Just hang onto at least one blood sword and the Emperor falls in about two or three turns.
Final Fantasy Reviews by nesfan
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- Posts: 995
- Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm
Final Fantasy Reviews by nesfan
It has been a while since I reviewed a game. I've had company over for the past couple of weeks and haven't much time for the computer. At any rate, here's Final Fantasy III.
Final Fantasy III(DS)/ Grade: B
Long ago, the citizens of the Floating Continent tried to harness the power of the crystals of light. However, the power of the crystals were far too great for the people to handle and as a result, the crystals of darkness from the land below the Floating Continent were being overpowered. So,four Warriors of Darkness set off to restore balance to the crystals, thus saving the world. Years later, Xande, who was given the power of mortality,causes yet another imbalance with the crystals in an attempt to stop time on the Surface World out of fear of his eventual death. In the present day, the crystal of wind speaks to a boy named Luneth and sets him off on his adventure to restore balance to the crystals. Soon, Luneth meets Arc, Refia, and Ingus,and together they are the new Light Warriors. They set off to defeat Xande and restore the world to its balanced state.
This entry in the series uses a changeable job system with which you can change one of your characters from a fighter to a magic user if you need to. Of course, that’s just an example. There are plenty of jobs to choose from. In addition to the six jobs present in the original Final Fantasy, some of the classes you get to choose from include: Ninja, who has the ability to throw weapons at the enemy; Summoner, who can call powerful monsters to damage the enemy; and my personal favorite, Dragoon, who can leap high into the air and come crashing down on the enemy. Once you choose a new job, you are given a number of battles to fight. After those battles are fought your character will become used to the new job. You can generally choose to be whatever you want at any time but there are a few moments in the game where you have to be a certain job in order to progress. This time there is a normal leveling system. You receive experience points and gil after battling. There were some side quests that involved going through some convoluted “Mognet” system that required you to send mail to other players via wifi but I ignored that feature. It seemed to be more trouble than it was worth and I didn’t know anyone else who had the game anyway. It was a solid entry in the series. I just wish they had done a better job with the extra features.
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- Posts: 995
- Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm
Final Fantasy Reviews by nesfan
Final Fantasy IV (SNES)/ Grade: A-
Final Fantasy IV is a bit different than previous entries in the series. The first thing that you will notice is that you do not create the characters this time. You don’t pick classes or change classes or anything like that. The entire cast of characters and their corresponding classes are all established from the beginning. Speaking of characters, there are a total of twelve this time. In a similar fashion to Final Fantasy II, the various characters are swapped in and out of the party when various events in the story prompt them to do so. But unlike Final Fantasy II, you are not stuck with the same three party members for the duration of the game and occasionally getting a fourth. Aside from the main character, Cecil, you’re entire party gets changed around.
The game begins with a dark knight named Cecil and his best friend, a dragoon named Kain aboard a royal airship of Baron in order to undertake a mission given to them by their king. The king wants them to steal the crystals of light from the other nations of the world. Eventually, Cecil realizes that crystal theft is wrong and atones for his actions by giving up on being a dark knight by embracing the light and becoming a paladin. You find out that the king of Baron was being controlled by the evil Golbez, who then proceeds to control Kain. Get used to that, by the way. Golbez controlling Kain seems to happen quite a bit. So, basically your mission is to grab up all of the crystals (which you eventually find out that there is more than just the crystals of light) before Golbez snatches them up.
FFIV marks the first appearance of Final Fantasy’s famous Active Time Battle (ATB) system. The ATB system is a bit different from the traditional turn-based battle system. Rather than choosing each party member's action right at the beginning of a turn, each character has an “ATB gauge” that fills up, thus signifying that specific characters turn. However, FFIV doesn’t have a visible guage, so it is more of a timer. With the ATB system you choose actions in the middle of battle and have to react and strategize more than you would in a regular turn-based system. Final Fantasy IV is also the first, and so far only game in the series in which you are allowed to have five people in your party at one time.
This time around, grinding is practically unnecessary for the most part. The game’s difficulty doesn’t significantly ramp up at any point. It seems like each area adequately prepares you for the next area, which is great for the less patient gamers out there who would rather go from point A to point B as opposed to spending time leveling up. You also don’t have to worry about buying magic and abilities like you did in previous games. You learn new abilities by leveling up or through story events. This might seem to make it too simple but Square managed to pull it off without making it seem like they were “dumbing it down” for the player. All in all, this is a great game and a welcome addition to the series. Even the spooniest of bards should enjoy this one.