This is one of the games I was really excited to getting around to. A ground-up 3D remake of one of the most iconic Final Fantasies... what's not to love? As it turns out, quite a lot of things. Despite some really great added content - a fantastic opening FMV, the mapping system which can be used to earn more items, and the augment system (more on this later) - a lot of the supposed 'upgrades' result in a less effective experience on the whole.

Take the augment system - a way of adding some customization to the rigid character builds of the original game. I'm all for customization (insert obligatory ''FFV is my favorite game" here), although one could argue that the ever-changing party composition combined with rigid builds creates a unique 'puzzle' feel that is core to the FF4 experience and shouldn't be changed. That's a philosophical discussion for another day, but the actual implementation of the augment system leaves a lot to be desired. The fact that new abilities have been added to your party's toolset means that the difficulty level had to be raised to compensate (understandable), but it also means it's very possible to softlock yourself through bad distribution of augment abilities. Also, plenty of augment abilities are 'hidden' in places you have absolutely no reason to revisit, making them seem more like a guide-dang-it bonus than a core part of the gameplay.

The higher difficulty level would be no issue if it were implemented elegantly, and for the most part it is. But FF4DS suffers from strangely inconsistent and opaque ATB mechanics which always seem to appear at the least convenient times - ATB bars sometimes freeze but sometimes continue to fill during battle animations, as one example - quirks like these often would go unnoticed in a more forgiving game but feel really annoying here as they sometimes make strategizing impossible. One thing in particular that I find hard to look past is that the rigidity of the ATB mechanics means that if you are fighting more than one of the same type of enemy, they will always move back-to-back. With this, certain enemy formations can wipe your party because they consistently can hit you with a series of attacks with no window to heal in between. As an example, I once lost a good bit of progress because I ran into two chimeras that used Blaze back-to-back - and I didn't even have the chance to run away because I was back-attacked! I call this the "auto-lose" button and there is no reason for it to exist in a game from 2007.

On a slightly different note, the updated 3D graphics are a bit of an acquired taste. I didn't mind them much, although the shift to 3D did make the battles feel a bit less snappy. But one small way the new graphics detracted from the original experience was in exploration. The original had plenty of 'invisible' treasures: loot that was out in the open but had no visible clue that they were there - you just needed to walk up to an empty space and search it. I'm not a big fan of this in general, but it somewhat worked in the original because it was grid-based and there are only so many squares in each location. The 3D remake makes each map much bigger and more detailed which makes the invisible treasures a lot more annoying to search for. I wish they would have come up with a less lazy way to 'hide' secret loot - it is a ground-up remake after all!

Taking a detour, I'm going to admit something sacrilegious: I think FF4's story is weak. It starts as high fantasy and wildly swings into sci-fi with almost zero foreshadowing, so many of the plot points feel like the result of "we're out of map space to explore so let's just come up with something to pad the story", people die and return more often than in the Marvel universe, and most of the character arcs (the strongest part of the story) are resolved fairly early on in the plot. I will say that its strength is expressing these fairly standard tropes through the gameplay. Tellah is an old man so he loses physical stats as he levels up, and dies because he casts a spell he doesn't have enough MP for. Cecil and Rosa are perfect for each other because as a paladin he can protect her and she can cure him, which Kain was always a bad fit for her because when he jumps he can't be targetted by her cures and she's left as a sitting duck. Both the original and the DS remake handle this well, but the remake leaves out one subtle bit of storytelling-through-gameplay that was in the original: there is one dungeon around the midpoint of the game where you're not allowed to equip heavy armor. It's a neat curveball that forces you to temporarily rethink your playstyle, and in the original version you are best served putting Cecil in the back row with a bow - since he can't equip heavy armor he's not useful as a tank, and he's the best healer in the party at that point. Story-wise, it works well too: Rosa has been kidnapped some time ago in the story, and so the game seems to be reminding you what you are fighting for by saying "hey, you don't have a healer!" and nudging you to put your lead character in the Rosa role, which he can do but not as well as her. In this version... Cecil can't even equip bows, which dilutes the message somewhat.

Okay, I've been negative enough about the game. It's still FF4 so it can't be all bad, and the updated dialogue is a really nice touch. The purple prose and the added interactions between characters adds a bit more personality to everyone, and particularly makes the supporting cast more endearing - I definitely enjoyed seeing the twins' antics and Tellah/Cid's old-man energy. Despite my misgivings about a lot of the changes introduced in this remake, I can't say I regret seeing this classic game through a new lens.

It probably won't happen, but I hope this remake gets a remaster/rebalance someday. The addition of a few more FMVs at key story beats, a less opaque augment system, smoother/snappier combat, and saving the higher difficulty for a New Game+ run (which is when your characters will have access to the stronger augments) would probably make it a definitive upgrade on the FF4 experience.