so I thought that it was supposed to be part of the game until I was presented with the load screen.

Ugh, that battle can be game breaking, i.e. almost ruin the whole thing. I remember i had to keep resetting until i got a lucky weapon break to work.

[Kupek]

That battle is where I stopped my playthrough last winter. I think I had close to ten tries.

[Eric]

Aye it was pretty bad.

Basically came down to using speed hax to win.

[Don]

I beat Wiegraf straight up with Split Damage and constantly healing myself until he ran out of HP from the Split Damage, though I doubt that was how it's intended either.

If a RPG isn't designed with a meaningful concept of difficulty, then all you get is cheap one-hit kills that force you to level up more. Though FFT is one of the only turn-based RPG like game I can think of where you can lose to something and then rethink about what class setup to use next time and possibly beat it, even if most of the time it just means you need to bring a Calculator or some otherwise cheap combo.

Now that I think about it, I can't think of a RPG where the difficulty is meaningful in anyway. A regular battle that randomly has a chance to kill you with absolutely nothing you can do about it is not hard. It's just plain cheap.

[Julius Seeker]

I finished the game yesterday. Easily the best version of the game; and the first time I played the game where I actually did everything. It really felt this time like I was playing the game again for the first time; and enjoying it more than any point in the past.

The overall script is vastly improved over any previous version. I am not sure if it is just me, but it felt like characters gained levels a lot more quickly this time around than in previous cases. It also felt like there were fewer battles. As for the overall difficulty, this one is on par with FF10 and FF12, easier than FF3. I didn't have to level up at any point (though I did flee from Bahamut's cave, and went through again after to defeat him) and almost every boss in the game offered a very good challenge (Except I found Zeromus to be one of the easier bosses).

The ending of the game felt very rewarding, and for those that do finish, watch the ending right until the very end. There's a bit of a surprise unless you already read up on it.

In the end, I felt as though Rydia had become fairly godlike in power, she was easily the most valuable player.

Also, I would like to ammend one of my previous statementts. You actually can assign spells and items to the auto-battle command: I find Summon Dragon (Rydia) + Pray (Rosa) to be a particularly strong combo.

I didn't particularly like the original version of the game (probably because I really disliked a lot of the flaws, like the original version of the ATB, the item usage problem, etc..); but I have really enjoyed the later versions of it. This one was fantastic. Now I can't wait until they do Final Fantasy 6; but I have my eyes on Chrono Trigger at the moment (two of my very favourite RPGs in existence).

[Julius Seeker]

Flip- Every enemy in the game has more HP and deals much more damage than any other version of the game to date.

I think the same could be said about the player's characters as well. It seemed to me that I was getting a lot more level ups than I normally did.

Maybe it's just me, but I actually like the fact that regular battles are dangerous; it was a similar situation with Xenosaga episode 2. Like Xenosaga episode 2, there are strategies that can neutralize the lethality of anything; there's equipment enough to marginalize those blizzard attacks (you can get it down to ~200-300 damage with certain combos of equipment). I wuld say that once you have all the Dragon Equipment, rush to the room save point, and clear out the rest of the dungeon from there.

[Eric]

Do yourself a favor and read the Augment guide at Gamefaqs rather irritating to find out you missed out on awesome shit like dualcast, or fasttalker.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/ds/file/939425/53737

[Chris]

damn.....you know....I just got it today....only to Kaipo and levelling rydia a little in the desert and yeah....game is freaking beautiful

[Julius Seeker]

I also agree with Eric, getting all those augments would really help a lot. They aren't required to finish the game but they sure make things more interesting. You get a surprise at the end of the game =)

Glad you're enjoying the game Chris. I think it's fantastic.

[Chris]

AGH! FUCK YOU GOLBEZ! man I reember every version the first golbez fight took me a cuple times but this one is tougher...

[Julius Seeker]

AGH! FUCK YOU GOLBEZ! man I reember every version the first golbez fight took me a cuple times but this one is tougher...

It is always the toughest fight in the game. Or at least I always find.

[Don]

If you had Kain jump before he does the autokill thing it makes it way easier.

You just have to get 3 Titans off in the original FF4 to win, so it's not that hard. Maybe you can get away with 2, it's been a while.

[Eric]

AGH! FUCK YOU GOLBEZ! man I reember every version the first golbez fight took me a cuple times but this one is tougher...

Slow is your friend.

[Chris]

yeah it is. along with shell and jump....I reamed him pretty good right after I bitched...I think I just needed a good cry

[Julius Seeker]

Slow + haste are your friends in every FF game from 4 onward =)

I remember we had a fairly lengthy discussion about this sometime back in the 90's.

[Don]

Slow rarely works on anything you need it to work on though.

[Blotus]

Slow works on damn near everything in FFIV. Even bosses.

[Chris]

Slow works on damn near everything in FFIV. Even bosses.

yep....a combo of slow and casting haste on rydia made rubicante my bitch in about 30 seconds.....Shiva is awesome.....he casts blizzara on himself doing even more damage when it hits....>I love iceytits

[Eric]

I like how I walk into the cave for the final crystal, get into a random battle against 2x chimera, and they blaze on me 2 times before I get to perform my first action killing everyone but Cecil/Kain, then 1 more blaze before Cecil can heal killing Cecil/Kain.

Really tired of AE attacks wiping out my party before they can even react.

[SineSwiper]

Geesh, in a RPG, if the enemies are too hard, then start gaining levels. That's been the basic rule of RPGs since day one.

[Zeus]

Geesh, in a RPG, if the enemies are too hard, then start gaining levels. That's been the basic rule of RPGs since day one.

But the idea of "balance" came in after the SNES days (well, somewhat) and we're supposed to now have RPGs by design where you shouldn't have to level up anymore.

RPGs are about storyline and battle system, not about fucking levelling up or graphics. I'd rather have 20 hours of real content than 50 hours with 30 hours of levelling up. That's why Panzer Saga at 15 or so hours didn't feel short at all and was a wonderful experience where as Xenogears at 53 hours fucking dragged for a while until you got to the second disc and they abandoned the broken battle system for story, which is what made that game

[Don]

I believe this was something people brought up with Dragon Quest 8. The problem seems to be your average enemy has a selection of attack say:

A. Does normal damage to one guy
B. Does low damage to everybody
C. Does some status effect
D. Does lots of damage to everybody

And it's completely random whether attack the enemies pick, so if you got a case where both enemies pick attack D you're pretty screwed.

The only game where I saw this being addressed well is Grandia where enemies both have a charge up time (generally longer for bigger moves) and a recovery time. It won't completely stop enemies from starting with their biggest move but at least they won't be using anything else for a while if they use their most powerful move right away.

[SineSwiper]

But the idea of "balance" came in after the SNES days (well, somewhat) and we're supposed to now have RPGs by design where you shouldn't have to level up anymore.

You're bitching about a game that is a remake of the game that was still in the SNES days, so your "theory" doesn't apply. Besides, I think most modern RPGs are too easy, anyway. They shouldn't be 7th Saga hard, but at least provide a challenge.

[Don]

But the idea of "balance" came in after the SNES days (well, somewhat) and we're supposed to now have RPGs by design where you shouldn't have to level up anymore.

You're bitching about a game that is a remake of the game that was still in the SNES days, so your "theory" doesn't apply. Besides, I think most modern RPGs are too easy, anyway. They shouldn't be 7th Saga hard, but at least provide a challenge.

What RPG is actually hard? Most turn-based ones are completely deterministic, e.g. if you have at least X HP before the boss does his Y attack then you live, otherwise you die. You can probably write a computer program that tells you the optimal steps to take and whether you'll even win at all. Even if you throw in some real time element, the basic formula still doesn't change very much. FF12 for example can be won without any supervision on the player's part if the characters are sufficiently strong and the gambits are comprehensive enough to cover the fight.

[SineSwiper]

FFT was hard, and leveling up only gave you more skills that the enemies didn't match, but didn't change the gap in levels.

FF12 was somewhat difficult, in that you were expected to have gambits that "played themselves", and when those gambits failed to work well in the next area, you had to adjust to make it work right. (Frankly, they didn't have enough gambits. Why can't I make Remedy gambits work with that reverser item?)

The World Ends With You is difficult, but not exactly for the right reasons. No human can be expected to essentially play Sudoku on one screen while playing an advanced version of Double Dragon on the other screen at the same time.

Fallout is hard, as is most American RPGs.

[Don]

Actually FFT doesn't give you access to skills your enemies won't have via leveling. You get stuff the enemy can't use as unique characters join. If the enemy can have 5 guys that use Lightning Stab or Dark Sword you'd be pretty screwed.

[Zeus]

But the idea of "balance" came in after the SNES days (well, somewhat) and we're supposed to now have RPGs by design where you shouldn't have to level up anymore.

You're bitching about a game that is a remake of the game that was still in the SNES days, so your "theory" doesn't apply. Besides, I think most modern RPGs are too easy, anyway. They shouldn't be 7th Saga hard, but at least provide a challenge.

Challenge is not exclusive to levelling up. Levelling up is an antiquated technique to extend the length of the game, it's no longer required. That's what I was sayin'. I expect to level up a bit in FF4 DS or CT DS but if I had to level up in Mass Effect, it's stupid