27.I've been kind of mulling over this one lately. In hindsight, I've talked a lot about FFIV in the last ten or so years, I even wrote an article about it for this forum for the fan magazine project we helped with a few years back. Part of me even considered just copy/pasting the unedited version of that article for this piece. My other thought was that I was doing a retrospective article series a few years back and I kind of stalled on IV because I frankly found myself in a position where I had too much to say, which is why that series of articles went on indefinite hiatus. So once again, I'm here and need to to write about this game and a bit frozen in place on where I should take this entry.Like all of the Final Fantasy entries on this list, I'm not as inclined to really delve into "what is this entry?" like others because I know most of us are familiar with it and I'm sure some members could tell me things I didn't even know. Overall it's a bit redundant so I guess I'll simply settle with a bit of backstory about this game and my relationship with it. One factor I rarely divulge about my gaming habits is that I sometimes associate music or times of the year for certain games or series. Like I usually get in the mood to play DQ in the fall because I had a knack for always playing through the game around that time. For IV, I associate the game with Christmas because I finally beat it a few days before the holiday and so I associate it with the decorations and music cause that was also going on while I was playing. I also associate it with certain cheesy 90s songs as well because I played it in a time frame where I was watching MTV and VH1 pretty religiously. I even picked up a song most people would say I have no business listening to because this song was on heavy rotation at the time of me playing through IV. Anyway, tangent aside, let's discuss my history with this game. I had about three friends in middle school who were heavy RPG players that all kept pushing the genre on me. I resisted for as long as I could but eventually borrowed a copy of Secret of Mana and FFVI from one of my friends.Both games finally opened me up to liking the genre and soon I found myself in this annoying situation where I wanted more but being a broke middle school student without a real job my options were limited for birthday and Christmas shenanigans. I did purchase my friends copy of Secret of Mana but he refused to sell me VI and after a certain incident, wasn't as inclined to let me borrow it. So my first goal was to get my own copy of the game but it was super expensive back then and hard to find. Instead, I found Final Fantasy II (IV) which was my friends who lent me the games, favorite entry. I could afford it with my birthday cash and picked it up. In some ways, I lucked out. My experience with the genre had been the two games he lent me and the Battletech game I used to play on my dad's computer, so turn based combat was still a novel idea for me and I appreciate the fact that every character was unique which kept the game feeling fresh. I often blame my introduction to the genre being these three games for why I generally prefer my party to have unique skills over systems where you get to pick and choose a party of blank slates. It was ultimately what I blame for my backlash against VII's Materia system years later. Even though the game was lobotomized with it's translation, censorship, and Square's attempts to dumb it down for us stupid Yankees; I was able to look past all that and really get a feel for the games story and characters. I think it's a testament to this game how really memorable the cast is despite not having too much of a backstory and not having the same amount of screentime as later RPGs. I mean I love characters like Sahz, Ignis, and Balthier but I spent 50+ hours of getting to know them, but I may still rank someone like Tellah or Cecil over them because while they may not have as much time to be developed as their future descendants, the game sticks to what is important about them which leaves a more lasting impression on them. I don't remember every quip Balthier made in XII, I remember him confessing to Ashe about his past on Phon Coast and his final scenes with his father. I don't really remember much of Sahz's comic relief, I only really remember Chapter 8 and can't remember him doing anything afterwards. I can kind of remember a lot of Ignis' stuff since XV is a bit more fresh in my mind, but again, it's the major character moment that makes him memorable along with his almost always inappropriate catch phrase. So even despite having all this extra time to be developed, it's only the major moments that we remember, which is why IV does work because almost every character has one if not two of these types of moments. From Cecil becoming a Paladin, to Tellah's suicidal casting of Meteo, to Edge having to mercy kill his parents, to the twins noble sacrifice to save the party. IV's plot is amateurish and hilariously bad in places, but it's filled to the brim with strong moments that leave a lasting impression. IV is ultimately a game I've gone back and forth with in terms of why I like it. Basically, I debate with myself whether I love it purely for the nostalgia and how the game can whisk me back to my school days or whether there is something more to it and the game is actually a solid entry that can stand the test of time. Depending on when you ask me, I may give you a different answer. I would currently say that it's the latter, but modern gaming fans can easily lose sight of his accomplishment because the game lacks the bells and whistles the genre has kind of been saddled with over the years with in-depth customization systems, Action-RPG systems or elements in the game, and loads of extra mini-games and character skits to expand the time one spends with the game. In contrast, IV is much simpler and a product of a time when people didn't expect much from the genre, yet it does it's best to be as solid as it possibly can. I think it's a wonder that IV is probably the most balanced game in the series.