* Paladin floats up from the depths of the FF4 development board...
As a huge FF4 fan I couldn't resist this release and have been playing it over the last few days (had to actually buy a PSP...)
First off I honestly didn't mind the random story embellishments of the DS game, but I thought they were rather pointless. I mean there were so many things they could have chosen to add to the game in terms of actual game play and events rather than revealing Golbez's real name or that the King of Baron had a thing for Cecil's mom. I mean that stuff is interesting but whatever. Can we EVER get a decent view of the Tower of Zot? I mean something like the floating fortress in FFV would be great! Anyway, I guess the game play stuff like the augments and whyte and what not were also interesting but honestly I liked the simplicity of having all the main characters playable at the end in FF4-Advance. I felt the augment system defeated the purpose of having set role-class characters and tried to impose a job/materia system on the game I didn't think it needed.
I do know from some FF4 'net friends that have ties to some of the Japanese fanbase that apparently a lot of the story embellishments in the DS game were not well received. Most of that stuff was injected by one of the original game's developers who was key on the DS project, a guy named Tokita (who also developed the AY story). Apparently the changes prompted a bit of negative criticism directed towards S-E and Tokita. Tokita was apparently interviewed on the PSP release and mentioned that there were a number of "concessions" made for the fans in regard to the Final Fantasy IV game proper. This is probably why ~Interlude~ was shortened as well, what I heard was that it was supposed to be a 10-15 hour game and ended up being 3-4 hours.
I think this is also why FF4-Complete is so slavish to the original SFC game. Some of it is ridiculous; I mean to keep the functionality of the fat ass chocobo they set the limit back to 48 items that can be carried. Character names (should you choose to change them) are limited to six letters...seriously? Sure the dungeons/locations look great, it's a nice blend between the GBA 2D look and the unique location designs seen in the DS version; but honestly do the maps need to be exactly the same as the SFC/GBA version? It's like the DS game pushed the pendulum too far to one side and they swung it back all the way to the other side for the new release...
I do think this game is balanced to the easy side in a number of places. I haven't gotten too far with it yet but I think the DS game was generally a harder game especially once you go up to the moon and several boss battles... As I haven't been to the moon in the PSP ver. yet maybe they up the difficulty there?
So far I'm liking the PSP version; I think it is probably the definitive official "classic" 2D version of the game and easily replaces the Advance version. It also gives you a physical copy of the After Years FWIW. I think owning a copy of this and a copy the DS version and you probably have everything you need.
