Wii [Wiiware] Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (RPG, Square-Enix

[Dazkarieh]

Muito mais facilmente compro estes jogos com gráficos a la SNES que as versões 3D que tentam meter na Ds

Sem dúvida! Da mesma forma que daria 50€ pela versão completa em disco de bom grado. Já toda a forma como este jogo nos chega, agregado ao valor em questão, faz-me pensar duas vezes...

 

[jfred-silva]

Exacto, este titulo poderia ter tido mais sucesso, mas ao preço que o estão a meter(e duvido que baixe) irá fazer com que as vendas sejam muito baixas

 

[jjmaia]

Não percebo porque?

A versão DS juntou um excelente jogo com excelente gráficos. Quem em conhece sabe que para mim os gráficos são secundários, mas que dão outro ar ao jogo, dão. Se já têm uma engine feita, porque não aproveita-la?

 

[dppako]

Não percebo porque?

A versão DS juntou um excelente jogo com excelente gráficos. Quem em conhece sabe que para mim os gráficos são secundários, mas que dão outro ar ao jogo, dão. Se já têm uma engine feita, porque não aproveita-la?

O que alguns estão a dizer é que este grafismo é muito mais bonito que esse da DS. Eu por acaso também partilho dessa opinião... mas são gostos. Tu pelo contrário já não achas.

Eu acho que este jogo está muito bonito!

 

[jfred-silva]

Não percebo porque?

A versão DS juntou um excelente jogo com excelente gráficos. Quem em conhece sabe que para mim os gráficos são secundários, mas que dão outro ar ao jogo, dão. Se já têm uma engine feita, porque não aproveita-la?

Eu compreendo totalmente o teu ponto de vista, eu não quero afirmar que os gráficos em 3D sejam maus, só que para mim aqueles gráficos do estilo SNES dão outro encanto ao jogo, parece que nos levam de volta a época dos grandes RPG's da SNES, aquela época de ouro para os videjogos

 

[jjmaia]

Eu não discordo com vocês, pelo contrário. Não há nada que em dê mais parazer do que jogar FF 4 5 e 6

Mas sendo um jogo novo, acho que ficava melhor com 3D.

Não sei se jogaram o 4 na DS, mas o Golbez foi fenomenal D

 

[Dazkarieh]

Não sei se jogaram o 4 na DS, mas o Golbez foi fenomenal D

Honestly... prefiro o original by a clear mile Mas lá está... opiniões... não deixa de ser um grande jogo por isso

 

[jjmaia]

Sinceramente, a versão 16-bit impõe o seu respeito.

São diferentes,e adoro as duas

 

[I_Eat_All]

Playthrough Retronauts:

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years and the Nostalgic Dilemma

Hi. I have a problem: I recently bought and played through all of the currently-available chapters of Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. And frankly, I sicken myself.
Cue, tears--if I still had the capacity to express emotions.

There's been a conspicuous lack of chatter about this neo-retro sequel on the Internet--aside from general message board kvetching--so I've taken it upon myself to devote a few blog entries to my experience with The After Years. Consider these posts a form of penance for committing the grand sin of voting with my wallet (or Wii Points) to support such a misguided product.

Truth be told, I didn't enter into The After Years as a genuine Negative Nelly; the original Final Fantasy IV was one of the first RPGs I completed on my own, and whenever Square decides to revisit the game through a port or remake, I'm there with money I probably shouldn't be spending. After the DS port--which got a little too brutal for its own good near the end--I made a vow: no more Final Fantasy IV. I'd played through the game probably a dozen times in various forms over the past 20 years, so I decided that life was too short for another go at an experience I could probably sleepwalk through (though if I'm unemployed any longer, this is an experiment I could definitely undergo). Obviously, The After Years was a way for me to revisit Final Fantasy IV without breaking my vow, so I didn't hesitate when the first two "chapters" appeared on the Wii's Shopping Channel.

It only took me a few hours to realize that playing through The After Years is essentially the same thing as firing up Square's classic 1991 RPG on the system of your choice. The 2009 sequel's flagrant and shameful re-use of locales isn't just there for the sake of consistency, mind you; by the time you revisit the third dungeon that's been copy-pasted from 18 years in the past, it's clear that Matrix Software essentially gave themselves a "get out of game design free" card. Yet it's strange that their blatant (though Square approved and sponsored) theft didn't extend to the careful balance shown in the original Final Fantasy IV. Yes, The After Years is a steaming heap of baffling decisions and missed opportunities, and yet I couldn't stop playing the damn thing until I reached both chapters' endings.

Don't worry; I'll explain myself soon.

Fonte: http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=8996205&publicUserId=5631527

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years and the World of Imbalance

I'll do my best to not be spoiler-y, but in order to write about the flaws of The After Years, I'll have to be explicit at times. So keep in mind that by reading the following you may have certain plot points spoiled--but you would've probably figured them out on your own (I hope).

In my last post, I explained that I would go into greater detail about why Final Fantasy IV: The After Years is such a letdown; don't worry, I'll get to that soon. But first, it's important to note that the game isn't too shabby in its first two chapters. There are a few problems--mostly due to developer Matrix Software's complete lack of ambition--but the initial content starring Cecil and Rosa's son Ceodore amounts to an inoffensive treat for fans of the original game. In the early areas of The After Years, you're given a well-rounded party with diverse skills and abilities, and even though you're forced to revisit some old dungeons here and there (more on this later), it's somewhat interesting to take an entirely (or mostly) new crew through these familiar FFIV haunts.

When the sequel starts its viewpoint-switching gimmickry, though, things start to go a bit south. Final Fantasy IV's main cast members were never really meant to act alone; they each had individual strengths and weaknesses that worked well as a party package. Unfortunately, The After Years is built around devoting significant chunks of the game to single characters, and while they may meet up with their old 16-bit pals from time-to-time, the game does its best to pad out your group with new characters (some of them being former NPCs) whose meager and banal abilities do a lackluster job of balancing the game. But, to be fair, The After Years doesn't seem to give a damn about balance; the game see-saws between very easy and very hard, and never achieves a happy medium between the two. At the beginning of Kain's chapter, you're forced to cakewalk down Mt. Ordeals as swaths of enemies barely chip your armor, while the end of Rydia's Tale sticks you with a female duo who have nary a bit of white magic between them. I shudder to think what an entire chapter devoted to Edward entails.

The After Years tries to compensate for this lack of balance with a few new additions to the original FFIV formula, the most significant of which is the game's moon phase system. Every time you stay at an Inn, use a tent, or let a certain amount of time pass, the phases of the moon change, granting strengths and weaknesses to different battle options. It's an interesting idea, but easily manipulated due to the paltry cost of letting your party catch some Zs; most of the time, you'll end up cycling through 2-4 phases manually until you hit the one that's right for your current situation.

The After Years' other addition to FFIV's dusty old foundation, the "band" system, is actually a legimately cool concept, though it's unfortunately far less intuitive than moon-changing. Band attacks are similar to Chrono Trigger's combos, except you have to figure out how to use them in battle by combining many in-battle possibilities--of which only a few choices are correct--in one of the most ambiguous interfaces seen in an RPG. Ultimately, these combos are an interesting idea, but any joy of discovery is completely slaughtered by the game's poor execution of this concept.

Since this post is already getting a bit unweidly, I'm going to call it a day and tempt you with my next topic about The After Years: monotony. You may want to prepare by starting up a new game of FFIV and getting Palom and Porom to level 99 before you hit Mt. Ordeals. I swear, I've never done this.

Fonte: http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=8996452&publicUserId=5631527

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years and Location, Location, Location

As promised in my last After Years post, it's about time we broach the next subject on my laundry list of the game's problems: monotony. Now, I'd be an idiot to not expect an abundance of familiarity in what's essentially a 16-bit sequel made from recycled parts; and, given the relatively small size of Final Fantasy IV's world, it's not exactly shocking that The After Years doesn't have much to add in the department of new locations. To be honest, it's somewhat of a novelty to revisit old NPCs to see what they have to say 18 years later, but this same novelty doesn't extend to slogging through the same dungeons we FFIV veterans have tackled countless times since the early 90s. My reaction may be exclusive to hardcore FFIV fans, but The After Years seems to have been made with exactly this demographic in mind.

After making it through the first chapters of The After Years, I had a good idea of how the game was planned out: the development team sat with a list of the original Final Fantasy IV's dungeons in front of them, arbitrarily assigned a few to each character, and tasked some poor scenario writer to come up with thin motivations to justify the re-use of these locations. There are a few, brief shining moments of hope, like when your party discovers an entire new floor to the tiny Mist Cave (the first FFIV dungeon), but these instances are depressingly rare. And while the game is definitely made with a 16-bit mentality in mind, The After Years features very few of the modern concessions that make neo-retro games like Mega Man 9 so fantastic; sure, you're given the ability to save just about anywhere, but the enemy encounter rate is seemingly worse than the original Final Fantasy IV. The After Years marks the first time in years I've groaned loudly after a random battle swooshed onto the screen just a few steps from my last one.

To be fair, this 16-bit sequel isn't entirely about recycling; the most substantial new content in The After Years can be found in the game's bonus dungeons, which can take just as much time to complete as the individual chapters. The one at the end of the first DLC is actually entertaining; it's legitimately challenging, and even though you'll find yourself running from many-a battle, the game spoils you with a very well-rounded group of characters. I say "spoils" because the bonus dungeon in the second DLC sticks you with a two-person party that can't take much abuse, and its layout is designed more to test your patience than your RPG skills. You see, opening any of the dozens of doors in Rydia's bonus dungeons entails fighting a boss; and while said boss isn't exactly hard, being forced to fight the same high-HP enemy over and over again isn't anyone's idea of a good time. And keep in mind that it's necessary to visit the bonus dungeons more than once in order to loot them completely, so you may find yourself fighting the same boss 30-40 times (or possibly more). Needless to say, I gave up on Rydia's dungeon once I realized what I was in for.

Throughout my After Years posts, I've had a hard time picking on the game, mostly because I'm completely in favor of low-budget JRPG sequels--they may be the only way the genre can survive these days. But there's so much wasted potential and lost opportunities that I can't help but be disappointed, even though I've found this altogether lousy experience strangely addictive. Next time, I'll offer up some constructive criticism for The After Years, and show you why these sorts of shameless cash-ins aren't always entirely unnecessary.

Fonte: http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=8996654&publicUserId=5631527

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years and the Untapped Potential

Since I started writing about Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, a few readers have accused me of being a little too harsh towards the game. While it's true that I might have a chip on my shoulder over this creatively bankrupt neo-retro sequel--after all, it's taken four posts to properly articulate my rage--I speak not from a platform of hate, but rather from the position of someone who believes games like The After Years are a great way to deliver JRPG goodness without the abominable cost attached to developing a 30-50 hour game on a modern console. In fact, I think projects like The After Years are one way to keep the console RPG genre thriving in such economically dangerous times--though these games made on the cheap still deserve the amount of care and attention applied to their big budget brothers. This clearly wasn't the case with The After Years.

I've always been a fan of developers like Atlus and their supposedly "backwards" approach towards RPGs; a lot of gamers couldn't believe that the company was publishing new RPGs for the PS2 during the last few years, but given the PS2's large install base and how relatively easy it is to develop for the console, Atlus clearly knows how to make a profit. While Square struggles to get their games up to current-gen snuff--remember, it's been three years since the last true installments in the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts series--the Persona franchise has seen 2.5 fantastic PS2 installments in the past two years. It's always puzzled me why more Japanese RPG developers don't take the same route, though I gather the PS3 dropping its backwards compatibility like a hot potato might have something to do with it. Still, if more developers took a note from Atlus, we'd probably see the continuation of games like Wild Arms, Breath of Fire, and Shadow Hearts, three series that were unfairly declared D.O.A. during this generation.

Of course, with its roots as a Japanese cell phone game, The After Years was never really meant to be more than a way for bored commuters to pass time with nostalgia-coated RPG tedium, and that's a damn shame--mostly because the experience translates so poorly to the big screen. It's baffling that Square didn't decide to bring The After Years to the DS, where its repetitive nature would have been a bit more tolerable, but once again we come to yet another decision made about this game that I can't quite understand. Again, the same can be said with the chapters' strange release schedule, though this could be more of Nintendo's fault than Square's; instead of dumping three chunks of DLC into our laps every month, it seems like releasing a steady, weekly drip of content would have been a better (and possibly more profitable) idea. But the company doesn't seem to care too much about this cheap cash-in, and it's honestly a bit depressing to watch Square prostitute the corpse of Final Fantasy IV when the game deserves much better treatment.

And yet, even after all of this complaining, I'm still tempted to try out one of the new chapters when they show up on the Wii's Shopping Channel this coming Monday. Clearly, this is a sign that the goodness of Final Fantasy IV is impossible to taint with a lousy sequel--or, it could just mean that I need to be institutionalized. I'll let you, the reader, make the call.

Fonte: http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=8996994&publicUserId=5631527