Final Fantasy 4 IV DS Release Date Confirmed
It had been rumored for a while, but Square-Enix finally has confirmed the release date for Final Fantasy 4 DS. Many RPG experts had figured it would be in the summer of 08 and indeed it is July 22nd 2008. Hardcore Final Fantasy fans will surely be getting this game but it is also going to touch a series of gamers that were too young to enjoy Final Fantasy IV / 2 for the SNES.
While Squaresoft most of the time gets lambasted for continually porting games that have already been put out without adding much (FFIV GBA, FFVI GBA, all the Final Fantasy I ports, etc), Final Fantasy IV DS is different. While it's not terribly different from the original version, they did add a lot more content in terms of the story and how your characters grow in battle with the Decant Ability System. This Decant system allows you to still use ability's of allies that have left your party.
Graphically this will stun you. It is done similarly to Final Fantasy III DS as they have turned a 2d game 3d. Dark Knight Cecil will catch your eye for example. There is also voice acting which people either hate or love. Generally it is not done well but for FFIV DS it is solid. In addition to the added dialogue, the voice acting brings out the characters much more. There are also extra never before scenes and finally you can talk to your characters outside of battle to get their opinion's on what's going on.
Not much to say about the music, as Nobuo Uematsu was doing his best work at this time for Squaresoft. The FFIV DS version is no different.
One thing I loved playing the japanese version of Final Fantasy IV DS is that the difficulty has been spiked to the point where it is about as hard as the FF4 Japanese version was for SNES (the FF4 / FF2 SNES version in the USA was made a bit easier). This can be a good thing for those veterans who always complain about RPG's becoming too easy; the boss enemies definitely are not in this one! Those just getting into the series will take their lumps early on in these battles but will learn that in general there are a few weaknesses to focus on for each enemy.