Released: 1991
Updated: 2002
New Format: Playstation 1
New Name: Final Fantasy Anthology (FF4+FF5)
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| Final Fantasy 4 | |||||||||
| Original Format: Super Nintendo Entertainment System Released: 1991 Updated: 2002 New Format: Playstation 1 New Name: Final Fantasy Anthology (FF4+FF5) |
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| There comes a time in our lives when we must make a choice that will affect us for years to come. That time has come for Cecil, the commander of the Red Wings � the elite fighting force of the Kingdome of Baron. His King has ordered him to use any means necessary to obtain the four elemental crystals, something that troubles him to no end. When he questions the motives of the king, he is hastily discharged from the Red Wings and banished from Baron. Now his choices are limited. The only hope to control the menace he was once apart of is to forget part of him that still holds on to the dark, and to introduce a new light into the world� | |||||||||
| Ready to get confused? Good. In 1990, the original Final Fantasy was released in America to great success. Keen to follow up with a sequel, the cunning yanks � realising that each FF game was a separate game, and there was no story running through the games � decided to skip the Japanese versions of Final Fantasy 2 and 3, and go straight on to Final Fantasy 4. Except they renamed it Final Fantasy 2. To make things even worse, there were already two versions of the game in Japan � FF4 Easy type and FF4 Hard type. Needless to say, by the time Final Fantasy was released in the West under its proper title, everyone was completely brain-mashed | |||||||||
| With the fourth game, the first to be launched on the Super Nintendo � now throbbing with a massive 16-bit engine � Squaresoft took advantage of this new processing power to build on the developments of FF3 and tinker with the general game mechanics; introducing the Active Time Battle System, which is still used today. For the first time, the turn-based combat became more dynamic as each character had to wait for their time gauge to fill up before striking, and a more tactical element began to creep in. | |||||||||
| Final Fantasy 4 is best remembered as the first RPG to use the game�s graphics to tell the story. Abandoning the scrolling text descriptions (although conversations still relied on text), the sight of characters �acting out� the scenes in the game was enough to make the gamers of the time fall over and shriek with amazement. This was also the first Final Fantasy game to use the story to introduce new playable characters throughout the game. We may laugh now, but without FF4�s chunky sprites, we wouldn�t have the stunning visuals of Final Fantasy 10. Think about it. | |||||||||