Last time on Final Fantasy IV, Cecil was expelled from the Red Wings and thus he cannot remember what articles are. I think the King banished all articles from the world.
Today, we’re going to town to gather supplies, and to request a name change.
Main Theme of Final Fantasy IV
So, um, this is one of my favourite Final Fantasy map themes. It’s the best form of the Final Fantasy IV theme used in many different pieces in the game. It has a lovely ascending synth harp, and a flute which carries the melody smoothly. The loop is even set in a good place. It isn’t too long and it isn’t too short either, so it fits well as a catchy and pure world map theme.
On this screen, you end up seeing a lot. This is most of what Final Fantasy IV’s overworld presents to the player outside of grottos, dungeons, and caves. The very first shot of Final Fantasy IV shows the player a lot in terms of the world organization, geography, and places you can probably go, and the very first shot you see outside of the castle when you’re able to play the game is a way of showing the player, “yeah, you can totally journey around in this world; look, we’ve included a lot of what you see in the world right near the first place you start out at.” In the upper-right hand side of the screen in the water, you see something like ‘shallows’. This becomes relevant to the game pretty soon, but it’s nice that you get to see it.
Geographically, you see a lot – mountains, desert, forests, water, shallow water, bridges, and regular field. You also see a castle and a town you can go into. Well, we can’t go to the castle because:
So let’s go to town now. Kain told us to get supplies, so we’ll do that.
Welcome to Our Town!
The Town of Baron has a lot of juicy dialogue for us to see. Let’s read some!
I think the King stole one of Cecil’s Red Wings. Now he only has one!
Yeah, you’re so dumb, Cecil. No wonder you got expelled from the Red Wings.
Final Fantasy IV EasyType has tutorial buildings in each town. It’s kind of like Chrono Trigger’s tutorial area, only really really text-based and not as fun to go around and interact with because all you’re doing is reading and reading.
For example:
Final Fantasy IV: the game for people who can’t tell left from right and north from south.
…I think they’re trying to pound the significance of the A-button into my head. This game was the first game in the west to feature Chocobos, so we weren’t very familiar with our feathered friends yet. The original Final Fantasy II (ex: Final Fantasy IIj / NES) was the first game which featured Chocobos.
Other cool things that people taking the beginner’s class say to you (do note that I am not editing anything they’re saying; I’m transcribing word-for-word):
To make a record of your journey is called Save. You can make a Save on the field map or Save Points all around the world.
It is better to Save before taking a rest or going to unknown places. Even if your party is wiped out, you may restart from the point in which you Saved.
When walking, only one person will be shown. You can select that person by the R-button.
You can make a total of 4 Saves. You’d better make more than 2 Saves, in case a Save should be lost. Specifying where to save the data, your family can enjoy the game in turn.
When your items get too many to carry, go to the Big-Chocobo and leave items in their care. When it smells like Chocobos, use Carrot. Big-Chocobos will surely appear!
If you wanna read the words slowly during the battles, reduce the Battle Message speed.
Recklessness, often proves to be damaging. When you are losing a battle, don’t hesitate to run away by pushing L and R-buttons at the same time.
Don’t keep running away from your enemies! You may drop some money when escaping from them.
You should always move the people with less HPs to the back by using the Change command. During the battles, you can Change the front and rear row by pushing the left of the Control Pad when in turn. By pushing to right, you can select Parry.
You need to decide quickly in battles. If you’re not confident or not used to it yet, use the menu screen to reduce the Battle-speed!
Monsters living in water are weak against the attacks of thunder.
Monsters like Zombies and Skeltons receive great damage from Fire and Cure magic.
You can equip weapons on a certain hand. There are some who can equip on both hands, though.
Some weapons can be used as items during battles. You have to Equip them on the hand first though.
I imagine that a Chocobo will smell like a barn. Barns can smell pretty bad…
Also, running’s for suckers. I have never ever liked running away from a fight. We’re fighting everything and anything that gets in our way!
And “thunder” is the sound! Lightning is the light/bolt! >:|
This mage seems to be so flustered that he or she’s missing a few words and articles.
I don’t even know what this guy’s talking about. If you’re using “monster” in the singular, it needs to be accompanied with an article. Surely you meant the plural where you needed an “s” at the end, right?
Oh, this is where all of that mage’s articles went.
Before we move on, we need to fill out the paperwork for a name change with a fellow named Namingway. As much as I like Kain’s name (heck, I named my Lapras that in Pokemon Red for some dumb reason), I think I’ll change his along with everyone else’s.
Cecil only makes me think of the Simpsons character, and FFIV’s Cecil is certainly not as cool as that particular Simpsons character, so we can’t have him retain the Cecil name. Cecil’s a Dark Knight, so…
And Kain reminds me of the Green Power Ranger (you’ll see this later), but GrnRgr isn’t a cool name, so we’ll just call him:
With that said, I was tossing “Jason” or “RedRgr” around in my head for Cecil for better contrast between him and Kain, but I like Batman better. If anyone has an issue, bring it up, but I’m going to be pretty hard to budge.
And yes, they really did use “who’s” instead of “whose”.
Moving on.
Welcome back to the 1990s where people use to censor lotsa stuff like anything related to religion, language, acknowledgement of death, and sexuality. The 1990s was a cool era since we got a ton of cool music, some cool TV, and great games. But censoring was a result of a family-friendly approach to videogames, so FFIV, along with other games, got censored to remain friendly to kids. Castlevania got any references to crucifixes censored, Mortal Kombat’s fatalities and blood were censored, etc.
Case in point, the dancers. In the DS/GBA she says something akin to being against the king or hearing negative rumours about him so she gives Batman and Tommy a nice dance in return for their silence. Can’t have something like that in a game in the 1990s. It implies sexual stuff.
You can find stuff in pots and hidden treasure chests in this game. I always thought this stuff was fun until I memorized where stuff was in this game…
Let’s check out more NPCs.
Quality dialogue, folks. Batman’s actually a decent dude. He’s just misunderstood because of the costume he’s wearing.
My dad used to watch a lot of western (cowboy) movies, so naturally I thought this was a Wanted poster. >.>
Holy crap, spoiler tag that stuff!
Rosa’s mom lives in Baron, so let’s pay her a visit. Since Rosa (name soon to be replaced), Batman, and Tommy grew up together, you’d think she’d give us something to wish us well on our mission.
I guess not. Well, we could always take the Tent and Ether1 she’s keeping in her house.
Cid also lives in Baron with his daughter. His house is actually pretty big but for some reason they only have one bed and heckuva lot of bookshelves there. Also, a fireplace for Batman to put his hand in. The books Cid owns are: “The Guide of World Birds”, “The History of the Shipbuilding”, and “Buoyancy and its Principles”.
As usual, people keep telling us to purchase supplies. I actually don’t do this much at the beginning of Final Fantasy IV because both party members can hold their own and you’re going to get a bunch of free stuff in terms of spoils and stuff you find in town/dungeons anyway.
As you can see in this, there’s a ton of stuff missing, right? Well, in this version of Final Fantasy IV, you don’t have several different items intended to heal status effects. The Remedy is now replaced with the much cheaper Heal which does the same thing.
This used to be a link between Baron and Mysidia. If you’ve played The After Years, you’ll know this isn’t just a warp or anything; it’s just one big maze of stupid stuff to go through. Here, you’ll see that it’s very easy to walk through it. There’s a reason why NPCs in Mysidia say it’s draining as heck.
There are a few locked doors but we don’t have to worry about those yet. Weird that the weapon shop is locked, though.
I’ve had enough of Baron. Let’s go somewhere else. But first, stats.
Tommy is a quick guy, and a definite asset to the team since he can basically do what Cecil does but with one added ability. For some reason his Will stat is pretty darn high (and anyone who’s played The After Years will tell you that this is an asset for Kain), and since there is a sprite in Final Fantasy IV of Tommy casting a spell, perhaps he was supposed to gain magic in this game. Anyway, it isn’t very important.
Tommy’s equipment is pretty cool because he comes with a Wind Spear. Flying enemies are typically weak vs wind, so you’re going to want Tommy to target flying enemies. But it doesn’t really matter since both characters can kill an enemy in one blow at this point.
Batman’s a’ight. He has high attack and adequate defense and agility. All we need to do with him is attack. He’s not going to be interesting to use until much later. For now, he’s one of two tanks.
Let’s battle!!
Battle 1
Er, I’ll be using different battle themes throughout this playthrough. I’m not too fond of Battle 1.
Tommy’s battle setlist looks just fine, right? He has the Fight command, which is just a physical attack. He also has a Jump command, where he takes a round to jump in the air, and then on the next, he lands on the opponent to dish out some damage. At the time when he jumps, he cannot be attacked or take damage from group attacks. If Kain has a spear equipped, he will deal out more damage with Jump, so it’s best to keep a spear on him if you are going to use the Jump command in battle.
Batman, on the other hand… his setlist certainly looks different. If you’ve played any other version of Final Fantasy IV, you’ll note that the Dark/Darkness command is missing. This means that Cecil is extremely boring to use in this version since he can only do two things. In other versions, the Darkness command will take a certain amount (an eighth) of Cecil’s HP in exchange for a group attack on enemies.
Darkness certainly still appears in this game, but not in the form you’d expect. You’ll see this later.
Oh, right. I don’t think I’m going to grind for drops like summons or the Pink Tail because that gets boring and I just want to play through the game as painlessly as possible (as if holding down A is painful). I’ll talk about them, sure. But I don’t think I’ll go through the effort of trying to get one. (I say this now, but when I encounter summoners and conjurers…
Let’s go to a Chocobo Forest. Chocobo Forests are round(ish) forests on the world map. I didn’t capture an example, but it’s pretty obvious on the map and sticks out like a sore thumb.
You saw the tutorial so you know what Carrots are. I’m not going to waste one because I don’t need to right now. They’re really Gysahl Greens. You can find White Chocobos which restore your (currently nonexistent) MP, and regular Chocobos which are land-based. Later on, you’ll encounter another type of Chocobo which allows you to cross oceans.
We don’t need to use one because we’re going to fight and get some XP.
Into the Darkness
In the Misty Cave, you’ll find Larvae and Sand Moths. Both are rather unremarkable. Use Kain’s Wind Spear against the Sand Moths since they’re flying.
You’ll also have some random guy tell you to go away. We’re not going to listen to him!
Random voice: Do you still wish to go on? Yes/No
*I choose Yes because there’s no point in choosing No. This is Final Fantasy IV; there is no “no”.*
Batman: We must deliver this Package to the village of Mist!
Is the random voice telling me that the mist is gathering, or is this a third party narrator?
Battle 2
(Same thing’ll apply here; I’ll probably use different boss themes too.)
The Mist Dragon is an easy as heck boss which will not cause you too much trouble. Think of it like Final Fantasy VII’s Guard Scorpion. Its attacks are hilariously weak in this version, and you can just keep jumping around with Kain here.
There will come a point where it will disperse into mist and you should not attack it (see picture 2). If you do, you’ll be counterattacked, and that’ll do more damage than you want it to do. Thus, it’s best to jump around with Kain and physically attack with Cecil when it’s in dragon form.
Finally. That entire ordeal was rather bori--…
What.
Bomb Ring
So we did our job, right? Let’s cut and run!
Aw shit.
Tommy: I’ve heard of the people with the power to summon monsters. They are Callers!
Batman: We defeated the dragon, so her mother is gone also.
Girl: You! You’ve beaten my mother’s dragon!
Batman: We didn’t mean to do this to your mother.
You know, if this were all voice-acted, I think I’d be criticizing the dialogue even more. At least the DS/GBA dialogue sounds more genuine.
That asshole just turned heel on me! Or not?
Batman: Forget it! Never again will I follow such an order!
…
Tommy: Well, Batman. I knew you’d say so. I won’t let you do it alone.
Batman: Tommy?
Tommy: I owe His Majesty much. Still, I cannot disgrace the Dragoons.
Batman: Then will you…
Tommy: But Baron is the mightiest country in the world. It’s impossible for us to challenge his might alone. We must gather other countries. And you know… We must save Rosa!
Batman: Thank you, Tommy.
Tommy: Not for your sake.
Alright, there’s some stuff wrong with this dialogue already. I’ll use their default names to discuss this.
Kain has just established that he's willing to defect and rebel against Baron with Cecil. But he isn’t doing it because he was raised alongside Cecil; he’s doing it because he has his own reasons. The "we must save Rosa!" bit is kind of awkward because Rosa isn't imprisoned by anyone. In the GBA version, the script says something like, "I owe the King much, but I won't disgrace the Dragoons any further; we have to do this for Rosa!" In this version, when I first played it a few times, anyway, I thought his bit about disgracing the Dragoons referred to his defection from Baron as opposed to doing what Baron told him to do. Also, the utilization of "we have to do this for Rosa!" sort of shows that he has some feelings for Rosa.
Alright you guys. Think of this carefully. How would you approach this situation and talk to a child to make her calm and come with you willingly?
Tommy, you maroon.
You’re just as bad! This isn’t bloody “good cop, bad cop”!
Nice going, dumbasses.
Don’t even bother trying to win this. Just progress the story.
This Caller is out of control here and is merely powered by her own emotions at the moment. The Titan’s power ends up causing a massive earthquake which splits the land apart and raises mountains in its place. That’s some crazy tectonic shifting right now.
Now we’re in the middle of nowhere.
And Tommy’s nowhere to be found. Either he abandoned us or he’s deader than dead.
This was a fantastic day.
Next time: We make a level 1 kid fight.
