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Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light
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About this item
- The first original FINAL FANTASY title for Nintendo DS brought to life by the development teams behind the Nintendo DS remakes of FINAL FANTASY III and FINAL FANTASY IV
- Charming storybook visuals crafted under the guidance of art director and character designer Akihiko Yoshida (FINAL FANTASY III for DS, FINAL FANTASY XII)
- Combat is fun and intuitive with a battle system that operates on Action Points; Requiring nothing more than a simple selection of commands, players can dive right into a classic turn-based RPG battle experience
- The Crown Job System offers a selection of over two dozen jobs to choose from where players can freely customize a character’s abilities and magic skills no matter which crown they have equipped creating endless possibilities
- Help friends advance in their adventure, or join forces to conquer tough dungeons; The multiplayer mode enables cooperative play for up to four players
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Product information
| ASIN | B003O8EDUS |
|---|---|
| Release date | October 5, 2010 |
| Customer Reviews |
4.5 out of 5 stars |
| Best Sellers Rank | #35,187 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games) #614 in Nintendo DS Games, Consoles & Accessories |
| Pricing | The strikethrough price is the List Price. Savings represents a discount off the List Price. |
| Product Dimensions | 0.6 x 5.4 x 1.89 inches; 4 Ounces |
| Type of item | Video Game |
| Rated | Everyone 10+ |
| Item model number | 910178 |
| Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
| Item Weight | 4 ounces |
| Manufacturer | Solutions 2 Go |
| Date First Available | May 27, 2010 |
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Product Description
Product Description
With FINAL FANTASY: THE 4 HEROES OF LIGHT, the FINAL FANTASY series is rendered anew as an epic storybook adventure by the creators of the FINAL FANTASY III and FINAL FANTASY IV Nintendo DS remakes. Players will enter a beautiful fairy-tale world featuring illustrations and character designs by acclaimed character designer Akihiko Yoshida (FINAL FANTASY III for DS, FINAL FANTASY XII). Developed exclusively for Nintendo DS, this role-playing game is the first original FINAL FANTASY title for the platform. In the small kingdom of Horne, Brandt awakes on the morning of his 14th birthday. Today is the day he becomes an adult, and the custom of the realm says that he must go to the castle to present himself to the king. Yet when he arrives at the castle, he finds the king distraught and the youngest princess missing, abducted by the Witch of the North. With no one else to turn to, the king makes a shocking request: will Brandt save the princess? And thus Brandt’s adventure begins...
From the Manufacturer
FINAL FANTASY: THE 4 HEROES OF LIGHT is a beautifully rendered original adventure brought to you by the acclaimed creators of FINAL FANTASY III and FINAL FANTASY IV on Nintendo DS. Master all-new combat and game systems and immerse yourself in a charming storybook setting as you take on the roles of Brandt, Jusqua, Yunita, and Aire.
Be drawn into a storybook RPG adventure
Customize your characters with
dozens of weapons and armor
Master the new Action Point Battle System
Story
In the small kingdom of Horne, Brandt awakes on the morning of his fourteenth birthday.
Today is the day he becomes an adult, and the custom of the realm says that he must go to the castle to present himself to the king.
Yet when he arrives at the castle he finds the king distraught and the youngest princess missing, abducted by the Witch of the North. With no one else to turn to, the king makes a shocking request: will Brandt save the princess?
And thus Brandt's adventure begins...
Eventually he is joined by three other brave young souls. Together they will experience a journey full of joyous meetings and sad partings.
Though at first they don't always see eye-to-eye, these four Heroes of Light will build bonds of trust and affection so strong that, in the end, they may even save the world.
This is the tale of their legendary quest.
Features
- Enjoy an all-new FINAL FANTASY adventure developed from the ground up by the team that brought you FINAL FANTASY III and FINAL FANTASY IV on Nintendo DS
- Immerse yourself in a charming storybook world as a timeless tale of friendship and adventure unfolds before you
- Customize the look and feel of your characters with dozens of upgradeable weapons and armor
- Unlock over 20 unique crowns and develop your characters' abilities through the Crown Job System
- Master the Action Point Battle System, where your attacks are based on the skills you've attained and the number of Action Points you have
- Play with up to four of your friends to collect Battle Points and purchase rare and powerful treasures
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So, 4 Heroes actually gets a lot right. Visually, the style here is charming. It's storybookish - it actually borrows the "rotating drum world" from games like Animal Crossing and Deathspank - and the character models evoke the sprite art of the classic games. The game SOUNDS like a long-lost Final Fantasy game as well; the synthesizer at work is clearly inspired by the NES/SNES. But neither element is that inspired. For as cute as the game looks, it's merely workmanlike. It works, but there's nothing here that stands out. The music sounds great, if you're into chiptunes, but there's nothing here that's memorable (except, perhaps, the main theme). The localization is strong too; none of the dialog sounds weird, and all the characters have unique voices. None of the dumb, generic, anime stereotypes from Final Fantasy X, XIII, VIII, etc. Again, they have little personality though. These are classic (apprentice) Knights and Mercenaries and Princesses, and they get the job done. But... that's it. Oddly enough, they're also clearly children. This seems to handicap them somewhat, especially the "edgy other guy" of the main four...
Why don't I give him a name? Because none of them have names; the entire party is customizable. Which is commendable. Most JRPGs are so married to their character designs, they forget that this is a ROLE PLAYING game. And the gamer is supposed to have ownership over these characters, not the writer at the studio. That's an element western RPGs get; look at anything Bethesda does. Even Bioware games let you take ownership over their characters by a) letting you choose how they deal with choices in-game, and b) letting you dress them up in armor that changes their visual appearance. Dragon Quest IX also did this, so Level 5 gets it. Apparently Matrix SORT OF gets it, because you can customize the appearance of your entire party, including switching helmets (which is how this Final Fantasy handles Jobs). But they whiff it because, ultimately, it's just a visual change. Your characters aren't mute, and there are no conversation trees. So any ownership over these characters are illusions. They still have the voice of whoever wrote the story, which is frustrating. Tiny spoiler alert; your party splits up a few hours in. You'll encounter other characters while going on your individual quests, and can talk to them. But where you might think, "Yes! Now I can partner up with so-and-so again!", the character thinks, "Pfft. This character will just slow me down". It's baffling.
The quest is the biggest problem, ultimately. It's just not very interesting. It seems to be written by people who remember classic Final Fantasy games, clearly - perhaps TOO classic - and trying to recreate story beats from those games. Again, the lack of inspiration here is killer; there's no ambition to find it's own voice. It just seeks to remind you, "Hey! Remember Final Fantasy I, II, or III? Yeah, those games were alright!". That's also a disappointment; it only seeks to live up to FF1-3. Those were fine games, but ultimately, they're very simplistic. The pinnacle of story-telling in this series came a little later, with games like Final Fantasy III (6), 7, 9, etc. When they could get involved enough to show sequences like the opera in FF6, or the destruction of Midgard in FF7, but things weren't detailed enough to distract Square's artists with fully realizing terrible characters and awful dialog (as in Final Fantasy XIII). Matrix should've really sought to live up to Final Fantasy 6, instead of Final Fantasy II. That's a personal thing though; if you really, really dig the NES games, than this will be awesome. For me though, the game is too simple. And uninspired.
The battle system is fine. Some professional reviews really hated that the game auto-targets. That's right; this game doesn't let you target individual enemies! It can get annoying, but the AI is smart enough to avoid dumb moves. It kind of just refines the experience, and seeks to speed it up. But it still is quite slow; compare this to Dragon Quest IX (where you CAN attack individuals... but you can also turn on AI routines for all your characters to get a similar experience to here), and it's night and day. Another big contrast with Dragon Quest IX, and most RPGs nowadays actually, is that all the battles are random here. You can't see squat on the world maps. And the Encounter Rate is relatively high... Skies of Arcadia high. It can get annoying. But the system, which revolves around Action Points, works well. Leveling up is pretty natural; there's some grinding (what's a classic RPG without it?), but - from what I played before quitting - it wasn't that bad.
So there you go. "Wasn't that bad". That about sums up my feelings for this game entirely. I wanted to love it, and it really does a ton right. But where it matters? It's just lacking. If you're looking for RPGs that respect the past, go play Dragon Quest IX. If you're looking for, quite possibly, the best RPG on DS, go play Dragon Quest IX. Or Radiant Historia. There are a lot of great RPGs on the DS, including - Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest 4/5/6/9, Golden Sun DS, Radiant Historia, some Shin Megaten games, etc. - and 4 Heroes isn't better than any of them. And everything it seeks to do, Dragon Quest IX does better. I can't suggest this over any of them. But if you've played them all, and/or you find this for cheap enough (Amazon IS good with the prices), you might wanna give this a shot. It's pretty good technically - which is why my overall score is 4/5 - but ultimately, it's only solid. Which is why my score for "How fun is this game?" is only 3/5.
I wasn't sure about the artwork style when I first bought the game, but it won me over after a short while. It is definitely reminiscent of the old 8-bit RPGs but translated into 3D. The towns also have an interesting 3D scrolling perspective in place of a fully movable camera or 3D characters moving against 2D backdrops. The music is catchy and also sounds like a refresh of 8-bit RPGs, complete with some 8-bit sounding synthesizers.
The story is your typical old school Final Fantasy-type plot, complete with magic crystals. The story takes you through a variety of areas with various nods to classic Square/Enix RPGs, including the tower dungeons from the Dragon Quest games and "normal world"/"broken world" trope from Final Fantasy 6. I thought the main two male characters were selfish jerks right down to the end of the game, but the two ladies do have some character progression.
The difficulty is reminiscent of late 80s-early 90s RPGs. If you are really careless, you WILL die. If you wander into the next area before you are remotely ready, you will either die or just barely escape. The inventory system is also limited in a way reminiscent of 8-bit games: each character can only hold a set amount of items, so you definitely need to mind what you're carrying with you into a dungeon or another new area.
The battle system is really simple to pick up, but the buttons are large and optimized for stylus use if you choose. My favorite part of the battle system is the AP gauges. Each character has a maximum of 5 points, and some actions consume more points than others. The downside is that you periodically need to make your characters defend themselves so you can re-build your gauge. You have to plan out attack strategies, which I definitely missed when I moved back to more traditional DQ/FF style RPGs after this game. The MAJOR upside is that you don't have a finite amount of MP that needs to be replenished through outside means. If you're exploring a dungeon and it's taking longer than you thought, you can still re-build your gauges with careful planning instead of blowing through a finite number of MP-restoring items. I didn't even bother with AP-restoring items except before boss fights.
Once you get into the job class system (the hats), that adds another element of strategy. You unlock abilities that are only present while you have that particular hat on. As you unlock various abilities, you may have a certain combination of hats you favor for trekking through a dungeon, but switch off to something different for the area boss. There are many, many ways you can approach the job class system, but I will note that I had a lot of fun making the airhead princess into a formidable martial artist.
Finally, you can level up your weapons and armor using the same gems that you use to level up hats. I personally didn't find this useful until the very end of the game, when I finally got several endgame pieces of armor and some powerful weapons that didn't have any one elemental affinity. Even if you aren't using the wireless co-op feature, you can still periodically rack up enough points to buy interesting weapons like that in those shops.
The biggest downside of the game is that, like Final Fantasy Legend 1 and some old RPGs with lots of collectibles, it only gives you one save slot per cartridge.
All in all, I enjoyed the game greatly and will play through it again at some point. I would give it 4.5 stars if half-stars were allowed. While the story is nothing special, the rest of the game is the retro RPG equivalent of comfort food and the job class system does have enough variety that my next playthrough is guaranteed to be different. Some of the game's limitations are old school when there aren't really technical reasons for them anymore, but it does add to the feel and the strategy of the game. I definitely look forward to buying Bravely Default, which is by the same studio, when I eventually get around to picking up a 3DS.
P.S.: If you can get a copy of the official strategy guide, definitely pick it up. It has a comprehensive inventory of all of the items, weapons, monsters, etc. complete with pictures. I used several online guides for the actual strategy portions when I was stuck.
Top reviews from other countries
- Turn based combat with more strategy and planning involved than older Final Fantasy games
- Experimenting with and acquiring new jobs/abilities is great fun.
- Has endgame content which will last a while.
- If you're a fan of Bravely Default/Second, you'll be interested to see how its predecessor tackled the job system.
Bad
- Limited inventory space is a hassle, compounded by the desire to hoard stuff.
- Story and characters are rather simple, not really the focus of the game. On the flipside, you don't get interrupted by story segments as often as other RPGs.
- Pretty much all aspects of the game are improved upon by Bravely Default/Second








