Final Fantasy IV GBA Version Completed
FFIV was a rather short game, approximately the same length as Chrono Trigger (which was ~26 hours), but holy fuck was that shit hard. Goddamn, it was hard. The DS version was even harder due to the strength of the enemies, but this one was difficult just because I feel Square fucked up the battle system. How the fuck do you fuck up an ATB? It's a goddamned bar that fills up, and then you input the command. Simple as that. Well, I'll show you this atrocity.
I would first like to start off by saying several of your party members were useless. Either they were under level or they were just intrinsically a waste of space and resources. Edward's a great example of that, which is perfectly quoted in this FAQ: "Edward isn't overly useful until he passes Lv. 70." If you want to fully comprehend the magnitude of that statement, I beat the game at level 60, and I was over leveled (due to running around to fill my bestiary). That meant in order for this particular character to have any point, I would've had to grind at least ten levels more than what I beat the game with. By then why the hell should I give a shit? Seriously, shouldn't a character be a good addition to the team prior to the end of the game? Some of the names I gave included "He Sux" and "Shit" because of their lack of being able to do anything remotely useful. That's how infuriating some of the characters were.
But back to ATB. Let's say we're playing Final Fantasy VII for a second, and you input these commands in this order:
Cloud: Cure 2
Tifa: Summon Ifrit
Barrett: Attack
Cloud: Attack
This is the order your characters will do it:
Cloud: Cure 2
Tifa: Summon Ifrit
Barrett: Attack
Cloud: Attack
Fine, right? That's what always happens. Now let's say I'm playing Final Fantasy IV. I input this:
Kain: Jump
Cecil: Attack
Edge: Attack
Rydia: Firaga
Rosa: Curaja
Cecil: Attack
Edge: Attack
This is the order they'll do it:
Rosa: Curaja
Cecil: Attack
Edge: Attack
Cecil: Attack
Edge: Attack
Rydia: Firaga
Kain: Jump
I hope you're thinking what I thought: "What the fuck is this horseshit. How the hell did EVERYONE go before Kain?" Well, Final Fantasy IV is different than other games in that special moves and magic have to charged, i.e. you first fill up your ATB bar, select a spell, then that spell's bar has to be filled as well, and then it will be cast. In the meantime, someone could attack before the mage casts a spell. The more advanced the spell, the longer it takes to charge, e.g. Cure in theory should always take less time than Bahamut.
Okay, that makes sense. However, that doesn't explain how Rosa went before Cecil and Edge. Curaja is the strongest healing spell there is, so it should've taken much longer than Firaga (since it's above Curaga). Even if Rosa cast Cure instead, there's still the charging time so Cecil and Edge still had priority. And even if Final Fantasy IV didn't have that charging-spell concept, I still fucking told Cecil and Edge to attack before Rosa. What the fuck happened here. Getting back to Kain, when he finally does Jump, that means that's when he literally leaps into the air. That entire time he was just standing there, waiting for that. So even after all that, I still have to wait for him to land and actually do the move. It got so fucking ridiculous that I didn't even use Jump because attacking normally was more efficient. Do you understand what I'm saying? I didn't even bother touching the move my dragoon was created for just because he then would only be able to attack twice a boss fight. THAT is fucking ridiculous.
There's also another issue: The game is fucking broken. Like, there's no way around that this is a glitch that occurs at least once every five or six battles. Let's say I tell Cecil to attack. When he's completed attack, in an ATB system his bar ought to reduce to 0 right away and have to fill up before I can input a command again. Sometimes what'll happen is right after Cecil attacks, his input menu will appear again immediately without any reduction and I can select another command. Then his ATB bar will reduce slowly. That's right. Instead of starting at 0 right away, the bar will start moving backwards to the left and then start filling again. I've played a lot of games involving ATB, and I've never seen that happen before. Plus sometimes Cecil will follow my second command, sometimes not. It's hard to say. Square, you should've fucking fixed that before sending out the games.
I'd also like to make another gripe about the battle system: There's no fucking way to switch in between characters. Only one input menu is allowed to be visible at a time (the only exception to this I've ever seen is Chrono Trigger). In every other game I've played, you press a button to move in between each character's input menu, usually either Y or select. I've tried every single button I can think of, and the GBA version doesn't have any (the DS does though, and it's Y). So that means if a character's bar is full and I don't want to use him, I'm required to select Defense and waste a filled bar just to get to the next character. Not only that, Defense is one of those "special skills" that needs to be charged. So I'll have to wait a long time until that character's ATB bar is filled again.
That's why the game was so fucking hard. I couldn't make any real coherent strategy because I never knew the order people would do shit. Will Rosa's reflect spell be in place on my party before Rydia casts black magic on them? Oh fuck, I can't even get to Rydia because Cecil and Edge are in the way so I'll have to make them defend for awhile. Thank god the enemies in the GBA version were easy in comparison to the DS because I would be dead in no time.
Sorry, this review has just been me complaining about the battle system, and I haven't gotten to the plot or anything. I'll do that tomorrow when I discuss the DS version.