June 18th, 2009

Final Fantasy IV – The After Years, a Aequel or Remake?

18 years ago, Final fantasy IV set forth the standard of a whole generation of role-playing gamers, providing fantastic storytelling, technical superior skills, and characters to remember. But unfortunately, the same can not be said about this “The After Years” series, as it proves to be a story with poorly created parallel plans.

The plot goes like that: after the salvation of the world from a lunar conspiracy, a young prince, Ceodore of Baron, is put through a test to prove he is worth being made a knight. But the second moon has reappeared in the sky, this time much closer than it did years ago. Due to this fact, the Castle of Baron is besieged by mosters and Ceodore is given a royal navy, Red WING, with which he ends up fleeing, With the monsters attacking the Baron, Ceodore is put in the situation where he is forcefully separated by his family. This is the beginning of his journey, a journey resembling the one his father took ears before. In his journey Ceodore encounters monsters that appear randomly but somehow too much.

The first part of the story is sustained by a series of other downloads that include optional side stories that throw you into a mist of not knowing exactly what story you did get in the end. This is due to the continuous shifting from one point of view to another without an interesting narrative line.

The active-time battle offered in this game is more effective, since additional Wii remotes are controlled by the extra hands of friends that can activate specific characters during the battle only. On the menu you find displaying information on how close your characters are to unleash spells, or to make special moves; this is a helping feature that allows you to plan the attacks in an effective way. Every time you take a rest in a tent or in an inn, the Lunarian moon will change phase; in this new situation, several aspects are affected – the shape of monsters that appear and the efficiency of different types of attacks that you planned.

Yet not only the story bears a certain recycling, but also the graphics and the music are reused. The graphics used for the monster design is merely the same, the only obvious difference laying in a swap of the color palette. There are ‘new’ areas that you pass through that gives the feeling of ‘deja-vu’, since they are constructed from the existing artwork that is shown elsewhere in the story. The soundtrack is enriched with a couple of new themes, but mostly it contains a handful of the memorable songs from well-known adventure.

As a conclusion Final Fantasy IV: The After Years looks rather a remake for the most dedicated of fans, and on top of this there is this extra-cost for subsequent adds, which even if they are optional, they seem necessary to get the entire story, the only thumb up would be the 800 Wii points that makes it be sound a fair deal.