Final Fantasy IV Advance (Game Boy Advance, 2005)

I love that SE is remaking these games on the GBA. I am a huge DS fan, and I greatly enjoy FF as well. In any event, I'm reviewing this as a Remake and not as a Game itself. If I were to review the actual content of the game, I'd go ahead and give it a 110%. 4 has always been my personal favorite. 4 as a remake does a lot of great things for the game, but it also does a few bad things. If this is your first foray into FFIV, this is the way to play it. If you are a fan of FFIV but aren't sure if you want to play it again, read the review and decide. But I think you will want it because the positives definitely outshine the negatives. For example, the huge controversial subject of review is the ability to have a custom party.

A lot of people feel that allowing the player to make a custom party at the end is bad, but it's actually a huge positive to me. In fact, if that is the only change they made, I would be very satisfied. The other positives are the extra dungeons and the overall representation of the game. The opening scene is nice as well. We also finally get to use the "hidden powers" that were taken out with the original Final Fantasy II for the SNES. The bads are more like nit picking.

We have the remade menu sprites. I simply don't like them all. Yang's in particular is terrible. We also get reworked names. This is a product of the E in SE. Enix is out to standardize the naming conventions in FF games. So we have "Curaga" instead of "Cure III." We have "Meteor" instead of "Meteo." Being an old school fan, these little changes are annoyances. Item names are also changed. "Blue fang" instead of "Lit bolt" is an example of that. I mostly am not totally bothered by this, but when trying to figure out if "Thundara" is Lit III or if "Thundaga" is Lit III, it can get really frustrating. As I said, these are minor problems.

Overall, the entire game is much of an improvement over any of the previous remakes. I've played them all as well. (Even the WSC version.) The extras at the end make this game a must-have for any FFIV fan. If you have yet to play FFIV, this is the way to play it, too. I don't think it deserves a 5, but I do think it deserves a purchase. Thanks all.

Have a good day,

Matt