Final Fantasy IV Turns XV

Jeremy Parish, keeper of the retronaut flame, has a nice post on his personal site marking the fifteenth anniversary of FFIV. Released in the states as Final Fantasy II for the SNES, the game chronicles the adventures of dark knight turned paladin Cecil and his wacky band of cohorts. It's still one of my favorite games in the series. From the article: "Tiny sprite theatrics notwithstanding, FFIV had something called moxie. It boldly featured one of those videogame plots where things happen for seemingly arbitrary reasons and there's a lot of traveling back and forth and into dungeons on mini-quests to justify endless killing random monsters and fighting bosses. I guess that's not moxie, really. But whatever it was, it drove dark knight Cecil Harvey across the entire world, into the dwarf-infested depths and eventually to the frickin' moon, so it would be silly to split hairs."

A new holiday!

[sc0ttyb]

I declare July 19th National Spoony Bard Day!

conFused

[neonprimetime]

Final Fantasy IV Turns XV

In non-mathematics major terms : Final Fantasy 9 Turns 15

Re:Slow news day?

[neonprimetime]

This is worth at least 4 beers tonight.

Odds are you'll be enjoying those 4 beers from the comforts of your dorm room, alone, playing final fantasy IV, reminiscing about Star Trek, and setting the kitchen timer so that you remember to call your mom before 9pm and wish her a happy birthday.

Re:conFused

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for clearing that up. I thought it was Final Fantasy In The Hospital or something...

Re:Oh yeah, tons of plot emphasis in FF7-on

[Anonymous Coward]

You're unfairly minimizing the complexity of the storylines. I mean, the main character is a young man...who hates his father! He sort of likes a girl...but doesn't know how to tell her! And he thinks he's been doing the right thing...but he's been doing the wrong thing all along. And even though he's a badass, which you can tell by his spiky hair and his implausibly large sword, he's sensitive... he cries a whole lot, way more than the female characters, who are all so tough that they fight evil in anime fanservice outfits. And OMG, major characters die, sometimes after as little as 3 hours of foreshadowing cutscenes- we're talking about out-of-the-blue shocks! And chocobos! All in all, the storylines in the later FF games are deep as hell- I mean like Shakespeare raised to the power of Tolstoy levels of depth!

Re:Slow news day?

[ReverendLoki]

But FF38 will be the pinnacle of the series

Fixed your typo of a correction of a typo of a correction of a typo. No need to be temporal bigots, after all.

Re:Most Compelling Set of Characters

[IAstudent]

Second that. Strangely enough, I found myself drawn more to FFIV than FFVI for several reasons.

FFVI's story might have been more grandiose, but after the first half it just tappered off into individual story lines. There's nothing wrong with gaining insight on your individual character's struggles, but FFIV's story seemed more concise throughout the whole game.

Also, while FFVI does have possibly the best RPG villian of all time (I will give it that cred), it was easy to see from a mile away that the rest of the game would lead to him. FFIV had that charm with its behind the scenes-maniuplator-unknown-till the last part of the game.

In reference to storyline, FFIV just held for me a greater sense of exploration. Caves, underworlds, 100 foot towers, robotic innards, and of course, going to the mooooooooooonnnnnnnn!

Then look at weapons. FFVI had the Atma Weapon. Nice, a glorified lightsaber, ho hum. FFIV had the spoon dagger, c'mon! If you thought those Guiness guys made silverware deadly, you haven't seen a ninja utilize untensils like Roger Clemmens.

Finally there was the difficulty. FFIV had restricted characther roles, yes, but it also made you utilize each character to their own unique strengths to win the toughest battles. By the time you reach FFVI's conclusion, with enough cactaurs you could Ultima every danged thing into nonexistance.
 
/END comparison