FFIV Preview

[A Black Falcon]

And yes ABF, I know of what you speak. They even took out the very last form of the final boss (though that's the least of the major changes). Now, if they decide to do an update of that magnitude, that's fine, but what I would really have liked is if they tossed in the original version. GBAs have GBC hardware in there, it's not like that would be a HARD thing to do.

It's tough... on the one hand, Sword of Mana is a fun game. It's got a solid game system, nice story, etc, etc... but on the other hand, it's a remake of one of the best games on the original Gameboy, and though it's "improved" in a lot of ways, it just doesn't feel as great or as special. It's hard to say exactly why... I'd be interested to see what the opinion of someone who played Sword first would think of FFA, since for me I'm sure that nostalgia is part of why I love FFA... but it's tough. I'm as conflicted about Sword of Mana now as I ever have been...

On the one hand: - It has good music. - The length is solid for a portable title. - The story is quite good and detailed. There's a lot there and it's well done. - The action is fun. - The interface works well most of the time and is about as efficient as you can expect from a complex game running on a system with six buttons. - The game is fun to play.

But on the other hand... - FFA made truly brilliant music out of the system with one of the worst sound systems ever. This does not do that, and the songs are not quite as great in comparison as the old ones. - The story was overdone at times. I mean, having villians you sympathize with is fine... but making EVERY boss a sympathetic character that you're sorry to have to defeat? Every single one? It gets a bit old... (also on a 'storyline' front, it's somewhat paradoxical in comparison... in FFA the actual amount of suffering and number of character deaths shown is very small, but it's a very dark, sad game. Sword has a lot more shown suffering, but the tone is a lot lighter... and, despite the suffering it shows, the lightness of the tone is what sticks with me more. I guess it just shows that you don't need the best technology or longest, most well done story to tell a good story... FFA may have been simple, but it did a really good job. Lengthening everying, explaining everything, lightening the overall tone of the game... I don't know, I just think that Sword didn't work quite as well or effectively as FFA did, even if its story is so much better technically.) - The game is relentlessly linear to a greater degree than FFA: the areas are not even open anymore. There is just one path through each area and side paths are just dead ends. This is, truly, one of the biggest downgrades in the game when you compare it to FFA... perhaps FFA was bad to have things like dungeon mazes where you can get lost and stuck forever, but that's better than virtually never having to worry about silly things like 'which way to I go now'... - The whole 'using fruits and vegitables to upgrade weapons and armor' system is completely nonsensical... - The interface is a bit more confusing than it needed to be. - NO MORE SAVE ANYWHERE!!!

Um, even though the 'negative' is a lot longer, I don't hate the game... it just had problems.