This collection proves the Final Fantasy IV still is the stuff of legends; its sequels, not so much
(NOTE: This review will not go in depth in The After Years, since at this time I have not finished it.)
GRAPHICS:
The game throws away the 3D graphics of the DS remake, instead using 2D graphics in the vein of the GBA/SNES/PS/... versions, but with a much more crisp and clean look. It looks pretty good, as the sprites are nice looking, and their little animations work fine. The only downside is that it doesn't incorporate some of the advances we saw in VI, such as the expressive characters, but that is a nipick. It looks simple and good, not much no add here. 4/5
SOUND:
The music of the series has always been a highlight, and IV is no exception. The original score was amazing, and here it has been remastered, and sound even better. The tunes are incredibly fitting and set a perfect mood. Songs like The Prelude and Theme of Love are amazing here, and even if you do not like the remastered version you can listen to the old soundtrack. 5/5
STORY:
The story of IV is about a dark knight named Cecil, and how his kingdom of Baron has been changed from a good place with a good king to a greedy and destructive reign. After Cecil questions his king, he is striped of his position in the Red Wings, basicaly the air force. After one last mission which destroys and entire village for no reason, he decides to stop his madness and understand what is going on.
The bulk of the story are its well flashed characters, which are creative and fun for the most part. Cecil himself is a tortured soul, struggling between being a dark knight and doing the right thing. Other characters include Kain, Cecil's friend and companion; Rosa, Cecil's girlfriend; Rydia, a young summoner; Tellah, a wise sage; Edward, a bard and prince of a fallen kingdom. Palom and Porom, twins with incredible magic power; Cid, an engineer; Yang, a monk; Edge, the headstrong ninja prince and FuSoYa, a lunarian. They all gather up in order to defeat the villain Golbez, you is manipulating everything. All the characters add something to the story, and while some like Tellah are kind of bland (despite delivering the "Spoony Bard' line) and FuSoYa stay for too little for you to care about, they make for a nice crew.
The story itself however, has not stood up as nicely. While groundbreaking for its time, it now is as simple of an RPG story as you can get, and some plot twists come out of nowever. Also, it feels like a neverending cycle of ridiculous betrayals and mind control, and the end of the game gets a science fiction turn, which doesn't fit that well. While it is simple and okay, it is nothing spectacular.
3.5/5
When it comes to the other two games, they do not fare better. In fact, they are most of the time worse. Interlude just talks about the reconstruction of Edward's kingdom Damcyan and sows the ground for some of the stuff in the sequel. It is short and unecessary, with no kind of revelations. After Years is interesting, but again it feels rather disjointed and poorly placed together, and, once again, rather unecessary.
GAMEPLAY:
The game is a turn-based RPG. It introduced the revolutionary active time based battles, where your enemies do not wait for you to attack, but insted you have a bar that charges so you can attack, and before it is finished, your enemy might have already attacked you. It is an enjoyable battle system, and one that makes for very fast paced battles.
You have basicaly two types of units. Magical based and physical based. Magic can be either offensive or for healing and stats ailments. Physical characters can not only attack normaly, but also do special tricks, like Kain's jump, or Yang's kick. Unfortunately, you can't really chose your party until the very end of the game, and until then, you have to take what you have, but the game is balaced enougth to always give you a balanced team, so you won't really be desperate for healing or for a strong attack a lot. Summons are also present in this game, and they are incredibly powerfull, but it is balanced since they take a lot of time to be cast and use a lot of MP.
The battle system works because it is fast paced and fun. You do have to select your comands rather quickly, but you have enough time to chose them. But it isn't really like the game is going to kick your butt, since it is pretty easy. Well, besides the final boss, which is ridiculous, but it is fitting. There are a few annoyances though, like the fact that you can cast something helpfulll to your enemies and something hindering to your unites by accident, but it is not a fault of this game only, but of the series as a whole.
You can explore the world on your leisure most of the time, and embark on some side quest which are very helpfull, but you will quite never get lost. It is a cool world with quite a bit to discover. The game will take around 20 hours to beat, but vetarans can shorten up that by almost half. The Interlude applies the same gameplay stuff said before; only shorten it up to a 1-2 hour quest.
So, overall, Final Fantasy IV still is really fun to play, but the added games aren't quite the stuff, but nice bonuses regardless. If there were any real complains I could say is that the game is very simple compared to RPGs nowadays, but that is to be expected, and you have to embrace it for what it is.
4.8/5
OVERALL:
Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection is not worth buying if you already own the game on other systems, since the main game is untouched and the other two games are only okay. But it is worth getting if you haven't the game, since it is an amazing RPG, that anyone should play.
The good:
-Battle system is still really fun
-Remastered music is really good
-Graphics looks sharp
-Characters are memorable
-3 games for the price of one!
The bad:
-Story is quite empty nowadays
-The After Years and Interlude are not quite worth getting this version for
-Some annoyances that are present in the whole series