A king gone mad, conflict between life-long best friends, love, and a world in peril in one amazing tale.
Final Fantasy IV (released as Final Fantasy II in America) tells the tale of a once-peaceful world quickly spiraling down into a state of decay. The king begins to go insane, ordering his troops to do unusual tasks. His army, known as the Red Wings, who are an army which takes to the air with their heavily-equipped airships, are commanded to set forth and find the crystals all around the world and bring them back to him.
The commander of this army, Cecil, whom of which is a dark knight with a mysterious aura and a cloudy past, begins to question these odd notions. Confronting the king and questioning his motives, Cecil is quickly removed of his position and banished from the castle. Cecil's best friend, Kain, begins to grow distant in time as well, changing into a completely different person and turning against Cecil after all these years. Cecil's life-long friend, Rosa, whom he also has feelings for, is eventually found along the way to join him in his quest to find out what's really going on, why the king wants all of the crystals, why he's changed, and what lies in wait.
Good: Introduces a new battle system * Enchanting storyline * Lengthy gameplay keeps you busy * A number of side-quests available * Amazing design * Excellent soundtrack * Unexpected plot twists
Bad: Gameplay can be a little slow * Grinding is often too common
Graphics: Final Fantasy games had always been in 8-bit and never seen before in anything better. Now, for the first time, things were different and the fourth installment was presented in all its 16-bit glory, featuring very detailed overworld and battle scenes, plus more of a variation of battle scenes. The graphics may not have been necessarily beautiful so to say, but for an introduction to 16-bit, they were certainly good, if not great.
Sound/Music: It's always important in an RPG to have a good soundtrack. Chances are, you're going to be playing for awhile because of grinding, and that's one element kept in consideration for Final Fantasy IV. The music is the kind that sticks with you, even when the game's off. It's catchy, well-composed and sounds very good. As for the sounds, there's nothing spectacular about them in the slightest, except they're crisp and clear, such as taking or giving hits from/to enemies, entering battles, and some of the obvious. Overall, the music is, without a doubt, the greater of the two, but at least the sounds get the job done and they're not annoying.
Difficulty: About the same as the previous three Final Fantasy games. The puzzles and mazes may be a little bit harder, or a little bit easier, depending on who's playing and how much experience with RPGs they may have. There may be a few times within Final Fantasy IV in which you may need to look up some help online or just to look at a map. Otherwise, the rest is pretty simple, just maintain a supply of healing items and weapons/armor, and make sure to keep the level high.
Gameplay: Similar to Final Fantasy I-III, although includes one major change. That change is the battle system. While still turn-based, a new feature called the "Active Time Battle" has been installed, which adds a timer to each player and enemy's turn. This feature has been kept and used in future Final Fantasy installments, which is something that can be easily recognized by those who've played later games in the series. The world is bigger, there are multiple side-quests to complete, and a lot of pieces to put together in the big plot puzzle. The traditional feeling behind it stayed, and that was enough to bring in the fans.
Control: It can't get any simpler than walking around and pushing an action buttion which is used for practically everything, then sometimes going to the inventory with another button.
Overall: Final Fantasy IV was an excellent debut into the 16-bit world which set the base for greater things to come, but even with all of the games in the series out now, it's still a very fun and nostalgic experience to go back to 1991 and play the first 16-bit Final Fantasy, which is still known to be one of the most timeless and classic RPGs of all time.