Final Fantasy IV:
The Moon Crystals

Review by Chi Phan

I have to say that after finishing this game, all I can think of was thank heaven it's over. This has to be one of the most annoying and unsatisfying rpg game I have ever played. I couldn't tell what annoyed me the most, the constant random battles or the fact that I had to spend some useless hours just to level up to fight the final boss. The fact that the story wasn't very satisfying didn't help too. On the good side, at least it's better than FF5. LOL. On with the review.

Wow, look at all the chocobos! The Giant of Bab-il must be stopped! Final Fantasy IV story starts off quite quickly. The story starts off with Cecil, leader of the Red Wings (Baron Airfleet), coming back from the kingdom of Mysidia where he and his men butchered and killed the people there to obtain the Mysidia kingdom's crystal upon the orders of the King of Baron. Cecil being a good guy started to question this action once he returned to Baron Castle. The Baron King quickly dismissed such question and sent Cecil and his friend Kain on another errand. This time to deliver a package to the village of Mist. Once arriving on the village of Mist, Cecil and Kain opened the package to discover that it contain a Bomb spell that sent the village of Mist on fire and destroying the village. To the horror of this action, Cecil and Kain rebelled against the King. They then decided to head back to Baron Castle to stop the King and find out what has happened to the King to cause him to order such evil deeds. To the horror of Cecil, he soon quickly learn that the King that he knew was dead and this king is indeed an imposter named Golbez. After learning Golbez is trying to steal the crystals from each of the kingdoms in the world of Final Fantasy IV, Cecil and his friends vowed to prevent this from happening. Thus, the plot of the game and the quest of the game. Now in terms of storyline and plot, Final Fantasy IV story has a lot of potential to be a good one but one that fell short. You could say they dropped the ball here. The problem with the story is that the game doesn't give us a clear indication as to why the crystals are important to each country. Oh they eventually tell us about why the crystals are needed by Golbez and how the crytal came to be but not the heritage of the crystal for each country. Another problem with the story is that it tends to move too fast without any details of each kingdom or the history of the kingdom. For example, you know about Cecil but you really don't know anything about him in terms of his job or the king that he serve. Or even the kingdom that he came from. There's just no details here. Another problem is that the game lack an emotional value to it. Throughout the game, characters will die off. This I suppose would be the emotional value but in fact since there's so little character developement going on, there's no emotional value to their death. Another point is that the story tend to get cheesy in the end whereas it could've stayed real. All those deaths that I mention just before, it turns out those so call people that died didn't die at all. How can someone not die after getting blown to bits is beyond me? The story could've been more real and had an emotional impact in the end of a long quest if they kept those people dead but instead the story took an easy way out saying, "oh those people didn't die at all." There also is a very weak swerve in the end regarding Golbez which pretty much killed any potential for a evil character to the whole storyline. Alot of hits and misses in this one that could've been a good story.

A taste of Megaflare!!! In regards to the characters of Final Fantasy IV, this is probably the best thing I like about this game. But just like with the story, Final Fantasy IV dropped the ball on it. The characters could've been great and not just good. Final Fantasy IV uses a large variety of different characers. Each character is unique in his/her own way. I like how the characters were introduced to us throughout the game and I also like how the characters left the game. I have to say that Final Fantasy IV set a record on the most number of party members dying. You literally don't know who's going to stay within your party and who's going to be killed off. With the exception of Cecil since he's the main character. The bad side to this is that there's really no character background developement at all. Each character is very weak in his/her background, including Cecil. You would get more insight to these characters by reading their profile in the instruction book then playing the game. This is were Final Fantasy IV dropped the ball. When party members die off, you should care for them, but the fact that you never really got to know them, their deaths are meaningless and without emotions. Even the characters within the game treats their teammates death as meaningless and without emotions. They spend like 30 seconds being sad then they move on their quest without much thought. A good death is the death of Aeris in FF7. We got to know her so we cared about her. I guess with so many party members dying off or seemingly dying off, the game just treats it as a regular thing. Another part where they dropped the ball is with it's villian, Golbez. Golbez could've been a good villian but they totally dropped the ball on him near the end of the game. I won't go into detail on how since it would be a spoiler. All in all, Final Fantasy IV has a good cast of characters that got a great potential to be one of the best FF cast of characters but one that never really got fullfilled in that role.

Freaking hard final boss fight. I actually had to do a double look to make sure this was 16 bit graphics here. It's hard to believe that this game and FF6 are both made with 16 bit graphics. Another comparison is with Chrono Trigger. There's a huge gap between the 16 bit graphics of Chrono Trigger and that of Final Fantasy IV. Final Fantasy IV graphics is more of less a blend of 8 bit graphics and very early 16 bit graphics. You can cleary see that the gamemakers have not yet been able to fully utilize the full power of the SNES system yet since it's still fairly new at the time that Final Fantasy IV came out. Another disappointment is the added FMV introduction sequence to the game. This is some lazy ass slop work here. While Chrono Trigger re-make for the Playstation got a first class attention, Square totally ignore Final Fantasy IV re-make for the Playstation. All Square did was added 1 or 2 minute of a new FMV introduction sequence that gamers can see once they finish the game. That's it. Not only that but the FMV introduction sequence wasn't even that good. Very disappointing. I find it very misleading when you read on the back of the CD case that Final Fantasy IV has been re-release with added CG cinemas. What a let down. I was really hoping for some cool new FMV sequences added to the game but all I got was a 2 minute FMV introduction sequence.

A new beginning with a better future. On the musical score front, Final Fantasy IV is kind of weak compare to the other Final Fantasy games out there. Granted that FF4 is an early FF game so FF musical score weren't as popular and important in the minds of FF fans and probably the game makers back then when compare to today's FF fans and FF gamemakers. Today it's a tradition that all FF games must have good music. Still, Final Fantasy IV music is above average and can still beat out some of today's rpgs. It's just not as good compare to the FF standard of today.

A Dark Knight ready for action. Launching the Red Wings for action. This is the part where I hated the game. The part that annoyed and irritated the hell out of me. Where to begin?? Hell let's go with the battle system first. Final Fantasy IV uses a turn base battle system in a random battle environment. Like with any turn base battle system, each party member take their turn attacking the monsters with regular attack or magic or just plain using an item. Now at the beginning of the game, you can choose between a battle system that uses the WAIT (monster won't attack you while you decide on what to do) option or the ACTIVE (monster will attack you while you decide on what to do) option. Each party members comes with their own fighting class. With this in mind, each party members has his/her own unique abilities which ranges from magic to special skills. Unlike today's Final Fantasy games, Final Fantasy IV uses a 5 party members system. This is one of the things I like to see more often in today's rpg games. This pretty much summed up the battle system. Now for the other stuff. I'll try not to go into a rant here. First off, as I mention, the game uses a random battle system. God, do they like to use a random battle. The random battle occur so often that it annoys the hell out of you within 5 minute into the game. How random is the random battle, about say every 3 steps or even 1 step. Sometimes as soon as you finish fighting a battle and you take 1 step forward, BAM, you get into another battle. You be really lucky if you can get far without getting into a random battle. How about running away from battles? Well, if you do that then you lose Gil (money). So if you lose money you won't be able to buy new weapons and items. Trust me when I say you will get very annoyed with the random battle very quickly. It's so annoying that it will literally effect the enjoyment of the game. The gameplay or quest itself isn't very straightforward. There are many times where the game would just leave gamers dangling as to where to go next and what to do next. You'd be quickly asking yourself where's a walkthrough for this game. Overrall this game is borderline between hard to medium. It's been awhile since I had some difficulty on this game. This is your basic old school gameplay where you literally have to spend time leveling up if you're having a hard time and most likely you will. It's been awhile since I last played an rpg game where I had to spend some useless time leveling up. I also have to say that the final end boss is quite very hard to beat. I mean that literally. It took me awhile to finally figure out on how to beat it. If you need help then just give me a call, just don't waste stupid time trying to steal that damn dark matter. Anyways, as I stated the constant random battles just kill any enjoyment for me on this game. I would say this game is almost as hard as FFV too but not as boring though.

Hey look, it's Cid!! Well, there's really nothing much to say on the extras and replay value to this game. On the extra front, there's a few bosses (mostly summon bosses) that you have to fight inorder to gain them as summon spells. Some of these bosses are quite hard to defeat. You can also gain some special swords and armours item from the game. But that's generally it. These are the kind of extras you can do on your first time around and nothing to get excited about. Replay value comes solely on the fact whether you enjoy this game or not. Personnally I won't be playing this game in a long time. This is just a one shot game for me. There are much better rpg games out there to be replaying than this one. A five for the extras and a no score for the replay value.

If you look at the big picture, you would instantly notice that the whole Final Fantasy Chronicles package is really all about Chrono Trigger. Final Fantasy IV was nothing more than an afterthought that Square decided to throw in at the last minute. Where does that leave Final Fantasy IV, not much. If you're going to buy Final Fantasy Chronicles then you're going to buy it for Chrono Trigger cause quite frankly Final Fantasy IV was a disappointment from a game perspective. Why Chrono Trigger was an enjoyment to play, I found more annoyed with Final Fantasy IV than anything else. Final Fantasy IV is a good example of how far rpgs have come since then and how far rpgs have improved. Final Fantasy IV is the kind of game that would only appeal to old school rpgers who enjoy the constant random battles at each step and spending hours after hours of leveling up. Unfortunately I have much better things to do then waste hours after hours of leveling up just to finish the game. I do like the fact that this rpg game was quite a challenge for me to finish. Although there were time that I wondered if whether or not I want to finish it up. Now that I have, I'm putting it back in the case where it belongs and let the dust start to gather on it. I won't be playing that game again in a very long time. Final Score: 7/10 Time to complete: about over 23 hours Difficulty: Medium to Hard. Favorite character: Kain Least favorite character: Cecil Character that need more spotlight: Kain Most useful skill: Throw Best trick: weapon duplication. Learn it baby! Hard Last boss fight: Hell yeah! Nearly gave up on it. Also try: Final Fantasy V Up next: Saiyuki: The Journey West. I love those strategy rpgs.

STORY A better story than say FF5 but that's about it. The story lack a strong villian and didn't explain the history of the crystals or the characters involved enough.	6
CHARACTERS A nice selection of characters introduced to the games. Too bad they're not developed as good as can be. Probably the best part of this game.	8
GRAPHICS Huh?? Is this even consider 16 bit graphics?? Very weak FMV added to the introduction.	5
MUSIC Nice tunes but lack the solid punch that today's FF games have. Probably the weakest of the FF games in term of music.	7
GAMEPLAY The old fashion gameplay. Lots of hours leveling up and too many random battles. Game is also consider a little too hard. Especially near the end.	5
EXTRAS/REPLAY Not much here. There are a few extra bosses to be had and a couple of things to get but nothing too major. Replay?? No, thanks.	5