Final Fantasy 4 Namingway Edition
Time to go fight a dragon god on the moon!
Developer: Squaresoft
Publisher: Squaresoft
Genres: JRPG, Adventure
I didn’t really know any of the major story beats of this game, despite the other info I had picked up via cultural osmosis.
It really just starts with you having to follow a war criminal of a king and not even 15 minutes into the game you’re already trying to destroy a village of innocents. Not that you’re told its full of innocent people, or that the horrible Mist Dragon was actually just a summoner and good job, you’ve made an orphan! Man that escalated fast.
I like that Cecil, realizing he messed up big time, takes one look at this child whose life he ruined and decides he’s a dad now. Meet his new daughter, Rydia!
I liked Rydia a lot, even in her kid form. Her kid sprite was super cute, and she was actually pretty strong. When I got stuck with Tellah later in the game, I kept wishing I still had her on my team. I was so happy when I got her back! And holy bananas is she strong! She and Edge basically took out Zeromus by themselves. Bahamut was excellent for wiping out packs for grinding.
Because I’m a fool that loves white mages, of course I liked Rosa. In fact, I actually had her sprite up when I was running around because she’s cute.
Gosh I hate Tellah so much. He suuuucks. His MP is abysmal for the simple fact that it is permanently capped at 98. His stats actually decrease the more he levels. He’s a huge jerk to Edward in his grief (we can see that Edward cares a lot about Tellah). Wasn’t expecting permadeath, and I didn’t want him to die, but he absolutely shouldn’t have treated Edward the way he did. That’s your daughter’s beloved partner dude, you think she’d be happy with you attacking him?
Yang is super cool and I wish he could have come with us to the moon. Would have absolutely taken him over Kain any day of the week.
Cid is fantastic. He’s such a character, and probably my favorite Cid. He’s also practically unkillable and I think he’s cool.
Kain sucks. That’s all I’m saying on the matter.
The twins are definitely contenders for my favorite characters. I nearly screamed at my pc during the Break scene. It was heartbreaking. I kept periodically going back to them through the game, trying to use remedies or whatever I could, frowning very heavily when the game said I couldn’t turn them back since they used it willingly. At least we got them back in the end!
Edge is hilarious. I like him a lot. And he got strong fast too! Especially once he had the Moonring blade. He starts off way lower level than everyone else in the party when you get him, so I had to base my endgame grinding off his and Rydia’s levels as the lowest level people in the party.
Okay.
I think its time to talk about it.
That scene
The one scene where I could not stop laughing and yelling at my screen because of how supid it was.
Its time to talk about Golbez’s arm.
Seriously what the heck with up with the crawling arm scene in the Dwarven Castle? Why did they all just stand there and let it creep around like an evil roomba and then just let it leave with the crystal. We have a paladin, a summoner, a white wizard, an expert martial artist…why did not a single one of them, I dunno, pick up the severed arm?
Why. Just...why. That’s probably the only major complaint I have about this game’s story flow. Even the whole “Oh he was just manipulated and there was another, bigger boss” didn’t surprise me because 3 already did that. Actually, it seems to happen in several Final Fantasy games. Even my beloved FF14 does it. Repeatedly.
I just don’t get it. It was a severed arm in a heavy metal gauntlet, very slowly crawling around, not even going straight for the crystal.
The only thing in the game that I found funnier than the arm was the Lustful Lali-ho book. That had me giggling like crazy.
I kinda enjoyed the Sylph dungeon but I didn’t realize until I went to the path to the Feymarch that I realized you could use float outside of battle to avoid all of the poison. Instead, I was a moron that just chugged potions every few steps.
I did get this really funny screenshot during a fight with a bog witch. This was the only time I bothered with the Printscreen+Paste into Paint thing because, well, just look at it, it’s glorious.
Not sure which fight was my favorite, but I know which one was the absolute worst. Odin. The fact that the strategy is to speed spam through your actions is super annoying, since really only Edge and Rydia could do any actual damage to him. At least it didn’t take me a half an hour to kill him like it did in 3.
When I got to the moon, I cheesed Bahamut in the most ridiculous way I could. I had Rosa heal when needed, and spam Reflect when it fell off. It took a little bit, but Rosa managed to solo him. I know that’s not the intended way to fight him but I don’t care. Having a White Mage use no attacks, soloing Bahamut with shields while her team lies dead on the ground is An Experience. She might as well have asked him why he kept hitting himself.
The first time I faced off agains Zeromus, I had the terrible luck of getting smacked with two Big Bangs in a row and no time to heal, which wiped my whole party, of course. So I went back to my save and did a little grinding. Even popped back out a couple of times to restock at the Hummingways.
Once I had everyone (except Rydia) to level 70, I headed through the core, Edge using smoke bombs on everything just to get through. I grinded enough, I didn't need more EXP!
When I got there and started the battle, I had Edge throw his stack of fumas while Rydia sicced Bahamut on him repeatedly. Kain and Cecil didn't really contribute a whole lot, as Rydia stole the show. Zeromus was honestly kind of a pushover this time, which really reminded me of my fight with Cloud of Darkness in the FF3 Pixel Remaster.
It was a fun ride with a nice ending. Hope Rosa enjoys her 4 million gil retirement fund.
Also I still don’t trust Kain.
Review posted 2023/12/15