Final Fantasy IV (3D Remake)

This is a really bad port. The graphics and sounds are not improved from the original and there are severe framerate stutters that can last for several seconds which seem to occur for no reason.

FFIV has one of the most enduring stories in the entire franchise. In my personal opinion, it ranks up there with VI, VII, IX and X, and as unforgettable and masterfully told. This 3D port of the DS remake is not perfect. I think some of the elements brought over from its phone releases don't look good here, but it's also understandable why the corresponding DS components couldn't translate either. I think with Fan Mods, this title could eventually shine like FFIX does with the Memoria and Moguri mods. I hope someday it gets to.

In my personal opinion this remains the definitive version of FFIV. Gameplay changes and additions as well as voice-acted cutscenes make this a fresh experience, while still remaining mostly faithful to the original game's story and gameplay.

Quite simply, one of the best ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ games of all time. Tight story, engaging battle mechanics, and relatively quick to get through if you don't care about min-maxing everything.

Sylph cave is annoying as ♥♥♥♥. MULTIPLE enemies casting SLEEP ALL on your entire party while the battle chugs along at 15 fps is just pure insanity Missable content is bad game design. bestiary, items, all of it. bad game design. Forcing players to replay the game multiple times is bad game design for a story based game. the story is also trash and shallow. it attempts to make you have feelings for these characters but some of them have 5 minutes of screen time. the story also just doesn't make a lot of sense. your party decides to go somewhere to do something and then you fail in doing that so you just leave and go do something else. this happens multiple times, sometimes for dumb reasons like trap doors, other times for no reason at all. the voice acted scenes are so forced and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ done, maybe just in the American version, but that's the version i'm playing. everyone's names are getting pronounced incorrectly and the emotion is severely lacking. it's actually pretty funny to watch them because of how bad they are. it's like Sega CD FMV level acting. major progression is sometimes halted because you just didn't talk to 1 random NPC that gives you a solution to beating the next boss, or giving you the ability to travel to your next destinations. the battle scene is a forced 15 FPS which is atrocious. using a fix for it is actually bad and makes some boss fights un-winnable so you're forced to play all battles at 15 FPS boss fights aren't balanced at all. i get that they wanted you to try and think when fighting them instead of just facerolling through the game but some fights just felt so unfair and rage inducing either because of how often the boss would spam AOE damage that you can't out heal or just having an automatic counter to anything you did to the boss. one of the more annoying parts about the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ boss fights is that there were some gay, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ cutscenes that you're forced to watch every time you lose to the boss. unlike other FF games, you don't have complete party setup freedom. you're locked into either 3 in the front line or 3 in the back line and with the frequency that party member's just permanently leave or die (for dumb reasons), your party order is constantly getting ♥♥♥♥♥♥ over and randomized. It's also confusing where certain members should be based on different party configurations that get forced upon you at some parts of the game. Some characters can play in both front and back lines but you're forced to choose where they go rather than putting them where you want, because if you want to try out Rydia in the front line, you're forced to put Kain in the back, etc. the game has no cool loot. there's a map discovery system that grants you bonus items, which at first I found annoying, but it ended up actually being kinda fun to do, however sometimes it's not obvious where a secret transition tunnel is and so you're over grinding your party to complete the map. the rewards are mostly pretty weak until the mid game. and I'd rather have the loot be random with a chance at getting gear than just fixed ♥♥♥♥♥♥ consumables. Also why the ♥♥♥♥ am I going out of my way to open a chest late in the story of the game just to open a hi-potion and a phoenix down? I can buy those in the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ shop and I don't even want to do that. Artificial gameplay; waste of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time. the first couple times I attempted to play this game (unsuccessfully) I didn't understand how the auto battle system worked and that you could set the abilities before hand in the menus. Knowing this is important because of the ATB system, but it isn't explained and I think is just overall bad game design (it should have just been 100% turn based combat) For whatever reason you don't have to collect all items in the game for any achievement specifically, but the way that the augment system works you basically have to follow a guide because it doesn't explain that you can get some augments by giving characters augments that they don't need (and that you never even need to use these augments). What also isn't explained is that you carry over augments into new game+, which is dumb because I don't want to play the game again to get the full experience. I should be able to complete everything in the game in one go. You're just creating artificial gameplay that is a waste of time. I'm okay with RPGs that require grinds, but the grinds have to be meaningful, impactful and feel worth it. Playing through a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ story 3 times just to have a chance at the hardest boss in the game is insane. some dungeons just can't be teleported out of? for some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ reason? if you give the player a tool don't take it away from them, or if you're gonna do some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like this, add the ability to toggle encounters off you sick bastards. oh wait, there IS a way to turn encounters off? but it's only acquirable in the absolute late game when you don't need it anymore because you were forced to over level? cool ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ story bro. the reason an encounter toggle is even in this game is because you're expected to play through it multiple times, which you don't find out until you beat the game the first time. who's gonna wanna do that for a game like this? man can't comprehend how painful the grind is for this game if you're trying to 100% it. I can't even imagine trying to do it without a guide. the grind for this game should classify as a form of torture. i don't understand how you would know how half of the ♥♥♥♥ exists in the game. there are insanely low drop rate rare items that you have to either get lucky or spend a ♥♥♥♥ ton of cash AND time hoping that the dumb items drop, but why would you even know to spend that money and time if you didn't research the game beforehand? and half of the stuff that is rare isn't even good, they're just memes. some good things about the game: there's really cool monster design and a lot of thought goes into combat depth in terms of weaknesses and stuff, and this is probably where (i'm assuming in the original SNES version) final fantasy games started getting more advanced in terms of strategy, which would continue on into future games and really made a huge leap in the genre for min-maxing strategic gameplay. however, while it has this depth, the elemental equipment you get is either just weaker than non elemental gear or 50% of the time you're running into monsters you're gonna heal instead of 2x damage them. I also don't think there's a way to swap equipment mid-battle either which doesn't help. I like that characters learn new spells by leveling up instead of having to buy them from shops or find the magic spells in chests. I do like the weird Nintendo DS graphics/models for the monsters and characters. Something oddly satisfying the way the pixelated textures are placed on the low poly character models, but I wouldn't say it's better than the 2D version of the game. The auto save feature is kinda nice because when the game is kicking your ass for being imbalanced and poorly designed, it auto saved right before you got that game over so you don't really lose as much time as it feels like you're losing. Swapping rows in combat when a back attack happens is pretty nice since it swaps all characters at the cost of only one of their turns. I like the secret developer's office they put in the game, it's cute, but imo it's wasted dev time that could have went into making QoL features instead. Summary I think overall this game would have really benefitted from being 100% turn based instead of using the ATB system, it would have really helped a lot of things the game struggles with. Just compare the combat of this game with the combat of FF3 3D remake. 4/10 don't even think about spending money on this game

great version of the game with great newgame+

Probably the worst and most obnoxious FF game I've played. Augment system is a hassle, the party is a revolving door of people you never really give a ♥♥♥♥ about other than a select few (Rydia, who's missing for a large part of the game).