Gaming Final Fantasy IV

[CAMILEonFORLYF]

Hi guys.. here's the thing.. i once asked in a topic for a suggestion of rpg with love story/ story line.. and a lot of people suggested i try FFIV.. this is my first time playing final fantasy series so i am clueless.. and i badly want to enjoy the game but somehow i dont understand the gameplay.. like how you fight the monsters and stuff.. any suggestions will be appreciated.. thanks!

 

[granville]

Have you ever played an RPG?

Battles happen randomly. You enter encounters on the map and dungeons.

 

[CAMILEonFORLYF]

nope.. i havent. i mean how you use controls like in a fight with a monster do you use your stylus? or buttons.. cause i dont know what im doing.. really clueless.

i usually play action games.. even on my ps1 or ps2..

 

[VmprHntrD]

So you stole this instead of buying it and getting a manual? I'd guess you should take a look at gamefaqs.com and find one of the faqs there that lay out the buttons. In short though I think you can use a stylus, but it's more confusing. B button does most stuff, and A backs out, and X is the menu, and L+R runs like hell.

I'd also suggest if you are a thief, start with FF3. FF4 on the DS is vastly harder than the previous releases as they introduced cheap attacks into the game where you psychically (or using a faq) have to know what only attack to use or you get beat to death in like 2-3 hits tops basically making all boss fights annoyingly narrowminded and choreographed. It's my favorite game of the series and hurts me having to tolerate that crap as I dont have the GBA, SNES, or PSX version anymore.

 

[granville]

For the record, you cannot use the stylus in battle like FF3.

 

[VmprHntrD]

Well there ya go. I never tried really as I found it slow and annoying on FF3 so I just stuck with buttons.

 

[granville]

I mostly agree. But I guess they removed it because you can't take your time like in FF3. Buttons are faster than hand gestures.

Still, there were a few times when my hand got tired and I placed the DS on a flat surface to use the stylus.

 

[CAMILEonFORLYF]

thanks guys.. i'll try the game again

 

[CAMILEonFORLYF]

So you stole this instead of buying it and getting a manual? I'd guess you should take a look at gamefaqs.com and find one of the faqs there that lay out the buttons. In short though I think you can use a stylus, but it's more confusing. B button does most stuff, and A backs out, and X is the menu, and L+R runs like hell.

I'd also suggest if you are a thief, start with FF3. FF4 on the DS is vastly harder than the previous releases as they introduced cheap attacks into the game where you psychically (or using a faq) have to know what only attack to use or you get beat to death in like 2-3 hits tops basically making all boss fights annoyingly narrowminded and choreographed. It's my favorite game of the series and hurts me having to tolerate that crap as I dont have the GBA, SNES, or PSX version anymore.

i havent played this game ever so i dont know if im going to like it if ever i buy the game.. so since i have the dstt i downloaded the rom and try the game whether i'd like it or not

 

[VmprHntrD]

Well seriously I'd suggest playing FF3 before FF4. While the last 10% of the game has some hard boss fights, all of them are fair. You don't need to use a specific talent at a specific moment and have the others guard in order not to get a one sweeping hit where everyone dies.

FF4 uses a later version of the 3D visuals engine that FF3 started out with, so it's not a huge step back. FF3 is a more traditional RPG with a very basic job system so you can pick and choose what abilities you'd like to try and use and grow. FF4 is by far the best of the overall series storywise, and if you were to play any other version than the DS I'd say play it first, but for your own sanity and to give you a fair chance of ever liking RPGs I'd avoid it as a first on DS.

 

[CAMILEonFORLYF]

Well seriously I'd suggest playing FF3 before FF4. While the last 10% of the game has some hard boss fights, all of them are fair. You don't need to use a specific talent at a specific moment and have the others guard in order not to get a one sweeping hit where everyone dies.

FF4 uses a later version of the 3D visuals engine that FF3 started out with, so it's not a huge step back. FF3 is a more traditional RPG with a very basic job system so you can pick and choose what abilities you'd like to try and use and grow. FF4 is by far the best of the overall series storywise, and if you were to play any other version than the DS I'd say play it first, but for your own sanity and to give you a fair chance of ever liking RPGs I'd avoid it as a first on DS.

you were right.. FF4 for me is hard.. and i was about to give up on the idea of rpgs.. but i decided to give it a second shot.. after all lots of people enjoyed playing it. so i'll trying it again. thanks so much.

 

[InuYasha]

FFIV has some bosses/monsters that make you want to rip your hair out but usually cured by leveling up alittle bit.....

 

[Lumstar]

The DS version of FFIV was rebalanced to be much more challenging than its previous forms, IIRC.

 

[VmprHntrD]

^I wouldn't go that far as re-balanced is an unfair term when combined with 'challenging' in what they basically fucked up badly.

Here's a nice comparison concept. FF4 saw an easy and hard type, then hard type showed up again on PSX and GBA and I've played them all. So comparing hard type to this DS screw up I will use 2 examples from the game to illustrate how bad it gets.

Early in the game you come into having a boss fight with an Antlion about say 2hours or so into it. In the hard type game of old when combating it you basically had to use non-physical strikes, or if you did have high armor(Cecil) to take the single shot it lets off and it did decent but not horrid damage. Now on the DS FF4 they reworked it to be randomly color coded on the monsters eyeballs. If it's one color physical, the other magic. If you happen to queue up a shot and it switches, expect pain, if not you'll do ok damage. The issue is though when you get your pain, it does this horribly supercharged piercing attack to the party that likely will kill one of the two weaklings(Edward or Rydia) and hurt Cecil quite well. The fight is survivable but it's nasty. The funny thing is the monsters in the cave though are misleadingly easy in comparison so you can breeze through and get wasted.

On monsters, going farther into the underground you'll need to travel up the Tower of Babil. Inside here monsters do some decent damage, but as long as you're not stupid you'll get through fine in the older games. On the DS though they reworked the IceDog(forget real name) and well it randomly(but often enough) does 'Maelstrom' an ice attack that hits everyone. On the old game it did this too, and it did a few hundred damage, nothing critical. On the DS FF4 though it will do a good 1000hp+ damage even owning/finding the best armors in the game up to that point which means one is trouble, and if 2 come in the same round (or back to back) you're dead.

They basically cheaped the hell out of my favorite RPG of all time and it makes me furious that I don't still have the GBA version and makes me hope suckup Square will shovel it on the PS3 and/or Wii download service later so I can have a proper copy again.


This is why I have warned you about this game and said to go back to FF3. FF3 is an inferior game as far as story and cool areas to go through are, but the gameplay isn't hacked to bits and made maddeningly cheapass.

 

[xxRAG3]

If its too difficult find an RPG dictionary or google "DS RPG FOR BEGINNERS"

 

[ComplicatioN]

FFIV has some bosses/monsters that make you want to rip your hair out but usually cured by leveling up alittle bit.....

I KNOW WHAT MEAN TOOK ME 20 tries to take down the final boss

 

[CAMILEonFORLYF]

thanks for all your suggestions

 

[RAIDEN!]

So you stole this instead of buying it and getting a manual? I'd guess you should take a look at gamefaqs.com and find one of the faqs there that lay out the buttons. In short though I think you can use a stylus, but it's more confusing. B button does most stuff, and A backs out, and X is the menu, and L+R runs like hell.

I'd also suggest if you are a thief, start with FF3. FF4 on the DS is vastly harder than the previous releases as they introduced cheap attacks into the game where you psychically (or using a faq) have to know what only attack to use or you get beat to death in like 2-3 hits tops basically making all boss fights annoyingly narrowminded and choreographed. It's my favorite game of the series and hurts me having to tolerate that crap as I dont have the GBA, SNES, or PSX version anymore.

haha lol