Final Fantasy IV holds a special place in many RPG lovers’ hearts.  Many will claim it’s the best Final Fantasy in the series and arguably one of the greatest games ever made.  The story has everything:  magic, betrayal, friendship, redemption, and many more characteristics that made this tale excellent. Square Enix knows this.  They have remade this game time after time, offering little changes that keep the game pure.  Some might hear they are porting the game once again to the Nintendo DS and just roll their eyes, but that would be a big mistake.  This isn’t another sluggish port; this is a complete overhaul on this title, and is one of the best remakes they have ever published.  

          This heroic story is about a dark knight named Cecil, captain of the Red Wings, who starts to question the path of the darkness.  The kingdom of Baron becomes obsessed with having the power of the four elemental crystals, and wants Cecil to go out and collect them for the king.  The king strips Cecil of his command when he finds out that he no longer wants to be this terrible soldier, and sends him to slay a beast in the Valley of Mist.  Along the way, Cecil meets up with a colorful cast of characters and ultimately tries to save the world, and himself.

                    Cutscenes are great

          This game is similar to the 2006 hit Final Fantasy III, but offers much more.  The CG cut scenes are gorgeous to watch and the graphics are some of the best on the DS.  The cut scenes even offer voice acting, and it’s handled quite well.  Going through the many dungeons, you really feel the game on a much larger scope. Thanks to the revamped graphics, the game seems bigger where everything feels more open.  The characters models look great and move around much more which helps them no longer feel like life-less sprites.  There are also enhancements done to the story to help explain the characters more.  The music is classic Final Fantasy, which means it’s a joy to listen to.  Nobuo Uematsu’s style really knows how to set the tone with music.  

          This remake includes a new ability system called the Augment System.  This allows different abilities to be distributed between other characters that might not have learned that certain ability.  You can obtain up to three different abilities from temporary party members.  This new system also can tweak your command menu by letting you customize it.  For example, a specific magic ability, like fira or thunder, can be set under the command list which makes it more accessible than searching through your black magic list.  This can help speed up the battles, which kind of feel a little longer than they should.

                    Meet Golbez

          Another new feature to this game is Whyt.  Whyt is a new character, or eidolon, that accompanies Rydia.  You level this summon up by performing different mini-games and challenges.  The minigames can be played single-player or over the Nintendo DS local wireless system (not wi-fi) with friends.  I feel this feature has potential to be fun to some who would want to battle their Whyt with their friend’s Whyt, but it feels a little tacked on and pulls you away from the game.

          The action is displayed on the top screen while commands are on the bottom.  Touch-screen support is included in the game, but I quickly abandoned that style and comfortably used the d-pad and face buttons.  While walking around in dungeons and towns, the bottom screen offers… a map.  The map is an enormous added feature that proves extremely useful while exploring.  The map isn’t complete though, you have to ‘draw’ the map.  By walking around, the map sketches the outline of the area and as an added bonus, completing a map yields different items like potions and other accessories to aid you on your journey.  

          You’re going to need all the potions you can get, because this game can be frustrating at times and offers plenty of challenge.  Going into boss battles, you will have to carefully plan your attacks; one wrong mess up and it could spell ‘game over’ for you.  The game provides some cheap shots which at times seems a little unfair.  One dungeon in particular renders your metal weapons and accessories useless, which really can be a pain to work around.  Some may see this as another great obstacle to overcome, but others might see this as a painful excuse to have to shop around for non-metal weapons and armor.  

          With all the improvements to this already stellar game, fans will be happy to take this game for another spin.  If you’ve never played a Final Fantasy before, this would be a great game to introduce you to the series.  The nostalgic game play holds up even today to some of the bigger contenders out there.  Final Fantasy IV DS proves that classics still are fun to play today, and shouldn’t be looked over from where the industry’s bigger and flashier games are at today.