I've already experienced Final Fantasy 4 through the Pixel Remaster edition, but I wanted to go back to the SNES original for the sake of the aesthetic, seeing as the remasters all look pretty identical to each other, and just to see how does the original stack up. Expect the review to be described from this kind of perspective.
Obviously, it's the first version of the game, so you're not gonna get any of the remaster's conveniences. Battles are slower, overall menu navigation is slower, there's no run button... one of the more surprising things missing is the ATB bar. Like, the ATB system is in this game, there's just no visual indicators for when will your character be able to have their turn.
The localization is butchered to hell and back, but from my viewpoint, it's a bonus that makes the game's story more entertaining. And you're gonna want that, because the story by itself has pretty barebones characterization, and a comedically frequent amount of death scenes to increase the drama. I'll take all the narm I can get.
So far I've been a bit on the negative side though, is this still a good version of the game to play? Yeah, sure, as long as you're the patient sort. A fast forward button helps too, but patience is more important here. It is an RPG after all. The difficulty is perfectly managable, and considerably better balanced than any of the NES Final Fantasies. I think the only part I didn't like was the final dungeon, which smothered you with enemies that took forever to kill, and made for an incredibly long and exhausting dungeon. You might wanna consider splitting it into two sessions instead of trying to knock out all of it at once. I remember this dungeon being a bit tough in the remaster, but not to this extent.
I think your enjoyment of this version also verges on just how much you care about getting the "true" version, which, well, this one's not even it, because they nerfed Final Fantasy 4's difficulty when they brought it to the west and renamed it to Final Fantasy 2. So, you'd likely have to dabble in some rom hackery to get the real original version of Final Fantasy 4, but I don't have it in me to play a harder RPG than this right now, I'm a coward and like these things to be on the lax side.
Otherwise, if you just want the most QoL-like version of FF4, the Pixel Remaster will do you fine. It's faster, and surprisingly faithful now that I can compare the two. Though, I haven't played any of the other versions of FF4, so it's possible there might be even better versions of the game. Feel free to recommend them in the replies if you have any. Either way, I'll be getting to all of them in the future.
Obviously, it's the first version of the game, so you're not gonna get any of the remaster's conveniences. Battles are slower, overall menu navigation is slower, there's no run button... one of the more surprising things missing is the ATB bar. Like, the ATB system is in this game, there's just no visual indicators for when will your character be able to have their turn.
The localization is butchered to hell and back, but from my viewpoint, it's a bonus that makes the game's story more entertaining. And you're gonna want that, because the story by itself has pretty barebones characterization, and a comedically frequent amount of death scenes to increase the drama. I'll take all the narm I can get.
So far I've been a bit on the negative side though, is this still a good version of the game to play? Yeah, sure, as long as you're the patient sort. A fast forward button helps too, but patience is more important here. It is an RPG after all. The difficulty is perfectly managable, and considerably better balanced than any of the NES Final Fantasies. I think the only part I didn't like was the final dungeon, which smothered you with enemies that took forever to kill, and made for an incredibly long and exhausting dungeon. You might wanna consider splitting it into two sessions instead of trying to knock out all of it at once. I remember this dungeon being a bit tough in the remaster, but not to this extent.
I think your enjoyment of this version also verges on just how much you care about getting the "true" version, which, well, this one's not even it, because they nerfed Final Fantasy 4's difficulty when they brought it to the west and renamed it to Final Fantasy 2. So, you'd likely have to dabble in some rom hackery to get the real original version of Final Fantasy 4, but I don't have it in me to play a harder RPG than this right now, I'm a coward and like these things to be on the lax side.
Otherwise, if you just want the most QoL-like version of FF4, the Pixel Remaster will do you fine. It's faster, and surprisingly faithful now that I can compare the two. Though, I haven't played any of the other versions of FF4, so it's possible there might be even better versions of the game. Feel free to recommend them in the replies if you have any. Either way, I'll be getting to all of them in the future.