Gamers - and most especially Hena: Final Fantasy IV DS is getting a lot of flack in the reviews online, which I didn't expect. Is it actually any good?

86% on metacritic, that's flack?

sorry, work blocks all V Game sites (including deeper into metacitics vid game speicifc sections, STUPID) so i can only see what they show me on the main page

Yes, it's fucking great. The voices are somewhat meh, but it's FFIV in a really polished form. My favourite things:

- Battle commands can be customized -- you can pick up to five from all the commands the character knows. This includes shortcuts to specific items and spells.
- Augmentations, which are kind of just extra abilities. So far I've gotten auto-potion, which automatically potions me whenever I take damage. Fun.
- Auto-Battle! Random encounters are less hassle now. Just hit X and the character performs an action of YOUR CHOOSING. Not just attack or random spells. You set that one up in the ability menu, too.

Cons:
- Stupid little things aren't tweakable. Like battle text speed. And you can't set the cursor to Memory now, either. You have to pick and choose what you're doing every time.
- Voices. Any time you add voices to something like this... it runs the risk of contradicting what's already existing for the past decade+, in my head.

But overall, do it. It's enjoyable, has a cleaned up script, and a nicely tweaked battle system. And it doesn't hang every 4 seconds like the GBA remake did.

The buzz on a2 is that there really aren't that many gameplay improvements, no upgrade in visuals and the story is even MORE annoyingly immature that Tactics Advance - which was a great game, but the story made me cringe at times.

What the Hell happened to the serious intrigue of Tactics and the Ogre Battle series?

I can speak to that as well. I wouldn't call A2 less mature. I would agree that there really aren't many improvements, though. Some of the things they changed, I very much miss.

Pros:
- If you liked the first one, this one is probably twice the size. I have about 280 quests completed, and I'm not done yet. I think there're over 300 total.
- More jobs. I am an absolute sucker for a job system. Some of the new ones are really nice, like Spellblade and Green Mage and Trickster and Lanista.
- Slightly improved visuals. Spell effects are a lot nicer-looking.
- I actually prefer this story. It's not quite so whiny. In fact it's almost sickeningly positive and optimistic. Nice change, I guess.
- The whole clan now gains AP after quests. That's a nice change, but AP is reduced accordingly. Most quests only give you 30, which means learning Dual Wield takes 33 missions. Ouch.

Cons:
- 300 missions gets tedious, and you end up wanting to just dispatch clan members to finish them, instead of actually fighting.
- New jobs ain't all that spectacular. Moogles and Bangaa get a job that uses a hand cannon. In theory? AWESOME. In reality, it's the same job, more or less, and it's really pretty crap. I was hoping for a Gunner upgrade, but it's most definitely not.
- MP now starts a 0 and goes up by 10 per turn. This isn't major at the beginning, but by 70 hours in, you're having to wait four turns to cast Ultima, and that's ridiculous. There are ways around it, but they're annoying as well.
- Summoning what used to be called Totema and are now called Eidolons almost never happens. Because the gauge it's based on, like MP, starts out empty at the beginning of every battle. So again, five turns in, you're almost done. What's the point of summoning one thing to kill everything when you can do it yourself and gain more XP for more people.

It's not BAD, but it's not spectactular. I'm mostly annoyed that the new jobs are balls. Oh, and I didn't mention the two new races. That's because they're completely underwhelming. It takes until about 30 missions in to even RECRUIT ONE.

I'd just call it "pretty good", as well as a missed opportunity.

Wow, Ethan. Much obliged.

Oh, and I forgot to mention: FFIV is hard, now. I just fought the Mombomb on Mt. Fabul, and it killed everyone but Yang. THAT didn't happen in the 16-bit era, that's for sure.

@ethan level more noob, it's probably harder than ff2 but not as hard as ffiv (boy that must be confusing for non square fanboys)

Hena said, (25 minutes ago)

BERSERKER BARRAGE