A friend of mine once said, “I don’t think that Japanese RPGs have evolved since the days of the Super Nintendo.” He obviously meant this as an insult, as he is not a big JRPG fan, and he was smack dab in the middle of playing Fallout 3, a renowned American RPG, at the time he made this comment. Truth is, however, he’s probably right, because lately I have been playing Final Fantasy 4: The After Years, and it is the most fun I have had with a JRPG in ages. But before I start singing the praises of this game up and down the digital street, let’s start at the beginning.

Final Fantasy 4 was a little game released on the SNES on November 23, 1991. The SNES was still young, and people were drooling over its new Mode 7 graphics and 16-bit color palette. Here in America we were familiar with Final Fantasy 1, the NES game that introduced us to black magic, kleptomaniacal ninjas, and a wonky story about crystals or some shit, but that had come out five years earlier and by this time it had started to fade from the public’s mind. Final Fantasy 2 and 3 were skipped over here in the states, so Final Fantasy 4 was released here as Final Fantasy 2. The game was heavily censored, with most references to alcohol, deadly weapons, and religion removed, but it was still amazing. It introduced us to Cecil, a dark knight turned paladin whose kingdom betrayed him as it started to collect mystical crystals. Cecil fought against Golbez, the evil armored mage who had taken over Cecli’s kingdom of Baron, and who wanted to use the crystals to reach the Moon. Long story short (spoilers spoilers), Cecil is an alien, Golbez is his brother and was being controlled by an ancient primordial evil dude named Zeromus, Cecil stabs Zeromus very hard in the face, Golbez goes to sleep on the Moon, which leaves earth’s orbit, and everyone ends up generally happy …

Until now!!! (dun-dun-dund-duuhhhhhh)

Final Fantasy 4 became a favorite of American gamers, and to this day is still one of the most popular Japanese RPGs in existence, but after several years passed and Final Fantasy 5-12 came out, gamers kind of lost all hope for a direct sequel. Each new Final Fantasy number brings with it a totally new story in a totally new world with totally new characters, so we doubted we would ever see Cecil again, but Matrix Software defied all those expectations by teaming up with Square Enix and somehow delivering us a true sequel to this wonderful game on the Nintendo Wii via WiiWare, set in the same world nearly 20 years later (which oddly enough just about synchs up with how long it has been since Final Fantasy 4’s original release).

The Moon shows up again (oh no!), and Baron is once again enslaved by strange magical forces led by a mysterious girl. It’s up to our tried-and-true heroes, as well as a couple newcomers, to get to the bottom of this and save the world once more. All the fan-favorite characters from the original show up again (except for the ones who died horribly, that is), and the player is taken once again through this mystical fantasy world in search of the crystals in an attempt to stop the forces of evil. Epic.

RPGs are known for their story, and Final Fantasy 4’s story is indeed award-winning, but it is not the story that stands out about The After Years. Rather, its graphics and gameplay set it apart from the rest of the pack. While other games have smoothed textures and high polygon counts, Final Fantasy 4: The After Years says, “Fuck that shit” and decides to do things old-school SNES style. No bloom or lighting effects here; we have gone back to the age of position-based mapping and sprite-based graphics, and it feels amazing. Random battles with prepainted monsters, flashy graphical effects that take advantage of color overlay, beeps and boops reminiscent of an old SNES sound processor, it’s all there! It feels like you have unearthed your old SNES, blown in the cartridge slot, and started your childhood all over again. In a nutshell, it really takes you back.

Now, that’s not to say the game hasn’t made any improvements. The sprites are larger overall, even if they are done in old-school FF4 style. The text is very refined and not at all pixelated, making it very easy to read. The sound has even been cleared up and is much less grainy than the first time around, even though the entirety of the game’s soundtrack is composed with a 16-bit soundboard. The gameplay is pretty much the same, sporting the same active-time-turn-based battles, the same items and magic, and the same equipment system we have seen in every other Final Fantasy, and for that matter every other JRPG. However, this time around the designers have included band techniques, reminiscent of the two- and three-person attacks you saw in fan favorites of the time like Chrono Trigger, and a new Moon phase system which increases and decreases certain characters’ attributes depending on what phase the Moon is in. Both of these systems serve to increase the strategic depth of the game without making it lose its old-school feel.

What stands out most about Final Fantasy 4: The After Years is its chapter-based story progression. Every month, another few chapters to the story are released. Each chapter follows a different set of characters, and may be played out of order while still allowing you to get the whole story. In addition, each chapter costs three dollars, as opposed to the $50 price tag you normally see on new games. This makes playing the game feel a lot like reading a comic or watching a TV show. You wait and wait and wait for the next big part of the story to be released, and if there are chapters with characters you like you can skip to them and weed out the parts that bore you. In the end, after purchasing all chapters, gamers will have spent 37 dollars over the course of 5 months, greatly prolonging the gameplay experience while reducing the total amount of money you would normally have to pay for a new game. It’s definitely experimental, and gamers still have problems with accidentally saving over their data from each individual chapter (you have to save in separate slots or the game won’t let you keep your progress), but overall this new system was a major win.

Let’s get down to brass tacks, though. I’ve been ranting and raving about how good this game is, but I’ve also been using a lot of language that only people who have played the original Final Fantasy would know. If you understood this review, good for you, Final Fantasy 4: The After Years is going to keep you busy for hours and hours. If you didn’t understand this review, stay very far away from this game until you do. The game assumes and practically requires you to have played the original. It makes frequent references to the previous plot, and many puzzles can only be solved by recalling things you did in the original game. This is not a game for everyone. This is a game explicitly for hardcore Final Fantasy 4 fans who do not want the game to end. If that describes you, download this title. It’s an extremely impressive showing of old-school gaming on next-generation technology, and it will always keep you asking, “What happens next?” If you haven’t played Final Fantasy 4, however, you have, thus far, failed at being a true gamer, because everyone should have played that game. Go play Final Fantasy 4, and then go get The After Years, because it’s just that good and it takes you back to when JRPGs were in their prime.

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