Final Fantasy IV

Final Fantasy IV is the fourth game in the Final Fantasy series. Originally released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the game was subsequently re-released for the PlayStation, the WonderSwan Color, the Game Boy Advance, the Nintendo DS and the PSP. It was originally released in North America as Final Fantasy II. This altered numbering system caused the game Final Fantasy VI to be numbered Final Fantasy III, leading to quite a bit of confusion when the PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII (which retained the number VII) came out. A sequel, Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, was released for Japanese mobile phones in February 2008. The sequel was released via WiiWare in the US on June 1, 2009, and will be included in the upcoming Final Fantasy IV The Complete Collection.

Gameplay
Gameplay in Final Fantasy IV is standard computer role-playing game fare; characters traverse an overworld to fulfill requirements of various quests, using towns to replenish strength, buy new equipment, and discover clues, all the while fighting monsters at random intervals. The game introduces the Active Time Battle (ATB) system to the series, which differs from previous Final Fantasy games (and from most RPGs in general) in that players must give orders to their characters in real-time. The ATB system would reappear in the next five games in the series, as well as making appearances in other games produced by Square, including Chrono Trigger.

In battle, the player controls a party with up to five characters, making Final Fantasy IV the first in the series where four party members is not the maximum capacity. Each character has certain strengths and weaknesses, including either spellcasting powers or other special abilities, based on their job. Like other Final Fantasy games, characters gain in abilities as they gain experience from battles. Magic is divided into four categories, which include White Magic, Black Magic, Rydia's Summon Magic (Call in the SNES version), and a special type of offensive and support magic used exclusively by Edge known as Ninjutsu.

Of note is the extensive use of "retort" attacks the enemies use. This makes it so that if all five of the player's characters attack an enemy with the retort ability the enemy will respond with five of its own attacks. An example is the Behemoth. This overused method was not repeated as extensively in later Final Fantasy games. This leads to much shuffling of characters to find one that is either able to kill the enemy in one blow, thereby killing the opponent before it can retort, or at least find a character who has a worthwhile melee attack.

Character shuffling was also a major problem in the game. The player could literally cycle through the entire party twice before having the ability to select the specific character one wanted to use. This shuffling was not necessarily caused by the ATB gauge; even with the character's gauge full, one might still need to cycle through the party twice before being able to use the character.

Spell casters, which account for eight of the twelve playable characters (Kain, Edward, Yang and Cid cannot use magic), gain magic spells at pre-programmed experience levels or fixed events in the story; for this reason Final Fantasy IV's ability development system is considered the simplest in the series. This makes it similar to the way spell casters gain spells in Dungeons &amp; Dragons, as opposed to the purchasing of spells in the original Final Fantasy.

Unlike the original Final Fantasy, almost no time is needed to gain enough levels or experience to advance to the game's next area; the game is more evenly paced out so that the player can simply go to the next area as long as the party does not escape from the majority of random encounters. Another new addition to the series is save points, which has became a staple feature since.

Characters
Final Fantasy IV features twelve playable characters, with Cecil as the main protagonist and the only permanent party member. The characters join and leave the party as dictated by the story.


 * Cecil Harvey (セシル・ハーヴィ Seshiru Hāvi) – The story's main protagonist. Initially a Dark Knight and Captain of the Red Wings of Baron, Cecil begins to question his King's motives, which gradually sets of a chain of events that leads him on the path to righteousness.
 * Kain Highwind (カイン・ハイウインド Kain Haiuindo) – The commander of the Baron Dragoons, and Cecil and Rosa's childhood friend. With a rivalry with Cecil and unrequited feelings for Rosa, Kain easily succumbs to the forces of Golbez's side, making his comrades' trust in him questionable.
 * Rydia (リディア Ridia) – A young Summoner whose village, Mist, was unknowingly destroyed by Cecil and Kain. Cecil's need to protect her and gain her forgiveness eventually earns him a formidable ally on his quest.
 * Tellah (テラ Tera) – An elderly Sage driven to exact revenge against Golbez following the death of his daughter, Anna.
 * Edward Chris von Muir (ギルバート・クリス・フォン・ミューア Girubāto Kurisu Fon Myūa) – The Prince of Damcyan, who lost his family and his beloved Anna to Golbez's attack on his kingdom. A cowardly Bard, he wants to help Cecil in whatever ways he can and is gradually inspired to become more courageous.
 * Rosa Joanna Farrell (ローザ・ジョアンナ・ファレル Rōza Joanna Fareru) – A White Mage from Baron, her feelings towards Cecil have grown beyond friendship.
 * Yang Fang Leiden (ヤン・ファン・ライデン Yan Fan Raiden) – The Grandmaster of the Monks of Fabul. He aids Cecil on behalf of his kingdom
 * Palom (パロム Paromu) – A young Black Mage in training from Mysidia. He and his twin sister Porom are sent to accompany Cecil on his journey up Mount Ordeals.
 * Porom (ポロム Poromu) – A young White Mage in training from Mysidia. She and her twin brother Palom are sent to accompany Cecil on his journey up Mount Ordeals.
 * Cid Pollendina (シド・ポレンディーナ Shido Porendīna) – A master engineer who designed various airships for the Red Wings, and is a father figure to Cecil, Kain and Rosa. His airship, the Enterprise, is one airship used by the party to travel around the world.
 * Edge (エッジ Ejji) – The Prince of Eblan and a skilled Ninja. He is quick to act on his emotions, but his strong sense of justice still prevails.
 * Fusoya (フースーヤ Fūsūya) – A Lunarian from the Red Moon, he sheds some light on Cecil and Golbez's true origins and the conflict that has threatened the Blue Planet's peace.

Story
The most powerful nation in the world, the Kingdom of Baron, begins utilizing its unparalleled air force, the Red Wings, and its legions of Dark Knights to attack peaceful nations in search of four Crystals, each corresponding to a different classical element. Cecil Harvey, a Dark Knight and leader of the Red Wings, begins to question the king's motives after forcibly stealing the Water Crystal from the wizards' town of Mysidia. Upon questioning the king, Cecil falls from grace and is stripped of his rank and sent, along with his friend, the Dragoon Kain Highwind, to deliver a package to the village of Mist. Prior to setting out on his quest, Cecil receives emotional support from White Mage Rosa Joanna Farrell, his life-long friend whose feelings for him have grown beyond mere friendship, and Cid Pollendina, Baron's airship engineer and father-figure to Cecil. Upon reaching Mist, the explosives in the package destroy the entire town and kill most of its inhabitants. Cecil and Kain find a young female survivor named Rydia who Cecil decides to take with them, but Rydia summons Titan and Kain is no-where to be found. Cecil, now angered with Baron and the Red Wings, initiates a quest to stop them.

On his journey back to Baron, Cecil encounters Rosa stricken with Desert Fever; an elderly sage, Tellah; the cowardly and emotional prince of Damcyan, Edward Chris von Muir; and the powerful Monk of Fabul, Yang Fang Leiden. Cecil also encounters Kain, who is proceeding to steal the remainder of the Crystals for Baron. He is followed shortly after by a man named Golbez, because Kain was not able to kill Cecil. During a skirmish, Golbez kidnaps Rosa. The party soon discovers Golbez is manipulating Kain and Baron's King in order to retrieve the Crystals. After a the party's ship is attacked by the sea monster Leviathan, Cecil becomes stranded near Mysidia, where he is forced to repent for his previous crimes by becoming a holy Paladin. It is here he also meets the apprentice mages Palom and Porom, who guide and monitor him along his journey up Mt. Ordeals. They are joined by Tellah, who seeks the power of Meteor, and after battling Elemental Archfiend of Earth Scarmiglione twice, Cecil overcomes his darkness and becomes a Paladin. Tellah remembers his spells and learns Meteor, which he cannot yet use.

After Cecil attains Paladin status, the party invades Baron via the Devil's Road. However, Golbez has manipulated the soldiers of Baron, and even replaced the king with Cagnazzo, the Elemental Archfiend of Water, whom Cecil and company destroy. Cid manages to escape his cell sometime during this incident, and after the twins intentionally petrify themselves to stop a deathtrap, the party takes to the skies in Cid's airship. Cecil soon encounters the brainwashed Kain, who forces Cecil to retrieve the Crystal of Earth in exchange for Rosa's life. After Cecil and company retrieve the Crystal from the Dark Elf, Kain leads the group to the Tower of Zot, where Golbez is holding Rosa. Upon facing Golbez directly, Tellah seizes the moment and attacks him with Meteor, the use of which kills him, but which injures, though does not kill, Golbez, causing him to retreat to heal. Seemingly as a result of Golbez's injuries, the mind control on Kain is shattered, and he explains Golbez has not retrieved all of the Crystals; four more, called the Dark Crystals, are hidden in the underground land of the Dwarves, and Golbez has already stolen two of them. The party rescues Rosa, and after destroying Barbariccia, the Elemental Archfiend of Wind, they unlock a path to the underworld and seek the Dark Crystals.

Cecil and company chase Golbez into the Underworld, and attempt to capture the Crystals before Golbez does. However, they lose one in battle against Golbez in the Dwarven Castle, during which Rydia rejoins the party. Later, after the Tower of Babil and the apparent sacrifices of Yang and Cid, the Ninja prince of Eblan, Edge, joins the party and helps them defeat Rubicante, the Elemental Archfiend of Fire. Cecil's party again comes up short; Golbez apprehends the remaining Crystal, by reasserting his mind control over Kain, who steals the last Crystal from Cecil and runs off. Golbez retreats to the planet's second moon. In order to discover what plan Golbez has for the Crystals and hopefully to stop it, Cecil follows Golbez to the moon using the ancient airship known as the Lunar Whale hidden in Mysidia's bay.

On the moon, Cecil meets Fusoya, who explains he is descended from a race known as the Lunarians, who originate on a planet that was destroyed to form an asteroid belt. Cecil's father, Kluya, was responsible for storing the Crystals, which correspond to Crystals on the moon that hold the Lunarians' thoughts, on the Blue Planet and introducing technological advances such as the airship. However, one Lunarian, Zemus, plans to wipe out all life on the planet for Lunarian inhabitation. It is revealed Zemus is manipulating Golbez and Kain, and that he plans to use the Crystals to revive a giant android, the Giant of Babil, and clear the planet for this purpose.

Accompanied by Fusoya, who can neutralize the Giant of Babil's force field, Cecil returns to the Blue Planet to find the Giant revived. The entire world - including former party members Edward, Cid, Yang, Palom and Porom - participates in the attack. After using Cid's airship to break into the Giant, the party defeats the Archfiends working in tandem, and destroys the CPU. Upon stopping the giant, Golbez confronts the party intent on destroying them. Fusoya is able to break Zemus's control over Golbez and Kain. In the scenes that follow, Cecil discovers Golbez is actually his brother. Golbez and Fusoya head to the moon to attempt to defeat Zemus, and Cecil's party follows. After fighting his way to the moon's core, Cecil watches Golbez and Fusoya defeat Zemus, only to discover his death unleashed a more powerful being named Zeromus, the embodiment of Zemus's reborn spirit and hatred. Zeromus easily defeats Golbez and Fusoya, then attacks the rest of Cecil's party. It takes the united life force of all beings, combined with a special Crystal provided by Golbez, for Cecil and his party to defeat Zeromus.

After Zeromus's defeat, Fusoya returns to sleep with the rest of his people. Golbez, feeling that he cannot return to the earth after what he has done, and being half Lunarian himself, goes with him. Before he does, Cecil forgives him and calls him brother. Later, the moon heads off into space, and many of the characters return to their homes, several in order to rebuild them. Kain goes to Mount Ordeals to train himself, vowing not to return to Baron until he has proven himself worthy. The important characters in the game (excluding Kain) attend Cecil and Rosa's wedding, as Cecil becomes King of Baron.

Development
Final Fantasy IV was released in a variety of different versions for a variety of different platforms. All versions tell the same story, and feature the same characters. Most use the same graphics, sound, music and basic game engine (the DS version being a notable exception). Nonetheless, there are certain key distinctions between each version.

Because of the differences between the North American SNES version and the original Japanese release, in the late 1990s, J2e Translations released an English language fan translation of the original game.

J2e
This version is identical to the original in terms of game content and mechanics, however, many bizarre and humorous script changes were made in addition to the translation from Japanese. Being an unofficial fan translation and therefore not subject to copyright and censorship laws, this version includes various references to pop culture, such as William Shatner and Penthouse Magazine, and several off-color lines - most of them notably uttered by Edge.

Easytype
The original Final Fantasy IV was altered in several regards in order to reduce the difficulty level for Final Fantasy IV Easytype, a version exclusive to Japan. Various spells, abilities and items were removed or altered, shop prices were lowered, and other tweaks to make the game easy were put in place. It is interesting to note that many enemies, attacks and items were renamed. It is often thought the original North American translation was a translation of Easytype, but the translated version was developed before Easytype, and the difficulty is reduced further in Easytype than in the North American version. This leads to speculation that Easytype was based on the North American Final Fantasy II rather than vice-versa.

Final Fantasy II (North America)
Final Fantasy IV Easytype is roughly similar to the game released in North America, but the game lost some content to censorship and poor translation when localized. References to religious imagery and names were removed, violence and death were toned down or removed entirely, and various names were changed in all aspects of the game.

PlayStation
The PlayStation re-release is mostly identical to the original version of Final Fantasy IV. Some minor tweaks introduced in Final Fantasy IV Easytype have been left in, but these are so rare the average gamer could easily play through the entire game and never notice them. The most notable change in the PlayStation release is the inclusion of a full motion video opening sequence, the ability to "run" in dungeons and towns by holding the Cancel button, and the ability to perform a "memo" save anywhere on the World Map. This save would remain active in the PlayStation's RAM until it is overwritten by another such save, or the power is turned off or interrupted.

The North American and European localization of Final Fantasy IV PlayStation features an entirely rewritten translation, which addresses most of the discrepancies between the original game and the SNES Final Fantasy II. However, certain sections, such as the line "You Spoony Bard!", were kept intact, as many of them had achieved cult status.

WonderSwan Color
The WonderSwan Color version of Final Fantasy IV lacks the FMVs of the PlayStation version, has decreased screen resolution, and down-sampled music and sound effects to meet the specifications of the device.

However, a number of graphical enhancements were made to character sprites and backgrounds by providing additional details and color shading. The original character portraits were replaced with new, smaller portraits. Also, certain boss sprites were changed to those featured in the Japanese Easytype version of the Super Famicom game.

The game also featured revamped difficulty different from both the original and the Easytype versions.

Game Boy Advance
The Game Boy Advance port was released in North America on December 12, 2005, while the Japanese version was released on December 15, 2005. The Japanese version also came with a bonus addition of a themed face plate for the Game Boy Micro which features Amano artwork of Cecil and Kain. The game is largely based on the WonderSwan Color version. Some changes include the addition of character portraits in text boxes, the ability to switch party members, increased difficulty, and new dungeons with new items and weapons along with new bosses. The script also received a retranslation more faithful to the original material. The Quicksave, which allows the player to save the current position (regardless of where) in a file that is deleted upon loading, is featured.

However, some minor bugs were introduced into the game, notably in the battle system, possibly as a result of merely porting the game from an existing platform instead of fully optimizing the game for the GBA hardware. Examples would include party members' turns being skipped and randomly being given two (or, less frequently, more) turns in a row straight for a single character (for instance, Edge might attack a monster, and once he has, he will instantly be given another chance to act without waiting for his time gauge to fill up). There is also some jerkiness while flying airships (more so when going left and right than up and down) and during menu navigation (in and out of battle). The latter makes it less effective to select spells or weapons during fast-paced Active Mode battles. Furthermore, some minor "artistic license" was taken with the soundtrack (the Tower of Babil and Sylph Cave/Summoned Monster Cave themes each have one altered note). Also, minor lag during boss battles is present.

These are heavily present in the original release of Final Fantasy IV Advance; however, in Japan, a second version of the game was released which corrected most, if not all, of the bugs and problems. The European version of the game derives from the second Japanese version, which makes it the only English release of the improved version.

Nintendo DS
Final Fantasy IV was released for the Nintendo DS as part of the Final Fantasy 20th Anniversary campaign. The game is developed by Matrix Software, the team responsible for the Final Fantasy III remake, and was supervised by members of the original development team: Takashi Tokita serves as executive producer, Tomoya Asano as producer, Hiroyuki Itō as battle designer. Animator Yoshinori Kanada storyboarded the new cutscenes. The game was released in North America on 22 July, 2008.

According to executive producer Takashi Tokita (scenario writer of the original release), 3/4 of the original script had been cut from original Super Famicom release, but some of this lost material was reworked into the remake, while some new events were added. The player has the ability to use the Nintendo DS stylus to move around similarly to the Final Fantasy III remake, while the new mini games require use of the stylus. Additionally, the game features an ability system, which should add replayability to the game, as well as a New Game Plus feature and the Quicksave, which allows the player to save the current position (regardless of where) in a file that is deleted upon loading. An "Auto-Battle" system was also implemented, allowing the player to leave the parties battle actions up to commands set in the Abilities menu outside of battle.

In June 2007, Square Enix held a casting for a vocalist to sing a version of Final Fantasy IV's "Theme of Love" rearranged by Nobuo Uematsu. It also used a voice cast for the game's cinematic sequences. Some changes and additions to the Nintendo DS release include the introduction of a new ability system called Augments, increased difficulty level with new enemy attack scripts and increased enemy stats, changes to the equipment system, the summon Whyt, which makes use of the DS touch screen, and the aforementioned New Game Plus.

Mobile phones
Final Fantasy IV was ported to Japanese mobile phones on October 5th, 2009. The game uses all-new character graphics during and outside of battle, with some taken from The After Years. This version is based on Final Fantasy IV Advance with a lot of differences. It still incorporates the party-switching feature, and has another post-game bonus "EX Dungeon", which is a remake of the Lunar Ruins.

PlayStation Portable
Square Enix has announced Final Fantasy IV Complete Collection coming to PlayStation Portable in Spring 2011, which will include remakes of both Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy IV The After Years. It will also include a new scenario, Final Fantasy IV Interlude, which connects the original game's story with The After Years.

Trivia

 * In the DS version, there is a possible glitch involving the event viewer: After viewing a certain movie, the game will sometimes freeze up at the final FMV and players can not access New Game Plus.
 * Although its sequel, Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, is visually similar to the classic 2D versions of the game, it follows after the slightly altered continuity established in the DS version.
 * Final Fantasy IV is one of the Final Fantasy games that has been novelized in Japan, and it was split into two volumes. It was written by Ichiro Tezuka, who is also known for writing the scenario to . He also wrote the novelization for The After Years.
 * The Boss Theme of Final Fantasy IV was slightly remixed and used as the Culex Boss Theme in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. In fact, Culex himself was purposely based on a boss that would be typical in the Final Fantasy series.
 * Cecil, the main protagonist in Final Fantasy IV, makes a cameo appearance in Square's Secret of Evermore as a merchant in Ebon Keep.