Gadgetory

hello again ladies and gentlemen i'm joe hindi the android authority app guy today we revisit 1991 Square Enix has rereleased the classic JRPG Final Fantasy 4 for Android and after the intro we'll take a closer look at it let's talk about the biggest change first which is the graphics gone are the days of flat world maps and gone are the days of flat out-of-focus sprites Square Enix has revamped the graphics in a big way and to put it bluntly it's much much better than it used to be it's difficult to pinpoint specifics when the whole thing has been redone like this it's very similar to the Nintendo DS remake in terms of graphics except on Android it's a little bit sharper so think of all the graphics and animations you'll remember from the SNES days and forget about them because they're gone now one thing we do want to point out are specific things you'll see changed from the old SNES version secret tunnels no longer show up as grey instead of pitch black so when navigating off screen to find treasure or secret passages you will no longer be guided by the slightly off black giveaway as we saw in the SNES version gameplay is also a lot different however most of this is because you're playing on a touchscreen rather than a console controller you still have your classic commands like attack black magic white magic items and character specific talents you just have to scroll and click with your finger instead of using a d-pad there are a few changes from the core experience Square Enix brings back the augment system from the DES remake throughout the game you'll come across augments that you can equip for additional command options things like auto potion which will make a character automatically use a potion when they take damage some of the playable characters also come with skills that you didn't see in the SNES version yang has the brace command forum has the cry command palem has bluff and edward has a couple of additional bar techniques so if you're coming straight from the SNES US version you'll see a lot of stuff you haven't seen before the last major changes we'll mention in terms of controls are the new battle commands you can now choose Auto battle to have every character perform an auto task as defined by you the player this is great for level grinding there are also buttons nearby for skipping character turns and escaping you may also notice all the name changes names now follow the naming conventions of newer Final Fantasies I stood has turned into Blizzard carrot too turn into Kira etc this includes enemies as M's have now become goblins and bosses like me lon the Archfiend you fight on Mount ordeals is now scar meglio for those who are fans of the original story you'll be delighted to hear that there are now voiced over cutscenes it's not amazing voiceovers but considering that when we played this game before we were reading these long dialogues ourselves it's definitely a pleasant change and they're actually fun to watch when you get right down to it the game is at its core the same as it's always been characters all know essentially the same skills the world maps and dungeons are still laid out exactly the same including all the hidden areas and once you get used to the touchscreen controls even battles and strategies are the same so here's what we liked about Final Fantasy for probably the biggest thing we liked is that Square Enix didn't butcher the Final Fantasy for experience the wonderful story and music remains wonderful despite the additions and graphical enhancements while they did add some dialogue and the cutscenes are essentially all brand new the classic moments remain and longtime fans will feel right at home we also loved the Auto battle system any longtime final fantasy fan knows there are points where level grinding is pretty much necessary while we wish there had been a way to speed things up like the battles we're certainly glad that Auto battle makes the repetitive clicking go away lastly the graphics and cutscenes were a nice touch it would have been easy to just pump out a pure SNES remake and pop it into the Google Play Store however Square Enix went that extra mile to bring an updated experience that appeals to both new and old Final Fantasy fans so what didn't we like well the battles feat for one thing while fighting feels much better in the new version thanks to the graphics the battle speed remains as slow as ever since random encounters happen pretty frequently this means you spend a lot of time in battles at points when you really don't want to don't get us wrong it's great for leveling up but we wish we could set the battle speed a little higher also some of the new dialogue sucks while the old dialogue wasn't exactly going to win any awards some of the new dialogue especially the stuff spoken by the voice-over actors is a little bland and unimaginative thankfully it doesn't happen very often overall we were quite happy with Square Enix on this one people who have been playing the game off and on for 20 years will get everything they loved about the original plus some new content new the Final Fantasy series can experience what we old fans had loved about the earlier games in the series without the terrible graphics it comes out a lofty price tag of $15.99 us this is pretty high for a game that came out 22 years ago while we can't define the high price tag we will say that nostalgia dictates that 16 bucks is a small price to pay to play this classic again still though we understand if some people think it's a little too high so the question is would we recommend it the answer is yes we would even if it's a little expensive this is one of the RPGs that helped define the genre and laid the groundwork for more popular titles over the next decade it's a classic and classics are always worth picking up once again I'm Joe Hendy the Android authority app guy feel free to subscribe to our youtube channel and check out the written version 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