Wii Final Fantasy IV: the After Years

[Dani.]

Following its successful release as a Japanese mobile game the direct sequel to the 1991 SNES game Final Fantasy IV has been available in the WiiWare shop since the beginning of June. Final Fantasy IV: The After Years takes place several years after the end of the original game. Happily married Cecil and Rosa rule the fortress city of Baron and Porom and Palom have matured into adult mages and Dragoon Kain is still presumed missing. The idyll is shattered when a second moon rises over the fantasy world and swarms of monsters ravage the land. Now all hope rests on Cecil's son Ceodore who is currently completing his final exams as a member of the Redwing Knights.

The Developers of Matrix Software have playfully expanded the familiar Final Fantasy recipe of random battles, dungeon exploration and overworld travel by two ingredients. Firstly the phases of the moon influence your party's combat strength, weakening physical attacks, for example and strengthening black magic. Secondly you can combine several characters during turn based battles for particularly powerful band combo attacks in the Chrono Trigger style. The presentation is also traditional and carefully improved apart from the smoother font and a slightly improved resolution. The After Years stays visually close to its predecessor. Witty ideas in the staging of the story a clever dungeon design that fits seamlessly into the maps of the original game and in some cases expands on them as well as the reunion with the aging heroes of FF IV you will have RPG veterans smiling blissfully as they travel back in time. The only drawback for 800 points you only get the prologue and Cecil and Kain's story to download. Anyone who wants to see everything will have to purchase the remaining characters chapters released successively until September for 300 points each and finally the grand finale for 800 points. At a total of €37 it's not exactly a cheap fun!

My Opinion
This game is a Retro-style role-playing sequel especially for fans and lover's of the SNES original. It's not perfect of course but worth a look.

Game:​	Final Fantasy IV: The After Years​
Publisher:​	Square Enix​
Developer:​	Matrix​
Genre:​	Role play​
Available for:​	Wii​
FAITH:​	6​
Published in:​	8 / 2009​

 

[MasterEn]

you can have your opinion, but this game is mediocre at best and terrible at worst for me.
the original game is far superior to this, sequel.

 

[UnDubious]

I borrowed a friend's Wii at the time just to buy and beat this game. Even though it's nice at first to revisit a familiar world, it ended up being just okay (at best), with lots of repetition and redundant material. There's this little cave dungeon you have to walk through like 5 times, it's ridiculous. And then for no reason at all the final dungeon is longer than the rest of the game. I couldn't believe how it just went on and on and on for all these hours. Weird game, definitely an unnecessary sequel.

 

[beowulf848]

I've heard nothing but not so great things about this game. Never played it myself, but I've read about the story and wasn't impressed.

 

[Tonberry]

I remember being intrigued by this when it came to Wii, but didn't play it until the PSP version, and I thought it sucked. It kind of felt like that "and everyone grew up and married each other!" type of shlocky fan-fiction that permeated the internet in the mid 2000s.

Also, what's with the "faith" score thing in the graph, is this like copied from a christian game review site or something?

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

It’s such a strange project. It could have been cool to get a new game in the same universe, showing new stories with beloved characters, but instead the game essentially was Square taking the “retro nostalgia” trend that the Wii and 360 brought over to the west. I don’t know why it was so big on phones, my guess is that it was a big name RPG on mobile at a time where there weren’t a ton of options and the Japanese mobile market was booming, but I know why it was so exciting over here. And, instead of being a Mega Man 9, it ended up being a Sonic 4 Episode 1.

And that’s not to call it awful beyond all compare, but it’s the kind of game that doesn’t have its own voice. It’s easy to forget outside of how disliked it is.

 

[Dani.]

I remember being intrigued by this when it came to Wii, but didn't play it until the PSP version, and I thought it sucked. It kind of felt like that "and everyone grew up and married each other!" type of shlocky fan-fiction that permeated the internet in the mid 2000s.

Also, what's with the "faith" score thing in the graph, is this like copied from a christian game review site or something?

Maybe this will help you https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/06/17/final-fantasy-iv-the-after-years-review

 

[Additional Damage]

The worst Final Fantasy ever. Even if count it as a sequel.

 

[Tonberry]

Maybe this will help you https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/06/17/final-fantasy-iv-the-after-years-review

I don't really understand what you're implying with that link, but I was curious if this was your own words or not because it's written like this was a recent release with stuff like the "has been available in the WiiWare shop since the beginning of June" part etc.

 

[Dani.]

I don't really understand what you're implying with that link, but I was curious if this was your own words or not because it's written like this was a recent release with stuff like the "has been available in the WiiWare shop since the beginning of June" part etc.

Oh, I thought you wanted a proper article about this game. Yes I wrote it myself or I tried but from what I can see not many people here seem to like this game.

 

[Bakuma1997]

The PSP includes both this and an interlude that connects both stories, never went past chapter 3 since it was just a drag and the plot felt fanficty

 

[Deleted member 560402]

you can have your opinion, but this game is mediocre at best and terrible at worst for me.
the original game is far superior to this, sequel.

i just looked at it like a bonus thing or a fan game. It's not really something that can be played directly following FFIV, more like something you check out maybe 20 years later when you only have a vague memory and were changed from games made by Square Enix more recently at that point. It feels different storywise even emotionally. Not as satisfying. NOPE.

 

[Netra]

I never end the FF*IV, the first dungeon in the moon broke my patience limit, one pixel and fight, kill a lot of mobs, move one pixel forward and another fight, more than 50 minutes to enter in the last hall before the boss.
I play the after years and it feels the same but bland, I just drop the game in one or two hours of playing.

 

[Jayonnaise6105 Jayonnaise6105]

Oh! I misunderstood I thought everyone was ragging on FF IV itself for a moment there Yeah, nah. I haven't played the After Years.

 

[Rox00]

Having only heard stories about how the After Years was and reading the kind of story it has, it really doesn't sound that interesting and especially as a continuation of FF IV.

 

[Zooey]

FFIV is my favorite. I think the PSP version is the best way to play it. But as far as the After Years goes, its not that great, and its something id only really suggest if you just want more FFIV, then its kind of just okay to play it and keep yourself in that world for even longer, might not be as good, but its something at least.

 

[Deleted member 881671]

Well, the game isn't very well done and far too expensive for what it delivers.

 

[NardoBoom]

I was emulating the PSP version and got bored. I wanted to love it because FF IV is one of my favorite games of all time but it just can't compare.

 

[starseeker300]

I think ff4:tay is good if you want to spend more time with the ff4 cast, but the plot is nothing special at all. also out of the 12 new (permanent) party members, 7 of the them are not good like at all.

My Final team Was Ceodore, Ursula, Leonora, Ursula, and "Theodore" (not his real name on the last one, but people who know ff4's story will know who im talking about), those characters i did like and were fun editions to the cast, especially Leonora, it was nice having a party member from the one major nation in ff4 that didnt have a party member in the original game, and i think her love story with palom was ok. also she had a a "disability" in the form speech impediment and it wasnt treated like something that needed to be cured or that made her completely unable to function as an adult

 

[Qquil716]

The title always made it sound like a sequel to a 90s sitcom to me.

 

[RandomHajile]

I bought it for the Wii back in the day. I was a huge FF4 fan (My fav of the series) but the gameplay was so broken. The new characters, basically all the kids of the original members, were all weak compared to their parents...so you never wanted them in your party. What's worse is that the enemy difficulty jumped up exponentially with each level of the dungeon at the end until grinding became necessary and you could no longer afford to put their kids in as party members. Except maybe Cecil's kid.

It's ok, but it was poorly balanced, sloppily written, and had a lot of wasted potential.

 

[Heinzu]

Well, a pointless game and pure waste of money and what I really don't understand is why this game even exists Final Fantasy 4 was good as it was, there was no need for a sequel.