This Week In Retro (belated): Final Fantasy IV

July 19, 1991: Final Fantasy gets twice the bits and twice the emotion

by Diamond Feit

I was a spoiled child. I never thought of myself that way, not when I saw the lavish houses or elaborate presents my friends growing up had access to, but hindsight shows me that I did not appreciate the copious amount of entertainment I could enjoy throughout my adolescence. Sure, I couldn't access the internet so most of my options required leaving the house in order to lay my hands on a piece of physical merchandise, but there were plenty of other children who lacked the resources to manage that.

Even if we ignore financial status, I had an advantage over a lot of kids thanks to the number of computers available to me from an early age. Not everyone could casually mess around with a desktop PC (as if there was any other kind) in the 1980s, but between my classrooms at school, my friends' houses, and my own father's decision to buy us a Commodore 64, I had as much experience clacking on keyboards as I did wiggling joysticks by the time I was eight years old.

My computer savviness meant I was well-familiar with digital role-playing games before I ever heard of Square or Enix, as I had already spent hours crawling through the dungeons of Wizardry and exploring the world of Ultima. With those memories in my head, I wholly rejected Dragon Warrior when I first saw it on NES; I couldn't accept an RPG with only one character to control and a combat system that felt three steps behind what I already knew.

Final Fantasy was different though. Square's franchise-founding JRPG for the NES hit North American stores in 1990 and it offered players a party of four heroes in diverse classes to choose from, along with a story with just enough sci-fi trappings to set it apart from the competition. As quickly as I passed on Dragon Warrior, I embraced the Warriors of Light and played through the entire game for what felt like months, the official Nintendo Power strategy guide being my stalwart companion. Final Fantasy showed me that console RPGs were still capable of delivering thrills and adventure even within the limitations of 8-bit graphics and a controller.

One year later, and 30 years ago this week, Final Fantasy's first 16-bit entry made its debut. It has no direct connection to the first game outside of a few shared elements, and many fundamental aspects are different, but it would set the bar for all console RPGs going forward.

Depending on where you lived, this game had two different designations back in 1991. In the US, it arrived on the heels of the first NES game, so it was branded as Final Fantasy II. Back in Japan, however, that original FF came out in 1987 and had two 8-bit sequels, so this next-gen edition was called Final Fantasy IV. Today all Final Fantasies have been released worldwide in some form or another so the original numbering has been restored globally, but to an uninformed American kid this appeared to be a direct follow-up—one that happened to be a dramatic shift in scope and story.

Superficially, Final Fantasy IV merely looks like a prettier incarnation of the first game. The characters appear relatively small as they strut around the world, and in battle they stand perfectly still on the side of the screen from their equally-idle opponents. Towns are full of drone-like inhabitants who walk back and forth, spouting a single text message ad nauseum each time they are approached. When characters do animate, their actions rarely require more than two frames of sprite art.

Final Fantasy IV is no closer to the complexity of a computer role-playing game than any of its predecessors, though fortunately that is not its mission. By 1991 the JRPG genre had established itself with millions of fans across Japan (and a few overseas as well). While its origins lay in adapting role-playing games to fit onto a console with a d-pad and just two buttons, JRPGs evolved along their own path to fill a vacant niche in the market. When I disdainfully compared Dragon Warrior to Ultima IV, that was akin to criticizing ice cream for not being pizza. Both are perfectly delicious in their own way and I was naïve to suggest otherwise.

The majesty of Final Fantasy IV lies in its commitment to storytelling. The first Final Fantasy tells a basic tale of four interchangeable heroes overcoming evil. Players may select any class of hero for their party and name their characters anything at all; I remember naming my fighter "Stonewall" after a Dungeons & Dragons character I had created in middle school. The game offers plenty of freedom as far as party composition and combat is concerned, but this comes at the expense of the protagonists' agency. The Warriors of Light are whoever the player wants them to be, four blank slates without personalities.

Final Fantasy IV instead uses the JRPG format to let players experience one man's journey to become a hero, a tale that spans at least two worlds and one moon. The roster of adventurers is large, though the party never has more than five people at any one time. As the story unfolds, members come and go during scripted moments, some never to return. It's not a complex story by any means—the good guys topple the bad guys, roll credits—but for its time and especially given its pedigree, it represented a grand vision of what the genre could do.

For Americans, Final Fantasy "II" was a huge leap forward from the original game, but even Japanese gamers familiar with the interim sequels were seriously impressed by Final Fantasy IV. Looking at Famitsu reviews from 1991, all four writers express their astonishment by comparing this 16-bit video game to a film. One critic, who gave it a perfect 10, said they were "moved to tears multiple times." Even the least enthusiastic writer gave it an 8 and acknowledged how much it dared to change from previous games, even suggesting that "they tried too many new things."

Despite my positive experience with Final Fantasy, I did not own a Super Nintendo in 1991 and even when I got mine, I never got around to trying Final Fantasy IV. It had a great reputation but cartridges cost a lot and I was too busy with action/fighting games at the time. Like I said above, I was spoiled with choices for things to play, so an in-depth RPG was a tough sell when I could just enjoy an evening of Street Fighter II instead.

Many years later I picked up Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection on PSP, but by then the game's legacy loomed so large I was too intimidated to endure the early grind of leveling up my party. The ever-changing lineup irked me, as I resented losing characters without warning. So this summer, in anticipation of this anniversary, I finally booted up my copy again on Vita and gave it a proper playthrough. While decades of RPGs have liberally borrowed ideas from Final Fantasy IV in the 30 years since its release, diminishing the sense of awe I might have felt back in 1991, I'm happy to report I found the game holds up extremely well.

Given Square Enix's proclivity to port and remake the game many times over, I suspect most people reading this far are already well-familiar with Final Fantasy IV. It's routinely held aloft as one of the best games in the series and even earns a mention on "greatest RPGs of all time" lists. I'm unqualified to speak about it on that level, frankly, but I've played many video games in my time and I'd agree it stands as a significant work. With yet another remake looming in 2021, a whole new generation of players will soon have their chance to meet Cecil, Kain, Palom, Porom, and the rest. I think they're in for a real treat and maybe even a good cry.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts on Twitter and playing games on Twitch.