Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (WiiWare) review

[R.O.B.]

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years - WiiWare

Does this title retain the magic of the original 16-bit release?

Read the Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (WiiWare) review

Source: Nintendo Life

[Yossarian]

7/10

The review says that whilst it is a good FF with new battle features the full game with all DLC costs around 3700 points and it's not so good as to justify that kind of price.

[Yossarian]

Here's a more detailed review.

http://cheatcc.com/wii/rev/finalfant...arsreview.html

[Betagam7]

I wouldn't be surprised to see the game eventually get a disc release with all chapters on it.

[KeeperBvK]

Originally Posted by Yossarian

Here's a more detailed review.

http://cheatcc.com/wii/rev/finalfant...arsreview.html

CCC's probably the only gaming site on the web I try to avoid even more than Nintendolife.

[Jogurt the Yogurt]

My mini-review/impressions:

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years — 9/10

This game is designed specifically to appeal to fans of FFIV, and I am one. The game uses basically the same engine/system as the original, uses the same maps, the same music, the same sprites (for enemies), etc. but adds new things here and there to keep things interesting. The on-map sprites and the party member sprites are new. The old maps have new twists, often with new areas to explore. They have even added two new elements to the gameplay: the Band system, which lets party members team up to perform combo attacks, and the phases of the moon, which affect the effectiveness of certain types of attacks.

Overall, the new story is interesting, the new characters are pretty cool (and the old characters are really cool), and it's well-paced and enjoyable. If you've played a SNES FF game (and you should have, if you're considering downloading this), then you know what to expect.

The game loses a point because of its distribution method and cost. The main game consists of an 800 point episode now and an 800 point episode in September. To complement this main game, there are also seven 300 point episodes, one of which is available now, and three of which will be available in each of July and August. That's a total of 3700 points, or roughly $37, for an episodic mobile phone port. The first episode of the main game took me about 4 hours to beat, and the first side-story episode (Rydia's Tale) took me around three hours. This will end up being a respectable length when all is said and done (30 hours or so?), but with only these initial episodes available right now, it seems very short and very expensive. On the plus side, if you're on a limited allowance/budget, at least the episodic release schedule means you'll only have to spend about $10 per month rather than $37 up-front.

[Angelic Lapras King]

Originally Posted by Yossarian

7/10

The review says that whilst it is a good FF with new battle features the full game with all DLC costs around 3700 points and it's not so good as to justify that kind of price.

But then what if the DLC makes it worth it?

[Jogurt the Yogurt]

Originally Posted by Angelic Lapras King

But then what if the DLC makes it worth it?

IMO, it does.

The main quest took me 4 hours. That was gunning straight through the game. Rydia's Tale took me 3 hours, again, gunning straight through. Six more side-quests at 3 hours each = 21 hours for the side-quests, not incl. main story.

My guess is the second half of the main quest, coming in Sept., will open up the world for you to explore and basically do endgame-style stuff (explore, find ultimate gear, power level, whatever), so that will have a lot more potential to take more time.

Each episode also contains a "Challenge Dungeon". This is kind of like a mystery dungeon in that the maps and treasure change every time you enter. The purpose of this challenge is to see how long you can last / how far you can get, collect some sweet treasure you couldn't find in the main part of the game, and to increase the episode's longevity while you wait for new episodes. Each episode has one of these!

So if you gun through the game like me and these first two episodes set an acceptable precedent, then you're looking at ~30 hours of gameplay. If you take some more time to explore, you'll play longer. A friend of mine, who's also a Final Fantasy veteran, spend 6 hours on the main quest and 4-5 on Rydia's. At that pace, he's looking at 44 hours not including endgame/postgame exploration and challenge dungeons!

$37 for a 45+ hour RPG is not a bad deal. Yes, it's about the price of a new DS game, but it's also about the same level of content. Many DS games are just retooled SNES games. Hell, a lot of people don't even like FFIV DS's 3D art style, so this game is even better for them!

My main gripes about this game is that it could have been a touch cheaper (maybe 1000 for each main episode and 200 for each side-quest, for a total of 3400) and the episodes could have been a bit more spread out (I have to wait a month to play some more), but the content of the game definitely makes it worth it. If you wait until September and just shell out the whole cost, then you don't even have to deal with the waiting!

EDIT: One more note. After the credits of each episode, you get a chance to save your episode's clear data. The game explains that this will make your data available to the other sections of the game. So far, this hasn't been utilized between these two episodes, but it's possible that in later episodes, when characters and story paths start to intersect, that they will draw on your save data to provide character stats, items, etc. It's also extremely likely that the second half of the main game (800 points, coming in Sept.) will draw the various characters together and gather their information from every episode's clear data.