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I don't know if people are utterly sick of me talking about this damn game yet - Elohim knows I've said enough about it - but I wanted to give some details and opinions of
Final Fantasy: Four Heroes of Light in a format more suited to a proper review, especially because even though I've spent hours relaying the ridiculous storyline, I haven't said much about game mechanics.
Graphics
The Nintendo DS, as you know, is roughly on par with the N64 in terms of graphical prowess, perhaps a bit above that. In general 3D models are a bit crude but recognizable, while sprites are excellent. Four Heroes is a 3D game, with similar graphics to the DS remakes of Final Fantasy 3 and Final Fantasy 4 (in fact, it's handled by the same development team within Square Enix). Monsters vary from the silly to the scary, and the playable characters are adorable super-deformed little things. Absolutely up my alley, but not a style everyone enjoys.
Also, the character designer is the same guy who did FF3's DS version as well as Final Fantasy Tactics, and I love this guy's art style. Easily one of my favorite character designers, right up there with whoever came up with the idea to make Mario a piece of paper.
Music
Some seriously catchy tunes here. Four Heroes' music will stick with me long after I've put it down. I'd single out the boss theme and the "scary" theme used in a couple late-game dungeons as being particularly excellent. One thing I really love is the way the music changes depending on how you're doing in battle. If you're in trouble against normal enemies, the music gets frantic, and when a boss is running out of HP the music switches to a new, energized tune to emphasize that you're near victory. It can fall flat if the boss is killed too quickly after the music change, but when it works,
it works.
Gameplay
Four Heroes has a number of interesting twists to the standard RPG formula. The coolest is the job system, which affects what special abilities your characters can use. While I spent basically the entirety of the game on just six or so classes (White Mage, Black Mage, Hero, Merchant, Thief, and Wayfarer), there's tons of different ways to build your characters, and it's pretty easy to change classes if you change your mind. For instance, you don't need to go without a healer if you don't want a White Mage. The Salve-Maker class is this game's version of a Chemist, and can heal the whole party at once with a single item, while the Wayfarer can double the power of a potion and is a great class for the solo sections thanks to its Escape ability. Some of the later classes get downright bizarre, like the secret Seamstress class that attacks with giant sewing needles and can destroy a weapon to temporarily pump up the power of another, or the Shaman who instead of reviving your KOed allies allows them to fight on as invincible ghosts.
Another neat twist is the Ability Points system. Every turn a character gains 1 AP, up to a max of five. Every action uses at least 1 AP except Defend. You don't have to worry about running out of MP here - just Defend for a turn and you'll be able to cast magic again. The mana-restoring Ether now just refills your AP - it's best for going into boss fights with a full bar (or 4 points, which will become 5 on the battle's first turn).
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| Godsephine |
Here's a weird quirk about battles - you can't pick your target. A full set of four enemies (not all encounters have four baddies) forms a square. Physical attackers start with the front-left enemy, while magic strikes the back-right enemy, each going across, then into the next row as the fight progresses. Enemies take advantage of this in some of their formations, most often by having a burly enemy in front and some frailer guys in back. You can't pick your target with your own characters, either - healing spells target whoever needs healing the most in terms of percentage of health remaining. While I was a bit off-put at first by this bizarre design choice, it actually isn't a big deal once you get used to it, and it's not common that I wished Sarah would heal someone different from who she ended up actually healing. It helped that in the first half of the game it's rare to have more than one ally and in the second half you'll likely use the White Mage or Salve-Maker's "heal everyone at once" skills a lot and avoid the problem entirely.
There's also the inventory system, which makes item management a major priority. Every character can only carry 15 items, and that includes their equipment and any duplicate items - but not key items, thankfully. There's a Storage Shop in every town that will hold on to your excess goods until they're needed.
All these quirks and twists made Four Heroes a game that simultaneously defied RPG stereotypes like the infinite bag of holding and the management of mana while embracing other stereotypes like the plucky hero, kidnapped princess, and villains who do bad things because they're bad.
I should also note that this game is very difficult if you aren't using a walkthrough. There is not a lot of direction in terms of where to go and what to do, and there are occasions where you need to talk to an NPC multiple times or wander the world map a bit in order to proceed. The NPCs will often provide hints, though, especially for things like finding the next dungeon or locating a monster with an important item drop. Also, the save system is a bit nasty - you can't save on the overworld and there's no quick-saving, so either find the save point guy and his fox pet or put the DS in sleep mode and plug it into its charger.
Atmosphere
It's strange. I'm a huge Final Fantasy fan, but I only play the older games in the series, and the spinoffs that attempt to channel those old games - like Four Heroes and Final Fantasy Tactics. I have a strong liking of the more lighthearted feelings these old-school games tend to favor inducing over the darker, realistic-looking, non-SD characters that took over the main series in the PlayStation era. Four Heroes absolutely nails the old-school, peppy vibe of FF1 and FF4. Like many of my favorite RPGs, it knows when to be serious, but it also knows to keep things fun and full of fantasy. It's kind of a hard concept to convey, but I guess you could call it the game's "heart" or "soul". Four Heroes is an optimistic game about overcoming challenges and saving the world - sorta like how Zoofights RP tends to go.
Josephine
Mother of god, did this game enhance my appreciation for Josephine. She's been a bit of a chew toy in ZFRP - the diet problems, the poor combat ability (until she got her rocket launcher), and the Monster Blood incident made it clear that Josephine tended to get the short end of the stick, but naming Four Heroes' Yunita after Josephine took it to a new level. Due to a combination of intentional in-game dialogue and plot and some unintentional gameplay misfortunes, Josephine's situation got far, far worse before it got better. I'm still amazed at how much this game enjoyed dumping shit on the poor girl - from being abandoned by her allies multiple times to winding up a bum in the city, Josephine got kicked into the dirt more times than I can count. But now she's a powerful party leader who has risen above her past and become an essential part of the team.
:3
Recommendation
It's kinda hard to recommend Four Heroes to you guys because I kinda gave away the entire plot in my Chatzy reports, but it really was a great game - hence my enthusiasm for it. It's likely to crack my Top 25 of all time and it's one of the three best games I've played this year (the other two are Final Fantasy Tactics and Ghost Trick). This is exactly the sort of game that appeals to me - a fair amount to do, cute and likable characters (eventually - Jusqua AKA Pit is kind of a dick for the first third of the game), fun gameplay, and a storyline that is simultaneously stereotypical as hell and completely bizarre. People who don't care for getting unleashed into a big world without much direction can still enjoy the game with a guide - I used the one on GameFAQs, which proved very useful. Also, warning to people who need to 100 percent their games - it's very, very easy to miss permanently missable items in this game if you aren't closely following a guide.
If you're sick to death of the traditional RPG, Four Heroes probably isn't for you. As for me, I loved (almost) every minute of it, am extremely pleased with my purchase, and I'm eagerly looking forward to the 3DS sequel,
Bravely Default: Flying Fairy, which I'm assuming will get a less insane name if it gets an English translation.
Five Rolans out of five.
