Final Fantasy 4 Namingway Edition
A fan translation of a classic
Developer: Squaresoft
Publisher: Squaresoft
Genre: JRPG, Adventure
I would like to apologize in advanced for the lack of screenshots. I didn't actully realize my emulator had a screenshot function until I was near done with the game, and PRT SCN+ pasting it into Paint to save it was way too tedious.
Final Fantasy 4 is an old classic that I never got the chance to play as a kid. I did own the PS1 version that came with the PS1 Chrono Trigger rerelease, but somehow never got around to playing that one either.
I looked around for what would be the best version to play. There have been remakes and rereleases over the years, which can make a decision daunting. After some digging and poking, I decided on a modded fan translation known as the Namingway Edition, named for the Hummingway that changes your name in some versions.
The biggest changes in this version are that it restores the commands removed by easy-type, along with having a more accurate translation. In addition to this, it still keeps some of the classic Woolseyisms. After all, what’s FF4 in english without “You Spoony Bard?!”
I don’t know much about the original US translations so I can’t make any comparisons, but I enjoyed the translation that I played.
The game itself is what you would expect from an oldschool SNES era JRPG. Turn based combat, random encounters, level and experience systems, the standard. After all, Final Fantasy 4 is one of the games that set those standards.
The story is much more substantial than what came before, having a set, rather rigid plot and a set party that changes out characters during parts of the story (ie you don’t get to choose your party members). You get a party with a max of 5, and the formation is set to have either two in front and thee in back, or the reverse of that (three in front and two in back). I personally went with the two in front setup with my late game party (having Kain and Cecil as my frontliners).
As its an open world JRPG, to an extent the pacing kinda depends on the player, but I didn’t have any issue with the pacing here. There were a few little fun side things you could go and do too.
It’s not overly long. I put in 36 hours including exploration and lots of grinding. It’s not extremely grindy through most of the game, but I found I needed a pretty significant powerup just before the final boss. Thankfully, the final dungeon is a good spot to grind, and you can use warp/teleport to exit if you ever need to. The Point of No Return (technically isn’t one until the very very final boss, as you can still exit from the room just before) is pretty obvious so you aren’t gonna get blindsided by it.
Definitely give it a play if you’re into sprite based RPGs. This game still has many, many devoted fans, and for a very good reason.
About the different translations of FF4
Click here for the more in depth, spoiler filled review!
Review posted 2023/12/15