I used to be very late to the celebration on Ultimate Fantasy IV (or as I knew it, Ultimate Fantasy II in its authentic Tremendous Nintendo incarnation): I did not end the sport for the primary time till the yr 2000. Nonetheless, the fourth of the more and more inaccurately named Ultimate Fantasy video games continues to be the one I’ve replayed essentially the most typically, so I grabbed it when the chance arose for a evaluate. And it nonetheless holds up, even when it is lacking some issues in its Pixel Remaster type that I am used to in different releases.
Ultimate Fantasy IV actually opens with a bang, as proper from the soar our hero Cecil is being attacked by monsters whereas coming back from a army mission on behalf of the beforehand peaceable kingdom of Baron. After wiping out the monsters, Cecil is stripped of his command by the King for daring to query why the dominion is attacking different nations to acquire their crystals, and as a substitute he has to ship a “Bomb Ring” to a close-by village. If that query is the small domino, the large one on the finish is “flying to the moon to destroy an intergalactic evil in a literal house whale”, accompanied by Cecil’s real love Rosa, his pal and first instance of the “Face-Heel Revolving Door” in gaming Kain, and an ever-changing group of individuals with specific ability units. Regardless of the simplicity of the story, it is nonetheless informed extremely properly and straightforward to observe.
The fight system is fundamental as could be anticipated for a 32-year-old RPG: it is a flip based mostly setup with the unique “Energetic Time Battle” system, the place flip order is set roughly by a timer measured by bars on the precise aspect of the battle display screen. And sure, all encounters are random – although one of many largest additions to the Pixel Remaster variations is the power to toggle encounters on or off by urgent the precise stick in or selecting a menu possibility. The choices to “assault” with the outfitted weapon, use character particular skills together with magic, or use an merchandise are chosen from a menu because the meter on the precise fills up. I stress that skills are tied to the character as a result of not like the earlier recreation within the collection and each successor recreation, there are precisely two occasions when anybody adjustments their class skills. You may’t make Kain right into a healer or Rosa right into a person of black magic, and anybody who learns magic learns new spells at prescribed ranges. This may result in some fairly unbalanced group setups: within the time it took to clear via one dungeon early on I went from a celebration of three squishy magic customers and a melee attacker with small therapeutic capabilities to a few melee attackers and a magic person who’s bodily incapable of gaining magic factors. I’ve by no means understood why that needed to occur.
The obvious method to get round wonky group composition is to grind – and fortunately the Pixel Remaster makes this extremely straightforward. The in-game boosts – toggleable settings for cash and expertise that may be set wherever between 0 and 4x the conventional values meant I used to be within the closing dungeon with an in-game time of about ten hours. If I did not cease to see if it was attainable to simply grind one of the best armor within the recreation within the closing dungeon, it could be attainable to beat the sport in underneath 12 hours. (And I did get the armor for my complete celebration. I suppose the Pixel Remaster additionally buffed the drop price of the merchandise you commerce to get the armor.) For comparability, I imagine my clear time on the file I beat (SNES) FFII with 23 years in the past was 36 hours – and that is sometimes called “EasyType” based mostly on the way it was introduced again to Japan. Sadly, I needed to dig up the SNES cartridge to verify as a result of later rereleases of FFIV supplied extra content material – two bonus dungeons and the power to vary the celebration up past Cecil on the GBA and PlayStation Moveable variations, and a New Recreation+ and skill carryover possibility on the DS model and in a while Steam. As I feared in my preliminary impressions, none of that content material obtained remade right here. Which is a disgrace, as I like taking part in Loopy Airship with Cid.
The preliminary releases of the Pixel Remaster variations had been criticized – with nice quantity and frequency – for the Western font alternative which was closely left-justified and small. Sq. Enix listened and supplied a second alternative of font for the console releases, and thank heavens for that: the brand new font is way bigger, higher suited to the artstyle of those 2D video games, and customarily simpler on my eyes. I’ve by no means been a fan of the “retro” filter that is supposed to copy taking part in it on an previous TV, however the Remaster does provide it as an possibility for many who want to partake. Technically, the sport runs very properly, other than the preliminary load taking barely longer when taking part in the sport in handheld mode.
Retro filtering apart, I’ve by no means seen Ultimate Fantasy IV look this good. The character sprites mirror even the tiniest particulars of the unique paintings by Yoshitaka Amano, and I can lastly make out the shadows on the bottom when utilizing one of many flying automobiles on the map. The brand new variations of the soundtrack sound identical to I imagined them again within the day, however the possibility is there to make use of the unique variations if it would not sound clear. Personally, I by no means bothered to flip that swap.
It is tempting to disregard the faults of a recreation if you happen to assume it is a favourite – however I can not try this right here. I actually do miss the issues that got here later, particularly since I’d actually favor to swap the Rated E10+ Celebrity out of the endgame celebration for somebody who is aware of what a protection stat is. Nonetheless, Ultimate Fantasy IV stays an all-time nice RPG, and it is good to lastly have it on Swap in any type.