It's much, much better than I was expecting. The storyline is iffy at times, but the gameplay is there, and the main game was a lot longer than I was expecting. If I had to compare it to the original I would say the main storyline lasts at least as long as getting to Troia - it took me about five hours, according to the in-game clock. This is easily the best incarnation of the FF4 engine since the original, I wasn't expecting it to play like the original game at all but it does, and it's lightning fast on active 1, making the game pretty challenging at times.
The new dungeons weren't as good as the originals, outside of the first one that pretty much teaches you about the two additions to the game engine, but one preexisting dungeon gets an expansion which was cool. If you load a cleared save file and talk to Namingway in Baron's pub he'll warp you to a new dungeon that has some good equipment and items in it. I think the floors are supposed to be semi-random, like the Lunar Ruins, but I've only been in it once and didn't survive the whole way (lack of supplies did me in).
Your characters start at pretty low levels, Ceodore for example is level 1 in the very beginning (he was in the upper 30's by the time I finished) but low level characters tend to level quickly. There is lots of new equipment at each town, but very little in the way of "special" equipment (the bone wrist's undead resistance is probably the best). That's probably because this was only the introduction to the game. The coral blade for Easy Type made it in; you don't get it in the exact same place, but it's close. Almost every character learns white magic in this part of the game.
[spoiler=Character Info - Main Game]Ceodore: Basically a weak paladin Cecil. I'm assuming his name is a combination of "Cecil" and "Theodore" (Golbez's real name revealed in FF4DS), it still sounds stupid though. He's a front row fighter, but he really can't hold his own and relies on having other characters around that don't suck. Uses swords, lances, staves, and bows as weapons. Seems to be able to equip any heavy armor.
Biggs: A soldier with black magic, who helps you through the first dungeon.
Wedge: A soldier with white magic, who helps you through the first dungeon.
Cecil: It's Cecil, I think he starts at level 19, and he's about the same strength he would've been at that level in the original game. Comes equipped with a "Kingsword" mythgraven blade clone and the paladin gear from Mysidia. You don't get to use him very much at all.
Rosa: Rosa is the only character with any sense in the game, since she held onto some pretty good equipment, and she's actually tastefully dressed this time. She has a blessing command, which is essentially the same as Pray was in the DS version; a lot more useful than the original Pray for HP, and it restores a bit of MP too. She comes equipped with a healing staff (useful when you get her), plus sage gear and a rune armlet - easily the best of the starting equipment. I should have stolen them from her, come to think of it...
Hooded Man: A...hooded man. I figured out who he was from the beginning, had my doubts a little later, but ultimately had it confirmed. He outclasses Ceodore in every way, and comes with three exclusive pieces of equipment, so you know he's important. Equips falchions (though you only get the one he starts with), and normal swords.
White Mage: A...white mage. Okay, the hooded man makes sense, but couldn't they have just given these mages names? They're worthless to the story, but still. Anyway, amazingly this white mage knows white magic, and you have to equip them with equipment bought in Mysidia. Additionally, their portrait is facing away from the screen, proving even more so that they're a useless character you'll never see again after they leave.
Black Mage: Reread above description, substituting "black" for "white." At least this guy's portrait looks at the screen...
Kain: It's Kain after the Tower of Zot. He comes equipped with a full set of mythril gear and a wind spear. Nothing special.
Cid: Cid now has a Santa Claus beard, and a new command, Risk Strike. It does double damage, but has a higher chance of missing. He comes equipped with iron equipment the first time you get him, and horned equipment the second time.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Final Character]
Holy Dragoon Kain: The hooded man, with all of Kain's abilities, white magic, and some paladin-esque dragoon armor. The way you unlock him is pretty stupid; Kain's "dark side" killed him on Mt. Ordeals, separating him into the evil named Kain you play as with his dragoon abilities, and the hooded man. Once the hooded man kills "Kain?" in Baron he accepts that side of himself, and turns into a holy dragoon.[/spoiler]
I started Rydia's Tale last night; unless they added onto a certain underworld dungeon, or added a new one somewhere, this is going to be over really fast compare to the main game. The two caves with damaging floors no longer damage, this was clearly done so Rydia could actually survive the solo portion of the game without float magic, but I kind of wish they worked in at least a half-assed explanation of why. Maybe she's carrying a magical item that negates floor damage or something; it would be better than nothing. The game engine does still support floor damage, it was used in the main game.
[spoiler=Character Info - Rydia's Tale]Rydia: She starts with awful equipment, and the same spells she would have after joining at the Dwaven castle. She lacks summon magic for storyline purposely, but the command is there so it'll probably be back before the end of the tale. Her character design makes it obvious that she spent too much time in the underworld and the hell flappers and gloomwings ate most of her (already...minimalist) clothing.
Luca: Hideous character design aside (What the hell, Amano? I know you suck, but you usually don't suck this much...), Luca is basically Cid in dwarven princess form. She has the analyze command, and a Big Throw command that throws her weapon boomerang-style, like the dwarven axe in the original game. This command makes the weapon long range, it seems to do a little less damage than normal though.
Calca: A calca doll. Equips knives and doll clothing; they can use mage gear on the heads and arms. He has a Jive command, which uses enemy skills on the enemies; it varies in usefulness but it's great when it gives a really good skill like thermal rays. I think the clothing equipped may have an effect on the commands used, but I'm not sure yet.
Brina: Same as the calca doll, except she has a Dance command. This casts white magic on the party; Cure, Cura, Heal, Esuna, Raise, Protect, Shell, and Blink. Favors the cure spells, making her a pretty decent healer. Can form a band with Calca, which results in combining into Calcabrena and firing flaming rocket arms(!) at all enemies.
Man in Black: It's not even worth giving this guy his own spoiler tag like the final character in the main story. Some half-naked guy that shows up at the last second, kills the final boss for you, and then says you're going to the Tower of Babil with him. You don't even get to fight as him, and he vanishes from your party in the cleared data.
[/spoiler]
For Deathlike2, I haven't encountered one bug in this implementation of the engine. I'm sure there are some there somewhere, but they're not immediately obvious and don't draw your attention to them like most of FF4 Advance's bugs, or even some of the original game's. Rows work fine, equipment works as its supposed to, and the new gameplay features don't break anything. It kind of makes me wish they would do yet another port of FF4, utilizing this engine and gameplay tweaks. The DS version was fine, but so many aspects of the gameplay were changed; this game is truer to the original and really only changes arrow behavior. It makes me wonder how many of FF4DS's changes were intentional, and how many were a result of reusing FF3DS's engine ("This menu system code doesn't make any sense...screw it, everyone's right handed now!").
Amusingly, the flashbacks are all done with FF4 Advance sprites, whereas the actual game uses modified FF6 sprites for its characters (seriously, Cecil is clearly Edgar with a new head and paint job; luckily the other characters aren't so obvious). This adds some nice contrast, and makes the original game look surprisingly primitive just because of these differing sprites. I kind of wish they redid doorways and such to fit the larger sprites, but it's not something you really notice while playing. All of the other graphics are from FF4 Advance, backgrounds, monsters, etc. It's a bit of a shame they didn't do larger versions of the monsters that needed to be reduced in size from the SNES originals, but since this game originally appeared on a platform with a tiny screen as well it's not really surprising. It's somewhat graphics-related, the game can now flag individual enemies to float in battle, rather than doing it by formation, so bats float around the succubus (they wouldn't in the original, otherwise the succubus would float too), for example. Enemy sprites also flip while confused like later games, and start out flipped during surprise attacks.
The only thing that bothers me is the release dates for the rest of the tales are pretty stupid. They're releasing three in July, three in August, and the final one in September. Stretching it out over three months is bad enough, but the three in both months come out on the same day. I don't see why they didn't just release them weekly or every other week. It would stretch the release over about the same amount of time, with less chances of forgetting everything that happened in the previous month's chapters. I guess they were planning on people really sucking at it and needing a month to finish.
