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Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
Nintendo Network
A Love Letter to the Old Fans.
4.5/5 stars
I would like to talk a bit about a concept I like to call the “Unnecessary Sequel.” It has become quite the common phenomenon these days. The basic definition of an Unnecessary Sequel is that it is a follow-up to a completed story that has been written by someone other than the original author or has been written by the original author under duress. Disney is quite guilty of creating Unnecessary Sequels with such stunningly original titles as “Cinderella II,” and “Peter Pan II.” Another Unnecessary Sequel that strikes a chord with me personally is “Dragons of Summer Flame,” a sellout book that needlessly lengthened the DragonLance novel series into stupidity and completely ruined the entire mythos in the process. More relevant to videogaming, Square-Enix has been churning out all manner of nonsensical additions and sidestories for their most popular game, “Final Fantasy 7.”
Normally, this kind of post-story speculation is left to the fans' imaginations. The result is typically abysmal fan-fiction. Even when post-story material is authorized, if it is not created by the original author, it usually has much the same quality as said fan-fiction.
Unnecessary Sequels bother me because they cheapen the original story. If a story ends with a “happily ever after” or some other form of complete resolution, making a sequel just screams, “CASH GRAB!” Why did the characters in the original story do what they did? What did they accomplish? What did they fail to accomplish that has left them in a perilous enough situation that another complete story of conflict and resolution can be told? It is with these questions in mind that I purchased every chapter of “Final Fantasy 4: The After Years” sight-unseen from the Wii Shop before starting the game. Being the sequel to my second-favorite title in the Final Fantasy series, would it prove itself, or be deemed Unnecessary?
Presentation
The graphics in “FF4:TAY” are a delightful throwback to the days of sprite-based visuals. There are no ugly polygons or jaggies anywhere to be seen. The environments look almost identical to the original “Final Fantasy 4.” The one noticeable improvement to the environments is that the world now appears curved instead of flat when flying an airship, adding the illusion of a horizon. The characters, on the other hand, have been upgraded significantly to be somewhere between the original tiny sprites used in “Final Fantasy 4” and the larger sprites used in “Final Fantasy 6.” During the surprisingly few flashback scenes to the original game, I was delighted to see ALL of the original graphics used.
The music and sound are likewise throwbacks to the original game. Unfortunately, the MIDI kit for the Wii is a bit different than the MIDI kit for the SNES, so some songs, specifically Mysidia's theme, have slightly different instrumentation. It was disappointing to hear the “ha-hoo” sound in Mysidia's theme replaced by a strange grunt that sounds like a confused Goron.
The only real weak point in the presentation of “FF4:TAY” is that nearly everything is rehashed. There are very few new areas to explore and fewer new music tracks. Of this tiny percentage of new material, a fraction of it makes an appearance before the final chapter. Those without the persistence to play all the way through the game might be turned-off by the retread vibe that the earlier chapters give.
Story
“FF4:TAY” is divided into individually-sold chapters which were released across a span of several months. The first chapter and the last chapter each sell for a price of 800 Wii Points, and are the only required chapters to “complete” the game. The other seven chapters are sold for 300 Wii Points each and considered to be “optional.” I disagree that the majority of the chapters are optional, as they each contain significant amounts of necessary story exposition. Those who try to save money by skipping the so-called “optional” story segments will not be able to appreciate how the diverse story threads are woven together in the first part of the final chapter. Plus, several new characters are only available to those who complete the “optional” chapters.
The fact that the game is separated into character-specific chapters is very reminiscent of the excellent chapter mechanic of “Dragon Quest 4.” The execution of the chapter mechanic in “FF4:TAY” is significantly better than the one in “DQ4,” however, as a player can start and complete the chapters in any order, with the exception of the finale, jumping in and out of the story at will.
The story in “FF4:TAY” was the most worrisome aspect for me before playing the game. As mentioned above, I was concerned that it would be a low-quality, Unnecessary Sequel that would destroy the integrity of the original game. As I began playing the first chapter, I feared my dire premonition had come true. The game opens some 15 years after the end of the original “FF4,” with the knight training of an angsty teenager named Ceodore, who laments the burden of being the son of King Cecil and Queen Rosa of Baron. Ceodore isn't a particularly useful character, as his stats and commands are unimpressive... plus he's unlikable and flaky. Fortunately, Ceodore only figures prominently in the first chapter. Much like the excellent cast setup in “Final Fantasy 6,” the player doesn't really have a single character foisted upon them as the “main” character. The entire old cast returns, bringing with them a handful of new characters. My personal favorite new characters are Yang's daughter, Ursula and the Epopt trainee, Leonora. Regardless of which characters a player chooses, there is enough variety in the cast to pursue many different strategies for battle.
With little to no recapitulation of the story of the original “FF4,” the story of “FF4:TAY” takes off in a very familiar direction... at least familiar to those who played the original “FF4.” An ominous second moon has reappeared in the sky; a mysterious, green-haired summoner leads an army of monsters against the world's kingdoms; and the dragoon, Kain, is back to his old backstabbing ways. Both the first chapter and all of the “optional” chapters mostly follow the trails blazed in the original game in a very linear fashion. The characters in each of these chapters travel the same environments whilst fighting the same enemies and many of the same bosses that they fought during their last adventure. It may be a rehash, but these old bosses were quite clever and still provide an enjoyable experience, both to new players who might be unfamiliar with them and returning veterans who can take delight in battling enemies that require more skill with a turn-based battle system than mashing the A button on the Fight command.
The final chapter of the game is where new material finally makes a strong showing. Upon starting the final chapter, the player is given the opportunity to import saves from each of the previous chapters. The import process combines the inventories, money, and status from each chapter, giving access to power-leveled characters, good equipment, and enough money to buy plenty of new supplies. These bonuses are important, as the beginning of the final chapter plays-out much like the beginning of the second half of “Final Fantasy 6,” with a select group of characters freely wandering the world map in search of the rest of the characters. This section of “FF4:TAY” is pleasantly non-linear, which is doubly appreciated considering the extreme linearity of the earlier chapters. Unfortunately, the non-linearity doesn't last, as there is a “point of no return” in the last chapter that limits the player to exploring the final dungeon and its immediate vicinity. The final dungeon itself is a huge, all-new area with many, many challenging bosses and surprising cameos that are clearly targeted at fans of the pre-7 Final Fantasy games. The “point of no return” also marks the beginning of new story elements that not only tie “FF4:TAY” to the original “FF4,” but to every other 8-and-16-bit Final Fantasy. I was not expecting this kind of unifying story element, and was blown-away by it. All of the rehashing that made the early chapters feel ominously like the beginning of an Unnecessary Sequel were just building-up to and obscuring a thought-provoking twist ending.
As with any episodic game, length and value are typical concerns. The first and last chapters are surprisingly long, with the first clocking in at ~8 hours and the last an impressive ~20 hours. The “optional” chapters are significantly shorter, taking a mere ~3 hours each. However, the Challenge Dungeons can easily triple the gameplay time of each chapter except the last. Added together, my playthrough of “FF4:TAY” took 101 hours... incredibly impressive for a WiiWare title.
Gameplay
“FF4:TAY” shares the gameplay of its predecessor with little enhancement. Of course, since the original “FF4” both introduced and perfected the Active Time Battle system, this lack of change is appreciated. The only enhancements of note are the visibility of each character's battle gauge (similar to “FF6”) and the inclusion of a new command called “Band.” Bands are combo attacks involving two or more characters in the active battle party, similar to the Techs in “Chrono Trigger.” Bands can be discovered either by random experimentation on the part of the player or revealed during a story event. Most noteworthy are the few Bands that ignore the game's built-in damage limit of 9999. Many of the Bands are flashy and well-animated, but none of them are really necessary. Every battle can be won with solid strategy and normal commands, making Bands superfluous.
As previously noted, at the end of the first chapter and each “optional” chapter exists a Challenge Dungeon. Ostensibly put in place to give players something to do while waiting for the release of the next chapter, the Challenge Dungeons are completely unrelated to the story. Most of them are actually very challenging, featuring devious bosses and high-powered random encounters. These dungeons also contain incredibly useful and powerful treasure. Old-school RPG fans will love the challenge and figuring out boss strategies. Unfortunately, one bone-headed decision on the part of the Challenge Dungeon designers nearly ruined them: making the final chest in each dungeon produce a random treasure. The final chest refills each time the player enters the Challenge Dungeon and random treasures aren't entirely bad, but the fact that these dungeons are reasonably long and difficult make it infuriating to spend fifteen minutes running through a gauntlet only to find a Phoenix Down or other equally-worthless, common item in the final chest instead of one of the half-dozen “rare” treasures that are actually good. A smarter move on behalf of the designers would have been to make the final chest ONLY give the “rare” treasures and spare players many runs through each Challenge Dungeon after hitting the chapter level cap and money cap.
Overall
While “FF4:TAY” is an overall excellent RPG and solid addition to the Wii's library of exclusive content, the fact that the whole game will set buyers back 3700 Wii Points and a significant number of blocks of internal storage is a problem. Square-Enix should have just put the whole thing on a disc and charged $39.99. Not only would it have saved precious space on the Wii's limited NAND, it would have made the excellent sequel to one of their best games available to a wider audience.
I recommend “Final Fantasy 4: The After Years” to anyone who loves RPGs and especially to those jaded, old RPG fans like myself who hate what Square-Enix has done to the series since moving to the PlayStation platform. I also recommend that anyone who wants to play this game track down a copy of “Final Fantasy 4” and play the original game first. This game is not a rehash or a retread; it is a resolution.
Presentation: 4.5/5
Story: 4/5
Gameplay: 5/5
Overall (not an average): 4.5/5
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