Funnal Fans The Sea

I have been playing the DS version of Final Fantasy 4 lately (and I am sure that link was totally unnecessary for most people but hey).

I have to say that FF4 is probably my least favorite of the series. Yes I even like it somewhat less then FF8. I know FF8 is regarded as the worse of the series, but at least it was INTERESTING. FF4 is just boring gameplay-wise and melodramatic and annoying story-wise. FF8 is a clusterfuck of random bullshit true, but that's what makes it memorable. And FF7 is the best game ever. There I said it.

Anyway, the DS version makes the gameplay a lot less stale and boring by adding "augment" items (or whatever they are, they only show up as shiny sparkles on the map) that teach characters new battle commands, and allows departed characters (of which there is a lot in ff4) to leave behind some of their battle commands. This greatly improves character customization, and by greatly improves, I mean finally gives some. Of course, squares obsession with "equipping" abilities pops up again despite how that never made any sort of logical sense, but then nether do sparky somethings teaching you stuff in the first place. Also you can't ditch the item command, which annoys me because I need more slots damn it. At least it makes somewhat more sense then junctioning things to your attributes in FF8. I swear square doesn't even try and make their ability systems make sense since FF8.... but I digress, this isn't a Final Fantasy series retrospective, I have seen too many of those online.

I do notice though, when I am playing I constantly pick out flaws or missed ideas I would like to play with. Like "Oh why can't I use these pointless attack item things to learn spells or forge equipment or something" only to realize, FF8 did that (sorta) and I still found something wrong with it. Of course this kind of nitpicking is something I do for most any game. Thats one of the reasons I got into the whole game creation/rom hacking thing. It's just that good ideas don't make a game. There is still levels/maps, graphics, sound, and all that content stuff I struggle with in my hack... unless it's a Roguelike of course, then everything is generated randomly. I really should make one of those, except I would need mad programing skillz yo. And I am lazy anyway. Bah.