Final Fantasy II (Final Fantasy IV)

[Dark Jaguar]

Never actually read this review until now. I'll add that technically even when this was written there was a Playstation anthology out, as Final Fantasy IV and Chrono Trigger got packaged together as Final Fantasy Chronicles (yeah yeah, Chrono Trigger's not a Final Fantasy game). That one was the original version of FFIV without all the censorship, poor translation issues, and outright removed content of the US original. Now, there's FFIV for Wonderswan Color (with visuals enhanced a bit but the sound reduced to 8-bit level), and GBA (sound again at SNES levels, visuals taken from the Wonderswan version, import the European version if you can, the US version suffers from numerous slowdown and glitches that were fixed in that version, which is also in English and works on any GBA so it works out fine). There's FFIV for DS (completely remastered into 3D with additional story and gameplay elements, and voice acting). They even rereleased the SNES version, in all it's poor translation glory (it's even still called FF2) on the Wii virtual console. To round it all off, there's an upcoming PSP release of the game. You'd think they'd put the DS remake on there, but instead for some reason it's basically the GBA game but with redone 2D visuals at a higher resolution, and they packaged it with a similarly enhanced "The After Years", the spinoff sequel to the game that, actually, didn't really live up to what most had hoped for in a sequel to the storyline. Basically, FFIV has been rehashed a ridiculous number of times. Most of them have been released in the US, and all things considered, it's been known as FFIV here longer and in more versions than it ever was known as FF2. Even so, every single time an American gaming news site reports on a new version of FFIV coming along, they always point out "What you may know as Final Fantasy 2" as though anyone knows it as that any more.