Probably close to a year ago now, completely on a whim, I started a new game on Final Fantasy IV. (Though the SNES version is called Final Fantasy II, it's actually Final Fantasy IV-easy). I think I was up late at night with nothing to do, so I just started playing, and ended up getting to the watery tunnel beneath Baron Castle before stopping. I didn't really plan on playing through the game again when I picked it up, though, and I didn't play anymore after that.
Until last night, that is, when I started playing again. Funnily enough, the conditions were pretty much exactly the same; I was up late at night with nothing to do, so I decided to continue that game on FFIV that I had started months ago. I think I logged about three more hours of play time, during which I completely kicked the asses of Kainazzo and the Dark Elf. Those two bosses are so easy if you know their weaknesses. Heck, just getting through the Dark Elf's cave was harder than the Dark Elf himself.
So I played some more again just a bit ago, and did everything from the Tower of Zot through the Tower of Bab-il. The Tower of Zot always gives me some trouble, since even though it's not that big of a dungeon, you have so few magic points between Cecil and Tellah for healing, and enemies' attacks do a lot more damage in there than anywhere else previous to that. But at least you don't have to rely at all on Tellah's black magic for beating the Magus Sisters; that completely frees up his 90 MP to be used for healing, which is nice.
The next part of the game has to be the most aggravating for me, though. Not because of any amount of difficulty, it just annoys me. (And there's a small spoiler here, by the way, if you haven't played FFIV.) After beating the Calbrena and Golbez in the Dwarf Castle, Golbez's disembodied arm floats around for a bit and then takes the crystal, while Cecil and the group just stand and watch. At this point I can never stop myself from yelling at the screen, "Just stab the damn thing, you idiots! It's right there, just floating around! You've got a sword -- use it!" But no, Cecil just stands there, watches Golbez's arm take the crystal and disappear, and says something like, "Oh my, he took the crystal!" I swear, there is no reason why they should've lost that crystal, after they actually managed to beat Golbez.
So then you get to go through the Tower of Bab-il, which is fun because you've got a good party with a wide variety of attacks at that point. (Including a white mage, so you don't have to worry as much about running out of MP for healing. Yay!) Enemies can still kick your butt if you're not careful, but that makes it all the more satisfying when you pull off a victory particularly well. Kain's jump command is awesome if you're good at discerning when and against what to use it, and even Rydia's and Rosa's attacks can be useful when you know how to use them.
You know, for having a pretty simple battle/magic system, FFIV provides quite a bit of depth to the battles through party members' highly specialized abilities, which is something I really like about the game. Sure, you can't customize the characters at all -- you don't even get to choose your party members -- but I find that rather refreshing after playing other RPGs where either the game seems to get heavily slanted towards a certain ability (for example, FFVI with Ultima or Skies of Arcadia Legends with Vyse's Pirates Wrath attack), or where you can customize to the point of having an all-powerful character (such as with Cloud being both a really powerful physical attacker and magic user in FFVII). FFIV's characters are restricted to their specific classes, but they're dang good at what they do (well, except for Edward), and each is of very near equal use and importance as any other.
I think FFIV has become one of those games that I can just sort of randomly pick up at pretty much any time, anywhere in the game, and have fun with it while killing a few hours. And also, I think it's the first RPG to make it onto the list of games that I can do that with. I'm just hoping Square Enix will continue the trend and remake FFIV on the GBA or DS; or just release a port of the version in FF Chronicles, which is the true FFIV-hard that was released in Japan and features a better translation than the SNES version. I'd really like to play the hard version (without the horrible load times of FF Chronicles), after only playing the easy one for so long.
But anyway, I'll close this post by saying that anyone who's a fan of the FF series (and doesn't play them solely for the stories and graphics) needs to play FFIV. It's always been a favorite of mine in the series, and anyone that's passed it up in favor of the newer Final Fantasies is really doing themselves a disservice. Right now, FFIV is even giving FFVI a run for its money, after sitting behind it as my second place favorite FF game for so long. So stop putting it off, and play FFIV if you haven't before. ... Or else I'll send Shinmaru after you.
