Final Fantasy II/IV (SNES) 8-bit/16-bit Quick Comparison, Intro and Brief Gameplay Demonstration
20As implied in the title of this video, only the intro of the game is shown, preceded by a quick technical comparison with the first Final Fantasy, followed by a quick montage of some of the first battles at the end of the video. This was made to be used in a review I made on this French site here: http://www.geekmodeblog.com/2009/04/final-fantasy-iiiv-snes_15.html#complet This video is also supposed to give you a general idea of this game's story and gameplay, which could lead you to try it, I hope! When it was released in North America on the SNES, this game was called Final Fantasy II since it was the second game in the series that we received. In Japan, it was in fact the fourth Final Fantasy game leading to this naming confusion that was abandoned when they released Final Fantasy VII on the PlayStation a few years later (after Final Fantasy III on the SNES, which was in fact, Final Fantasy VI in Japan). The re-releases of this game have been renamed Final Fantasy IV (and are harder, also featuring a retranslated script since it was heavily censored on the SNES), the original title, in order to clear this confusion. The story is about this Dark Knight, Cecil, and this Dragoon, Kain, who have to choose between following their king's order or following what they believe is right. The story in this Final Fantasy is less subtle and it goes faster than later titles, but it still holds a few surprises and secrets (a big one for your main character and important events for a lot of secondary characters) that keep your attention. This is the game that introduced the Final Fantasy series to 16-bit, but it also introduced the battle system we know as the Active Time Battle to the series, meaning that after a short while, your character is ready to attack and so are the monsters, so the battles occur in real-time (or nearly). Some characters have a unique ability (all characters in the Japanese version), some can use one type of magic or more, the Dragoon can jump, the Caller can summon a powerful monster for help, etc. It features a nice graphical upgrade to 16-bit from its predecessors (not nearly as nice as Final Fantasy III/VI, but it came out later) while keeping sprites that look similar. So, everything is more colored and more detailed than on the NES, of course. Nobuo Uematsu, with this new 16-bit system, began to compose more complex melodies (of course, less varied and less rich than in Final Fantasy III/VI, but everything needs a beginning and you can't judge the fourth game based on the sixth one since it was released later) of which some are quite memorable (the Boss Theme and the Theme of Love are very good, and the Prelude got a good little upgrade). You could say that the graphics and sounds are of better quality (16-bit) while keeping a classic touch. The bigger space on the SNES cartridges compared to the NES cartridges gave Square the chance to develop more complex stories, such as in Final Fantasy IV if you compare it to previous titles in the series. Over the course of the game, in a quest mainly for truth and justice also with a great deal of redemption, many characters will join you and leave you under different circumstances. You can feel that they were experimenting with new concepts, but at its release, it was the best Final Fantasy ever and it remains among the good RPGs even today (I bet that those who played it in their youth all greatly remember this game and hold it as one of their favorites).