Yes you read that title right, unlike other people who usually say II,VIII,or XIII(maybe XIV because of it's horrible launch) are the worst in the main series I instead feel IV is. Now first off I don't think IV is a bad game I just don't get why this is seen as one of the best games in the series, I also feel IV is the most overrated, by Square anyway. Yes people will say VII is the most overrated but think about about this how many times as IV been re-released and updated? Sure VII has a lot of tie-ins but other than a PC port it hasn't really been that re-released that much. But anyway let's go over my issues with IV, also note while I have play through IV it's been awhile so I apologize if I get some details wrong.
First let's go over my issues with some of the characters. So let's start off with Rydia. My biggest problem with Rydia is why does she become an adult? Really what do they do with that other than I think Edge hits on her a couple of times,yeah that was wroth it. Now someone can say it's because it needed to be done so she could have her full summoner powers, but I say that could have been done if she underwent a some kind of ritual,like I don't the ritual Cecil did to become a Paladin. Really I think Rydia's character would've been better if she was kept as a child for the rest of the game and did something more with the relationship between Cecil and Rydia, maybe having Rydia seeing Cecil as a father figure so that at the end of the game when Cecil and Rosa get married and would adopt Rydia, It really would've been some good character development as Rydai started the game hating Cecil than started to accept and would've seen her seen Cecil as someone she loves like a parent,it would've work so easily so I just don't see why they didn't go with that. Now let's talk about Rydia's aging itself, it makes no sense. In the story it's stated since she was in the Land of Summons she age 20 so years due to the fact time moves faster there. OK but than you add After Years where it seems to suggest Rydia has been living there awhile, if she aged decades in weeks if not days I'm pretty sure she would've died of old age after 1 year let alone 18 years. Now don't anyone say anything like "oh the Espers can effect the flow of time in their world", THAT MAKES NO SENSE!!!
Update- OK seems I was a little off about After Years, I remembered it saying Rydia was living in the Freymarch but it seems she was going back and forth between the Freymarch and Mist, mostly in Mist. However I still stand by my statement that if she aged 20 odd years in a weeks or days during IV she would have either died of old age or be very old if she did go back and froth between the two places.
Anyway let's move on to Edward, the most wasted character in the game. First off Edward is wasted by his stats but in the end his inclusion doesn't matter in the end. Sure he helps Cecil find the dessert rose but that could have easily been done by having a NPC give the information, But wait you say he help out with the battle with the Dark Elf, yeah but when you stop and think about it this helps the villains in the end because Cecil was trying to get the Earth Crystal so he could trade it to the villains for Rosa, so yeah the villains plans would've been slowed down if not stopped all together with that crystal still in the Dark Elf's hands. Before Edward leaves the party they set up that he wants to help save the world to honor his love ones but no he doesn't do anything so I guess he must be very very very miserable at the end. Now here's a crazy I had for Edward,what if he was Edge? Yes I know it sounds crazy but it could have work really will if they went in that direction. If we look at Edge's stats he has strong physical stats and strong magical stats, though his physical stats aren't as high as Cecil and Kain, and his magical stats aren't as high as Rosa and Rydia. But how does that help in making Edward and Edge the same person? you say to yourself. Well lets just say that after Levitation's attack on the ship the party was on instead of Edward ending up in the kingdom of women he instead ended up in a ninja village. While healing there he decided to train so he could get stronger in order to help Cecil on the his quest, however he wants to help Cecil in anyway possible so he decided to train in anything he could, from sword fighting to using ninjustsu, But after he completes his training and recovery he still doesn't rejoin Cecil's party because he doesn't want to be a burden so he follows from a distance improving himself along the way and only rejoins after learning his dead parents are being used for sick experiments. If they had gone in this direction it really would have improve Edward's character and wouldn't have the need of introducing a random ninja more than halfway through the story.
Now let's move onto Kain,Golbez,and Zemes. I'm going over all three together because my biggest issue with all three is one thing,mind control. So we two characters who could be turn into villains, one over jealously and one over revenge, but let's not do that and instead just have them under mind control, works much better than actually having character development. Lets go over Kain first, the game sets up really well that Kain is jealous of Cecil due to more respect from the King and kingdom and having Rosa's love. Zemes could have easily manipulated Kain over this so then in the end it would have made sense why he wouldn't want to around the people he betrayed,kinda like Leon from II. But no they didn't do this so basically Kain's story is he's got a weak mind and is then ashamed of it. Oh how tragic I can see why he lives off in the middle of nowhere between IV and After Years. Then there's Golbez who suffers the same faith, Zemes could have easily manipulated him into thinking his father, mother ,and baby brother were killed by people because his father was a Luanmerain but Zemes was able to save Golbez before he died. That way Golbez would be closer to his savior and would be on broad with the whole wiping out all life on the planet. But I guess mind control works much better. Really at the end of the day Zemes comes off as the most lazy main villain in a Final Fantasy game, if he has mind control he should get creative and use it more effectively maybe even turning other party members against Cecil. And before anyone says "but he can only use it against certain people" that's why mind control is such a lazy plot element.
Now to finish off my huge issues with the characters let's go over on more thing, death is meaningless. Throughout the story 5 characters give heroic sacrifices but only one dies form it, and ironically that's Tellah who has the weakest sacrifice, he over uses his powers. So we have Palom and Porom who turned themselves into stone and not even Tellah can undue the spell when he's probably the greatest mage in the world, will if he can't no one ca....oh wait someone weaker can. Then we Yang who is caught in multiple explosions and may or may not have been thrown in to lava, but he was saved by faeries so it all evens out. Than there's Cid, who has the worst instinct of surviving a heroic sacrifice, he BLOWS HIMSELF UP WITH A BOMB!!!......I`m pretty sure you can`t survive that. Really even Tellah`s death makes no sense "Oh look where revenge brought me death proving revenge is pointless, Cecil go get revenge for my death". I really don't know why they went out of the way of making these heroic sacrifices meaningless seeing as II had 3 heroic sacrifices that weren't undone.
Now you might be saying to yourself "ok you have problems with some characters but everyone has problems with characters in the Final Fantasy games why does that make IV the worst in your eyes?" Well anyone wondering that is right, my issues with the characters doesn't make the game bad, but these issues are my secondary problem with IV. My biggest issue with IV is a lack of any real RPG elements.
Let's go over what RPG elements are actually are in IV. You can level up, you can equip different weapons and armor, and you have random battles in a huge world. That's yet. In contrast lets go over the first 3 games and what they offered beside what was other stated to be in IV.
At the start of I you make a party of 4 out of 6 classes making several different combinations like say a Fighter,Thief, Red Mage and White Mage or maybe challenge yourself with a part of all White Mages or all Black Mages. Within the game itself you can buy several magic for your mages based on level and there is some customization as there could be 4 spells for one level but your only able to equip 3.
II of course featured the poor executed stat building of performing several actions over and over to increase their levels, such as using Fire over and over and over to increase it's level from 1 to 16. You can also equip whatever spells and weapons you want to each character, though each character has per-determent stats that suggest what would be best.
And of course III introduced the Job system that would be perfected in V.
Now let's briefly go over what the other games had.
V brought back the Job system from III
VI had the Espers system
VII had the Material system
VIII had the GFs system
IX had the ability equipment
X had the Sphere Grid
XI had...I don't know
XII had the License Broad
XIII had the Crystlist system
and XIV had...I don't either, yeah never played XI or XIV, I'm not into MMORPGs
Now when compared to other RPGs most of these are rather simple but you know their still a lot more than a few characters get new abilities after so many levels. When you stop and think about IV is kinda like "My first RPG" it's not over complicated and it is kinda easy when compare to other games,yeah there are hard spots but those are because of who is in your party. Speaking of the slightly low difficulty in IV I think that's why IV for the DS was made so much harder.
Update- So according to Final Fantasy Wikia the reason IV has so few RPG elements is because they were trying to make it more cinematic, like a movie. OK that's kinda fair, though it does seem strange when compare to the rest of the series. However I find this very funny in hindsight because now days people usually get pissed off with developers trying to make games more like movies yet IV was allow to get away with this.
So there you go my reasons why I feel IV is the weakest (or worst what ever word you want to use) in the main series. So why do people call it one of the best? Again I don't this is a bad game or anything I just feel it's lacking when compared to the rest of the series, well minus XI and XIV since I never did play those 2. Well anyway despite my issues I'm sure people well keep loving this game while I go off to actually playthrough After Years. This is WinterDeathPeach saying peace out.
Update- So I just wanted to go over a few more things I forgot about.
I questioned why IV is considered one of the best in the series and now that I think maybe it's because of the fact IV introduced the Active Time Battle(ATB) system which was the staple of the series till X when each would use a different battle system. While I would say that makes IV important to the series I still don't think it's enough to make one the best. It's like the first Devil May Cry, it may have introduced the world to hack and slash gameplay but that doesn't mean it's of the best in the series seeing as Devil May Cry 3 and DMC are much better.
I mention how Zemes' mind control is kinda wasted but than I remember he brought the Elemental Lords back to life. So is that a normal power he has or does it have something to do with the Lords themselves. I could believe the latter seeing as Scarmiglione can bring himself back to life as a zombie, so maybe the others could do something similar it's just our heroes were much stronger when facing the other 3. If it's the former than it's yet another power that Zemes possesses that is wasted.
I mentioned that I was going to play through After Years but I decided to play through IV first, mostly because I'm playing it on the PSP and I want to play IV,Interlude,and After Years chronologically. Anyway I started playing 4 and I don't know if it's the because it's the PSP version is different or maybe because the last time I play IV it was the DS version but wow is it easy. My statement of IV being "My first RPG" just seems more true, within the first hour not counting the Mist Dragon the enemies attacked me all of 4 times, maybe the GBA version was also this easy but I honestly don't remember and I don't want to play the GBA just to count how often the enemies attack me.
Update- Turns out the reason the reason why the enemies weren't attacking was because wait was turned on. Yeah I completely missed that, my bad.
I also want to say a really really stupid thing that happen to me when I was in high school(2003 I think). So I was playing II on the GBA and someone was asking what game I was playing, I answered that I was playing Final Fantasy II and the person response to that was "you know that wasn't the real Final Fantasy II".........I think that response speaks for it's self.
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