[magus113]

Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection for PSP.

It's yet another Final Fantasy IV remake for yet another console. It's been remade...four times now? Let's see:

SNES Original (1991)
Playstation as part of the Final Fantasy Chronicles along with Chrono Trigger (2001)
Wonderswan Color in Japan (2002)
Game Boy Advance with new script and some added content (2005)
SNES Original on the Virtual Console (2010)
PSP as the Complete Collection with FFIV: Interlude and remade FFIV: The After Years (2011)

...that's a lot of remakes. To be fair we never saw the WSC version here in America, but it's still another remake. I wonder why though? The game is good, that's not the problem. It's just not great. I can understand how it had so much appeal back in 1991 considering what the Final Fantasy games were coming from on the NES, but VI was a much better game (I should know, having completed it last year, finally). Even so, I do have somewhat of a soft spot for this game, even though I've never finished it, or tried playing it as much as I have other Final Fantasy games in the past.

I went and I spent the money for the Complete Collection on the PSP not just for the fact that there's essentially two full Final Fantasy games for the price of 23.99 (when I bought it), but I think it was a nice way to update the game but still keep it true to the original. I liked the DS remake, don't get me wrong. I have it. It just feels different. It doesn't have the same kind of goofy aesthetic that the 2D versions of the game have, like the character sprites jumping around, although the voice work was great, and it didn't detract from the overall game since it stayed true to the source material and it wasn't done for every single cutscene. It made the pacing nice for a portable outing.

It's just fun for me I guess to play through the game in 2D with updated, higher definition sprites and backgrounds, but still being able to have the option of listening to the old SNES music as opposed to the new (and sometimes nicer) arranged version of the BGM.

Sometimes I'm just more of a purist I guess. Supposedly they did make the first half of the game easier, which I might have to call BS on. I'm about to go through the Lodestone Cavern to get the Earth crystal in Troia and I'm getting my ass handed to me by the battles in the area. Go go Gadget grindfest.