One born of a dragon,
bearing darkness and light,
shall rise to the heavens
over the still land.
The moon’s light eternal
brings a promise to the planet
with bounty and grace.

The one and only Mysidian Legend of Final Fantasy IV. Having played this game countless times in my youth, you can only imagine just how utterly overwhelmed with nostalgia I was when first popping this bad boy into my PSP. Being my personal favorite Final Fantasy, this was quite the trip down memory lane and with new additions to boot.

The Good:

A port that does it justice
Essentially, the Final Fantasy IV Complete Collection is everything that you would expect it to be – and more. While the Complete Collection does seem to use sprites akin to the Wonderswan version, it appears that the sprites have been updated – and not just the party’s sprites. We’re talking the entire game – every monster you encounter, every character, every pot and bookshelf.
Perhaps one of the most glaring obstacles of the previous ports of Final Fantasy IV (GBA, DS, PS1) were both the loading times and the random encounter rates. I can safely say that both of these have been remedied; no longer will you wait several minutes to enter a dungeon, no longer will you have an encounter each step you take in that dungeon.

Addition of Interlude & After Years
For a good 18 years, fans of Final Fantasy IV could only speculate what happened after the main story of the game. With everything seemingly wrapped up, there really didn’t seem like there would be any additional iterations of the story. Enter the Interlude & After Years.
The Interlude, made specifically to bridge the story of the original Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, can only be found within the Final Fantasy IV: Complete Collection. It takes place roughly a year after the main story, and allows you to see just what everybody’s been up to – aside from rebuilding a planet that was nearly destroyed.
The After Years is an episodic story in which the focus shifts between the next generation of characters, and a few of the main characters from the original story. However, true to Square Enix form, the addition of the “Age of the Moon” game mechanic presents quite the mixed-bag of feelings regarding the sequel.

“Auto-Battle”
One of the greatest features that Square Enix added was the addition of Auto Battle – which basically allows you to program your characters with the game’s cursor-memory, and speeds up the battle. Essentially, this means that you can kiss those hours upon hours of grinding goodbye. This literally cut my gameplay of Final Fantasy IV almost in half, coming in at just over 20-hours, with all of the side-quests done.
Even if you don’t want to use the Auto Battle feature, it’s handy to speed through the animations of summons or lengthy spells like Meteor. Just make sure you don’t leave it on while one of your characters begins their turn as it may produce some undesired results.

Additional content
If you can’t get enough of Final Fantasy IV, you’ve got a new dungeon & “Lunar Trials” to look forward to. You can actually run through the Cave of Trials (at Mt.Ordeals) once you’re ready to take on the final boss of the game. Once this option opens up, you can actually switch out your current party for other party members you may have had in the past.
After finishing off the final boss & wading through the credits, you’ll be able to save your game – the Lunar Trials await you.
As if that wasn’t enough, I would recommend anybody whom has played the original FFIV to jump into their settings & change the music from “Arrangement” to “Original”, even if only for a few minutes.

The Bad:

“Auto Battle”
If you’re like myself, and most of the other gamers I know – you’re probably too proud, or simply cannot be bothered, to read the instruction manual. Well, if that’s the case for you, all of your characters will simply attack nonstop once auto battle has been turned on. The issue that I have, is that there is absolutely no mention of auto battle’s existence within the game itself.  You can activate it any time in battle, by pressing the “Select” button.
To remedy this, go into the menu, settings, then change the cursor memory to “Keep”. This will allow you to select your characters’ actions once, then have them memorize them until you choose something else, they run out of MP, run out of the item, etc. etc.

“Age of the Moon”
Sadly, Square Enix had to throw one of their infamous spins on Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. Perhaps a bit reminiscent of judge system (Final Fantasy Tactics Advance), the Age of the Moon system effectively renders your characters inept at times. With each rest at an inn, the lunar phase will change. Rare enemies may only appear in certain lunar phases, and characters will have their stats/abilities significantly altered.

Cinematics
The opening cinematic to the FFIV: Complete Collection is nothing short of jaw-dropping. Showcasing both the stories of Final Fantasy IV and its sequel, we get to see fully rendered characters in Square Enix’s legendary style. The quality of these videos are absolutely amazing, despite the FFIV video being pulled from the DS version of the game. While some of the footage is recycled for the After Years’ cinematic, it too has an impressive opening. Sadly, none of the in-game cinematics are even remotely close of measuring up to the same quality.

Interlude & After Years
While I absolutely appreciate the effort, and that they gave an (at the time) almost 20-year-old game attention, Square Enix just couldn’t pull it together and pump out a sequel that truly captures just how amazing FFIV was. Simply put, they just don’t do it justice. It’s definitely a neat experience to see what happened to all of the characters, though.

The absolute definitive version of Final Fantasy IV to date, the Complete Collection boasts hours upon hours of great storytelling & fun, even if you haven’t played the original. You’d be a spoony bard not to pick this up.

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