Final Fantasy 4 is a masterpiece.

I totally understand why people treasure this game. What an absolute bombshell of a journey. Imagine being a 20 year old in 1992. No internet for most people, MTV actually played music videos all day, and the only edgy television was on The Discovery Channel when lions ripped the balls off an antelope.
Some lucky people might have had their minds blown by an imported copy of Akira. Others might have been gamers. At the time, especially in the 80s, the Ultima series for PC was one of the few franchises with an ambitious storyline. On consoles, cartridges at the time simply could not hold the necessary amount of text for dialogue and nuance to tell a grand and compelling story. Super Mario Bros 1 for NES is a 31KB game. Thats 0.031 megabytes. Or roughly 2 seconds of an mp3 file. FF1 was 144KB, and one of the biggest NES games was FF3 at 326KB. FF4 clocks in at 664KB. Each letter used is roughly 1 byte of data. Looking at it in a rough and callous way, this could be seen as 664,000 letters vs the NES days of roughly 144,000 for the average game. Of course, with graphics and sounds this becomes much less.

Anyway, this is all to say that the game practically oozes with enthusiasm from the developers. It really seems like they threw all their best ideas, at the time, into this game. Just recently finished this and this one feels as one of the most complete for a FF game. Its both down to earth and extremely high concept. It does not feel convoluted in any way. The simple ebb and flow of the game is a compliment to the big ideas being implemented. I dont think Ive played another FF game that manages to nail such high concepts in such elegant ways. The themes and events that happen are truly inspirational. It completely broke the limits on what a videogame could be, while telling a story that only a videogame could triumph with. Did I mention the pacing? Only Chrono Trigger can compare, and it came out years later.
Highly recommended to any fan of RPGs. Its not nearly my favorite, but this game has all of my respect.

You're not going to hear any arguments from me about how groovy FFIV is.

Oh man... I am just wrapping up FF4. As a PS1-PS2 era kid who is in the middle of a full marathon, this is my first time through NES and SNES releases. So far, of FF1 thru FF5, 4 is far and away the best. This was addictive because it was constantly fun, not because I just wanted to progress through stuff. As you said, storyline, general enthusiasm (without the cutesy chinzy of FF5), character depth, a great primitive version of an ATB system... Just constantly fun and interesting. I couldn't wait for the damn credits to finish so I could get to the Lunar ruins (Three trials into that now)! Definitely absolutely playing Interlude and After Years, before moving on to Secret of Mana and then FF6. I mean my expectations for the sequels are much lower but it should be fun enough.

And I definitely remember my buddy showing us a ripped version of Akira :)

This game holds a special place in my heart as my first real RPG so I agree wholeheartedly. The concepts are wondefully executed and the cast of characters are wonderful. I remember the feeling of wonder I got during the first fight with the mist dragon all the way throught the flight of the Lunar Whale. I'd love to see the game done in a style similar to Octopath traveller's 8-bit - this hgame deserves so muhc more recognition. :love:

Yes, Final Fantasy IV is incredible! My favorite game of the SNES era.

For SNES Era, second to FFVI. :bigsmile: