Made in 1991 has been released on multiple systems.
Plot
Most of Final Fantasy IV takes place on Earth, also known as the Blue Planet, which consists of a surface world (or Overworld), inhabited by humans, and an underground world (or Underworld), inhabited by the Dwarfs. An artificial moon orbits the planet, upon which the Lunarians live. The Lunarians are a race of beings from a world destroyed which became the asteroid belt, and are identified by a moon-shape crest on their foreheads. They created this artificial moon, resting until a time they believe their kind can co-exist with humans. A second, natural moon orbits as well, though it is never visited in the game.
Final Fantasy IV begins as the Red Wings are attacking the city of Mysidia to steal the Water Crystal there. When Cecil, Captain of the Red Wings, afterwards questions the king's motives, he is stripped of his rank and sent with Kain to deliver a package to the Village of Mist. There, Kain and Cecil watch in horror as monsters from inside the package destroy the village. A young girl, Rydia, is the only survivor and summons an earthquake in anger, separating Cecil and Kain. Cecil awakens afterward and takes the wounded Rydia to a nearby pub. Baron soldiers come for Rydia; Cecil defends her, and she joins him on his journey.
It is learned that Rosa, Cecil's love interest, followed him and is extremely ill with a fever in the town. Soon after this, they meet Tellah, who is going to Damcyan Castle to retrieve his eloping daughter, Anna. Anna is killed when the Red Wings bomb the castle. Edward, Anna's lover and the prince of Damcyan, explains that the Red Wings' new commander, Golbez, did this to steal the Fire Crystal for Baron as they had stolen the Water Crystal from Mysidia. Tellah leaves the party to seek vengeance on Golbez for Anna's death. After finding a cure for Rosa, the party decides to go to Fabul to protect the Wind Crystal. Here they meet Master Yang, a warrior monk serviced to the kingdom and the protection of the Wind crystal. The Red Wings attack, and Kain reappears as one of Golbez's servants. He attacks and defeats Cecil; when Rosa intervenes, Golbez kidnaps her as Kain takes the crystal. On the way back to Baron, the party is attacked by Leviathan and thus separated.
Cecil awakes in Mysidia. There, he learns that to defeat Golbez, he must climb Mt. Ordeals and become a Paladin. Before embarking on his journey, he is joined by the twin mages, Palom and Porom. On the mountain he encounters Tellah, who is searching for the forbidden spell Meteor to defeat Golbez. Cecil becomes a Paladin, while Tellah learns the secret of Meteor. Upon reaching Baron the party confronts the King of Baron, only to discover that he had been replaced by one of Golbez's minions. After defeating him, Cid arrives and takes them to one of his airships. On the way to the Airship, the party enters a trapped room, where Palom and Porom sacrifice themselves to save Cecil, Tellah, Cid, and Yang.
On the airship, Kain appears and demands Cecil retrieve the final crystal in exchange for Rosa's life. After the crystal is retrieved, Kain leads the party to the Tower of Zot, where Rosa is imprisoned. At the tower's summit, Golbez takes the crystal and attempts to flee. Tellah sacrifices himself to stop Golbez with Meteor, but only weakens him, although it does end Golbez's mind control of Kain. Kain helps Cecil rescue Rosa and Rosa teleports the party out of the collapsing tower to Baron.
In Baron, Kain reveals that Golbez must also obtain four subterranean "Dark Crystals" to achieve his goal of reaching the moon. The party travels to the underworld and encounter the Dwarfs who are currently fighting the Red Wings. They stop Golbez from stealing the Dwarves' crystal, and are rejoined by Rydia in the fight. They flee the underworld in the airship, and Cid sacrifices himself to reseal the passage to underworld. The party travels to the Tower of Babil where the crystals are being kept. When they reach the crystal room, the party falls through a trap door to the underworld. The heroes go to retrieve the eighth crystal before Golbez. Upon retrieving it, Golbez reveals he still has control over Kain, and takes the crystal. After learning of the Lunar Whale, a ship designed to take travelers to and from the moon, the party is rejoined by Cid, and travels to the surface and boards the ship.
On the moon, the party meets the sage Fusoya, who explains that Cecil's father was a Lunarian. Fusoya also explains that a Lunarian named Zemus plans to destroy life on the Blue Planet so that the Lunarians can take it over, using Golbez to summon the Giant of Babil, a colossal robot. They return to Earth and the forces of the two worlds attack the Giant, including Palom and Porom, who have been revived. After the party breaks the robot, Golbez and Kain confront them, only to have Fusoya break Zemus' control over Golbez, in turn releasing Kain. Cecil learns that Golbez is his older brother. Golbez and Fusoya head to the core of the moon to defeat Zemus, and Cecil's party follows. In the moon's core, the party witnesses Golbez and Fusoya kill Zemus, but then quickly fall to his resurrected form, the spirit Zeromus. Cecil and his allies defeat Zeromus. Following the battle, Fusoya and Golbez opt to leave Earth with the moon. During the epilogue, Kain is atop Mt. Ordeals, promising to atone for his sins. The rest of the cast reunite to celebrate Cecil and Rosa's wedding and their coronation as Baron's new king and queen.
Characters
Final Fantasy IV offers twelve playable characters, each with a unique, unchangeable character class. During the game, the player can have a total of five, or fewer, characters in the party at the same time. The main character, Cecil Harvey, is a Dark Knight and the captain of the Red Wings, an elite air force unit of the kingdom of Baron. He serves the king alongside his childhood friend Kain Highwind, the commander of the Dragoons. Rosa Farrell is a White Mage/Archer and Cecil's love interest. The Red Wings' airships were constructed by Cecil's friend, the engineer Cid Pollendina.
During his quest, Cecil is joined by others, including Rydia, a young Summoner from the village of Mist, Tellah, a legendary Sage of Mysidia, Edward Chris von Muir, the prince of Damcyan and a Bard, and Yang Fang Leiden, the head of the Monks of Fabul. The other characters are the Black Mage Palom and white mage Porom, twin apprentices from the magical village of Mysidia, Edward "Edge" Geraldine, the Ninja prince of Eblan, and lastly Fusoya, the guardian of the Lunarians during their long sleep.
Gameplay
In Final Fantasy IV, the player controls a large cast of characters and completes quests to advance the story. Characters move and interact with people and enemies on a field map, which may represent a variety of settings, such as towers, caves, and forests. Travel between areas occurs on a world map. The player can use towns to replenish strength, buy equipment, and discover clues about their next destination. Conversely, the player fights monsters at random intervals on the world map and in dungeons. In battle, the player has the option to fight, use magic or an item, retreat, change character positions, parry, or pause. Certain characters have special options. The game was the first in the series to allow the player to control up to five characters in your party; previous games had limited the party to four.
Player characters and monsters have Hit Points (HP), with the characters' HP captioned below the main battle screen. Attacks reduce remaining HP until none are left, at which point the character faints or the monster dies. If all characters are defeated, the game must be restored from a saved game file. The player can restore the characters' hit points by having them sleep in an inn or use items in the party's inventory, such as a potions, as well as healing magic spells. Equipment (such as swords and armor) bought in towns or found in dungeons can be used to increase damage inflicted on monsters or minimize received damage. The player can choose whether characters appear on the front line of a battle or in the back. A character's placement impacts damage received and inflicted depending on the type of attack. The game's story is linear—the player can usually advance the game through only one path, although limited side quests are available.
Final Fantasy IV introduced Square's Active Time Battle (ATB) system, which differed from the turn-based designs of previous RPGs. The ATB system centers on the player inputting orders for the characters in real time during battles. The ATB system was used in many subsequent Square games.
Each character always has certain strengths and weaknesses; for instance, a strong magic user may have low defense, while a physical fighter may have low agility. Like other Final Fantasy games, characters gain new, more powerful abilities with battle experience. Magic is classified as either "White" for healing and support; "Black" for offense; or "Summon" (or "call") for summoning monsters to attack or carry out specialized applications. A fourth type—"Ninjutsu"—consists of support and offensive magic and is available to only one character. Magic users, who account for eight of twelve playable characters, gain magic spells at preprogrammed experience levels or fixed story events. The developers have balanced point gains, items, and rewards to eliminate long sessions of gaining levels. Due to the Super Nintendo's greater processing power, Final Fantasy IV contains graphics improved over previous Final Fantasy titles. The game employs the Super Nintendo's Mode 7 technology to give enhanced magic spell visuals and to make airship travel more dramatic by scaling and tilting the ground for a bird's eye view.
Another game favored in the series by the fans Final Fantasy IV continues to deliver the evolution of characters and story, along strategic battle systems and character upgrades. In IV we see a larger cast of characters than we are used to, with a total of 12 characters, from the lost and looking for redemption character Cecil Harvey, the friend turned enemy and leader of the Dragoon, Kain Highwind. The first Final Fantasy, I believe to really show a true love interest and development between Cecil and the healer Rose. like the previous titles we see the return of Chocobos, Airships, and other modes of transportation. We see the need for Shops where Items and Magic can be purchased, along with a new implementation the "Inn". Where the party may rest and recover their HP and MP. We also see continued use of Weapons and Armor in upping the characters attack and defense.
In IV we see a preordained job class system, with the exception of Cecil who can switch from Dark Knight to Paladin, we see the other characters with set job classes, Palom an Porom being the set Black and White Mages, Tellah a Sage or "Red Mage" (can use both black and white magics). Rose another White Mage, Rydia the Summoner (also not the first appearance of an actual summoner class). Edge the Ninja, Edward the Bard, Fang the Monk, Kain the Dragoon. It is also the first time at which you can control up to 5 characters in a party where it was only 4 in previous titles. They also implement the same system as III in which there is a back row and a front row, in which characters can be repositioned during battle, sometimes saving them from attack.
Another new addition, The Active Time Battle system, a new system instead of Turn Based, they arrange the characters in a certain automated order, there is no longer I attack you, you attack me, its a non stop flow of attacks until the enemy is down or the party falls. This system has been liked by some and hated by others, most who don't like it, say it deviates too much from the original RPG style of the Turn Based system. My opinion this makes the battles more fast paced, in which you almost have to plan your style of attack before the fight begins, leaving a lot to strategy instead of just mindless picking attacks from a list then waiting your turn again.
As we can see Cid once again returns, he is this time the builder and captain of the Airships belonging to the Kingdom of Barons Red Wings.
We also see the return of Chocobos and the 4 elemental Crystals, and in IV we also see the return of there opposites the Dark Crystals.
Lastly it is obvious as well that the story lines are becoming more and more intense and intricate. IV out of the titles covered so far has the longest and most intricate storyline out of the previous titles.
Its obvious that Square as they continue release new titles in this series, they have no intention of keeping things the same as the game previous to it. How long would you want to continue playing the series if they kept everything exactly the same? Would VII have been the game that fans have come to love and cherish if they had been adamant about keeping everything the same, just changing the characters and the setting, I can honestly say that I highly doubt it.
This is just my point of why we cannot continue to compare the games cause each one has evolved from the last, giving fans something new and fresh to look forward to!
Continuing on we have FFV
Things to keep in mind:
Items
Shops
Towns
Dungeons
ATB (Active Time Battle System)
Weapons
Armor
Accessories
Magic
Summons
Jobs (Classes)
Number of Characters
Cid
Chocobos
Airships
Crystals
World Maps
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