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Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light (Nintendo DS) Review
Review by 
8/10 from 2 user ratings
 
Square Enix has a history of creating fantastic RPGs. As time has passed, they too have evolved into creating games with outstanding graphics, numerous cutscenes and lengthy gameplay. So what happens when they want to throw it back to the old days? Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, that's what. Does it live up to the Final Fantasy name, or is it a let-down?


The story of 4 Heroes revolves around four central characters: Brandt, Jusqua (Brandt's friend), Yunita (Princess Aire's bodyguard) and Aire (princess of Horne). The game begins on the morning of Brandt's 14th birthday in the town of Horne. That marks the day in Horne where boys become men upon presenting themselves before King Horne. Brandt's mother wakes him up and sends him on his way to the castle.

When Brandt arrives at Castle Horne, the king is distraught. His daughter, Princess Aire, has been kidnapped by the (wicked) Witch of the North, and to prove his worth, the King asks Brandt to find her. Brandt joins with Jusqua, and in the Witch's mansion, they meet Yunita who helps them slay the witch and save the princess and return to Horne triumphant. Except upon arriving in Horne, everyone is turned to stone. Brandt and Jusqua stay behind to figure out what happened, and Jusqua takes Princess Aire to safety. Thus the adventure begins...


Read: I'll get you my pretty! And your little dog, too!

Throughout the adventure, the party is temporarily aided by other NPCs, but the four main characters will eventually reunite. As the story progresses, the party is awarded various crowns that will not only change their outward appearance, but also aide them in battle.

If you've played any other Final Fantasy game that uses a job system (III, V, X-2, XIII and XIII-2, and the Tactics games), you'll be somewhat familiar with how the crowns work. Put on the Hero crown and you become very strong. Put on the Black Mage crown and you become a magical offensive powerhouse. Put on the Bandit crown and you can get steal items from enemies. You get the idea. You can still use spells regardless of your crown, but they will cost more ability points (AP).

AP, you say? Well, let's explain the battle system. It's very simplified. Each character has five AP at their disposal. All of your available actions are listed on the touch screen. Each action uses at least one AP, the exception being Boost (restores one AP and also has your character defend). If you attack, you use one AP. At least one AP is restored per round (certain skills restore more).

Now that we have that out of the way, battles play out similarly to other turn based games. They are random (grumble). You choose your actions in a round, your characters perform that action and then AP is restored. The kicker is that you don't choose which enemy (or ally) that you are using that action on. The game determines that for you, and while it usually get the allies' action right (who you want to heal), the enemy I often wanted to attack ended up not getting scratched. A little frustrating, but not infuriating. Once you get the hang of the battle system, you can set it into auto-mode (by pressing X during a battle) and set each character's pre-determined actions. This is helpful when you're wanting to grind.


That's a really big egg you have there!

After a fight, you don't earn gold, gil, or whatever. You get gems. Gems serve two purposes. First, you can sell them for gold to buy other items. Second, you can use those gems to upgrade your crowns (to learn new abilities) or weapons, armor and shields. This is crucial, especially in the latter half of the game.

4 Heroes can be controlled with either the d-pad or with the stylus. I found myself playing with the d-pad more frequently, but I alternated between the two schemes and they both work just fine.

Graphically, the game is a sight to behold. There aren't any CGI cutscenes, but Square Enix and Matrix Software did a terrific job of creating a vast world using cel-shading. It looks on-par with The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (on a technical level). It was also a nice touch to make every weapon, piece of armor, and crown give each character a unique look. All enemies are animated and the game never slows down. The music is decent, though none of the tunes are particularly memorable. The sound effects are good enough. There are no voices.

The bottom line is that this isn't a game for everyone. It's hard, especially the latter half of the game if you haven't prepared your equipment. I almost set this game down several times...but I'm glad I didn't. Beating the final boss was satisfying, especially after getting destroyed by several of the later bosses. The main quest will last between 30-40 hours (it took me around 36 to finish). If you like RPGs and want a challenge, don't pass this one up.

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 Great  8.0 / 10
03/20/11, 00:15   Edited:  06/21/12, 21:19
 
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@Oldmanwinter

Dude, I don't know what to tell you anymore. I really don't. That stuff never happened to me, that stuff didn't happen to Pandareus, its happening to you. I never remember my characters taking NEARLY as much damage as you claim, or as that iPhone video shows.

I haven't played the game in well over 10 years. Well over. I'm glad you think I'm a complete ass because you bought an iPhone game and its "clunky" for you, and it doesn't work as intended. Surprise, surprise. Why don't you throw a donut on your car and drive around with that for a while in lieu of a replacement tire. "Why is my car off kilter?! How did my alignment get all messed up?! Its clunky!!"

I DON'T HAVE THE GAME IN FRONT OF ME. How about instead of being a smug a-hole who can't handle an action-RPG from 1994 that a 12 year-old tore up certainly way back when, you stop whining and play it with a controller instead of on a tiny screen between dropped calls. I DON'T KNOW WHAT PRESETS TO PICK. I don't have them memorized. Again, I played with a friend nearly every time, and even when I wasn't, I wasn't having problems. At all. I don't know whats wrong with your sidekicks, obviously some problem with their leadership.

Get mad at me because you're doing something wrong. I guess I'm done "helping" here, and by "helping" I mean "being a condescending prick." How's that hand taste? Good luck, Jason.

Posted by 
 on: 03/31/11, 03:24
@Mr_Mustache

Rofl. Ten four buddy, thank you for once again proving my point.

Have a nice day;)

Posted by 
 on: 03/31/11, 04:01
This thread is funny.

With that said, wow, I don't remember Secret of Mana being so hard to play... and I don't even remember bothering with setting AI patterns to my partners or whatever. i just let them do their own thing and heal them when necessary. Maybe they were helpful or maybe they weren't but they never caused me issues to the point where the game would frustrate me... at least not that I remember. And I've beaten the game back on the SNES and gotten to the end on the VC.

The only thing I don't remember back on the SNES is how easy the game is. Once you level up your spells, the bosses are ridiculously easy. You can just spam cast spells pretty much every time and deal an insane amount of damage without getting hit much, if at all. Do that if the game is that hard?

Posted by 
 on: 03/31/11, 07:24
@Oldmanwinter I don't remember dying 25 times in the entire game. WTF are you doing wrong? Besides buying it on iPhone.

Hmm. I'd definitely use the sword with the main character. And make sure you use tons of spells when you can. Heal spell is crucial. Revive spell is also crucial, but you don't get that until later. What else? I'm trying to remember, it's been awhile. I think switching between characters a lot is key, the AI is kind of dumb but you can negate that by taking control at crucial moments.

Posted by 
 on: 03/31/11, 07:35   Edited:  03/31/11, 07:36
@Zero

I wasn't going to post again until I beat it, however since you are being civil I'll say one more thing. This game, once you have the capability to level your weapons past 1 and get at least the heal and freeze magic is pretty excellent because, like you said you can use it to negate the moronic AI routines. I have wiped one time total since that tutorial guy, the game is very easy. The problem is you don't get any abilities until roughly the 3 hour mark.

So in short I was definitely wrong regarding the end quality of the game however the first 3 hours or so, ie when I made every post save one previous to this, is spot on. Once you can level your weapons and use magic the game is both very fun and relatively easy. Before that it's a repetitive, boring mess.

I'll post a thread when I beat it. I'm around 9 hours in right now.

Posted by 
 on: 03/31/11, 23:15
Wow, came looking for info on The 4 Heroes of Light and ended up in a giant discussion of Secret of Mana on iPhone. Hrm.

Anyhoo, 4 Heroes is only $15 on Amazon right now, I'm thinking of getting it, even though it's supposed to be freaking hard.

Posted by 
 on: 06/21/12, 08:02
@deathly_hallows

Even at that price, I'd pass on it. It's not that fun...

Posted by 
 on: 06/21/12, 20:00
deathly_hallows said:
Anyhoo, 4 Heroes is only $15 on Amazon right now, I'm thinking of getting it, even though it's supposed to be freaking hard.
$15 is a good price. It's not a game for everyone (and it's downright archaic in some respects), but it's worth $15.

Posted by 
 on: 06/21/12, 21:06
@VofEscaflowne
Really? That's sad. I'm trying to stock up on the cheapy games so when the DS finally does die I have a backlog to last me the rest of my life. Never want to stop playing DS, haha.

@ludist210
So conflicted.... I might get it, I really love the cover art.

Posted by 
 on: 06/21/12, 21:07   Edited:  06/21/12, 21:08
@deathly_hallows

Well I'm sure the game is still somewhat enjoyable in the end but being someone that really likes RPGs, it just feels very... plain. It's just weird having a turn based RPG where you can't even select which target you'll attack or who you want to heal. Everything feels so automatic. Maybe the game is challenging in the end as this review states but given that I played the game for over 10 hours waiting for SOMETHING interesting to happen and it just wasn't, I gave up.

Posted by 
 on: 06/21/12, 21:14
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