What can I say about FF4 that any fans of the series don't already know.

This is when Square Enix really started developing their stories with more in-depth twists and turns to them. The world of FF4 is a brutal one, and we play as Cecil, a dark knight and general of the Red Guards, a group of soldiers that work for Baron. Being ordered to do brutal things such as wipe out towns in search for the crystals, Cecil realises that what he is doing is wrong and turns against his own people.

The concept alone for this game is an interesting one and I would recommend any first time players to play this game for the story alone. It also features some of my favourite characters in all of the Final Fantasy series. Kain/Rydia/Tellah/Parom/Porom just to name a few.

Combat wise we do not have the creativity that Final Fantasy 3 had with the job system, characters are instead forced into their specific combat roles. However this game is the first to introduce some specific job actions that do some unique traits (this may be introduced with the future versions of this game I can not confirm). We have also the first Final Fantasy game to introduce the Active Time Battle system. This system will be used in every single Final Fantasy game to be made after this one - which essentially has a timer under each character to show when their next action will be taken. I highly recommend setting this to 'Wait' in config rather than 'Active' as it will allow you to take your time to choose what to do on each turn rather than having enemies wacking on you while you take your time to think about what to do. This is, however, down to preference.

FF4 is a beautiful game with an amazing cast of characters and story and fun battle system, I can not rate this game enough.

At 41 years old, I am enjoying playing this story again. the pixel remake is nice. The Crytech Engine they used to remaster this game has added some really nice effects and artwork. Quick Save for those quick escapes if needed (typical these days)

I would improve the game by adding some for of Bi or Trilinear Pixel Filtering, Pixel art was designed for CRT TV, and I find it too pixelated on LCD screens. ReShade 3rd party software offers some filters but not at the level I'm looking for.

Enjoyable experience for the most part. A few bosses were difficult just because they "hit hard" and that's it. I either didn't level enough or the game forces you to grind.

If you don't mind grinding until you can pass the stat checks for certain bosses, it's a great game.