Help! FF4 Advance or FF4 DS?

[RedCloud]

I'm in a crisis. FF4 is the only FF (apart from 11 which I can't be bothered getting) that I haven't finished. I've played through half of it on the original SNES ROM on my computer but it's never as fun as on a console.

Now I'm in a bind. What do I go for? The classic FF4 Advance? I've got the FF5 and FF6 Advances to go with it. Or should I get the new remake, FF4 DS? The DS one looks really cool and all, but I noticed some things that irritate me like the menus are shocking for the most part, and I don't know how they compare to the adorable little sprites of the original. And I also heard that there is more extra content in FF4 Advance.

I'm really turning my head in thinking about this. I would love to play the Advance version because its like playing a classic RPG, but I would love to have another 3D FF for the DS?

Can anybody recommend or give me some pros and cons? Anybody played both and have a view on which one is better?

[WD Cecil]

The pros of FFIV DS:
- Awesome cutscenes
- Really good voice acting
- All new ability system
- Difficulty
- Cid's adorable face

The pros of FF IV GBA:
- Feels just like the original
- just looks cute

[Garland]

Originally Posted by WD Cecil

The pros of FFIV DS:
- Awesome cutscenes
- Really good voice acting
- All new ability system
- Difficulty
- Cid's adorable face

The pros of FF IV GBA:
- Feels just like the original
- just looks cute

Hogwash. Just hogwash. Now for my liberal view.

The Pros of FFIV DS:
- Nice Cg cutscene at the beggining
- voice acted cutscenes throughout the game
- new augment system.
- some new 'tail' items
-'difficulty'
- updated old abilities.
-New Game +
-mini games
-namingway questlines and... OMG two small flashback sequences.

-The pros of FFIV Advance:
- Old school style.
- improved graphics ( really you -will- nottice a difference from the snes. )
- Other characters can be added to your team at one point.
-special dungeon for those characters.
- Game Completed *
- Lunar trials; new dungeons for all characters.
- New items, equipment-equipment and monsters
- new story line sequences (refers to it's sequel)
-superior translation

-The Cons of FFIV DS:
-only -ONE- cg cutscene. Don't expect another anytime in the game.
- voice acting was... weak, i mean, it had Yuri Lowenthall... just youtube Cecil Harvey and Whyyy????? You will know what i mean.
- augment system allows you to give old characters' abilities to your current party aswell as some obvious extra abilities like dual cast. You can also only equip an ability once, after that, it can never be unequiped.
-'difficulty' as stated earlier, IV ds has increased difficulty by making the enemy hit harder and last longer, this made the first few levels in the game a bitch to play. HOWEVER, you level up -much- faster, have those cheap ability augments and the new battle damage system, more reminiscient to VI or VII makes -you- hit harder. So honestly, it's only REALLLY REALLY hard at the first few levels, then it's REALLY REALLY easy towards the end.
The GBA has a difficulty setting that's harder than the original but easier than the psx version. But it's not overkill.
-the new 'tail' items. Now, since you've never played IV i'm going to explain the quick fundamentals of items and equipment: There are treasure items, found in chests or after completing a quest, and the're are drop items. These equipment are usually rare and never found anywhere else, hence they yield stronger stats. Now, in IV there was the rarest drop item of them all, that had you fight the rarest and most difficult boss battle of them all; the flan princesses. (sure you heard of her in later games right?) Well they are a bitch to defeat and originally had a 1/65 chance of droping a 'pink tail' which could be traded to someone for the best armors in the game. Now, with the DS's release, it's even harder to get it; approximately a 0.2 percent drop rate, and look they added more tails available via drop from hard monsters. JUST as frikken difficult to get.
-does not include items from IV advance, which were 'treasure items' and were ALOT more godly then the rare drops.
-does not include new dungeons of any sort.
-does not include the use of alternate characters like yang, cid or edward.
-New game +, not Game Completed *. Meaning in order to get any new stuff from your play through, you need to play the game, AGAIN. and it's nothing that great, you just keep the augments and rare tail drops you got from the previous game, EVERYTHING ELSE IS GONE. This is alot like X-2. Cept with X-2 it was a relatively quick game and it had alternate endings and new items to collect, IV is long and all you get to do afterwards is just fight an optional boss if you stole a dark matter from the last boss. BIG DEAL.
- Glitches. yeah, they fixed alot of the glitches from the original, and yeah it plays smoother than the gba version. BUT they added a glitch which can permanetly mess up your data card. Crashing your game!
- Inferior translation. Seriously, the GBA version is much better translation wise. First of all they censored everything. Cid no longer cuses and the four elemental "Lords" were changed into the four elemental "Archfiends". Apparently it was for anti eastern religious desputes. But most importantly, The little boy in baron no longer quotes ninja enthusiast Robert Hamburger by saying " You're a Dark Knight??? I think Dark Knights are cool and by cool i mean tottally sweet!!" Instead he says something like " hey, you're that dark knight. Some think you're scary but i think you're kinda sweet." Seriously WTF. If i was a dark knight and some little pansy ass boy said that to my face i would Soul Eater his nose off!!!... ahem.

The Cons of FFIV Advance:
-does not contain any of the above features from the ds version.
-lags in the United States version ( not the Euro or Canadian version)

[WD Cecil]

Originally Posted by Garland

Hogwash. Just hogwash. Now for my liberal view.

The Pros of FFIV DS:
- Nice Cg cutscene at the beggining
- voice acted cutscenes throughout the game
- new augment system.
- some new 'tail' items
-'difficulty'
- updated old abilities.
-New Game +
-mini games
-namingway questlines and... OMG two small flashback sequences.

-The pros of FFIV Advance:
- Old school style.
- improved graphics ( really you -will- nottice a difference from the snes. )
- Other characters can be added to your team at one point.
-special dungeon for those characters.
- Game Completed *
- Lunar trials; new dungeons for all characters.
- New items, equipment-equipment and monsters
- new story line sequences (refers to it's sequel)
-superior translation

-The Cons of FFIV DS:
-only -ONE- cg cutscene. Don't expect another anytime in the game.
- voice acting was... weak, i mean, it had Yuri Lowenthall... just youtube Cecil Harvey and Whyyy????? You will know what i mean.
- augment system allows you to give old characters' abilities to your current party aswell as some obvious extra abilities like dual cast. You can also only equip an ability once, after that, it can never be unequiped.
-'difficulty' as stated earlier, IV ds has increased difficulty by making the enemy hit harder and last longer, this made the first few levels in the game a bitch to play. HOWEVER, you level up -much- faster, have those cheap ability augments and the new battle damage system, more reminiscient to VI or VII makes -you- hit harder. So honestly, it's only REALLLY REALLY hard at the first few levels, then it's REALLY REALLY easy towards the end.
The GBA has a difficulty setting that's harder than the original but easier than the psx version. But it's not overkill.
-the new 'tail' items. Now, since you've never played IV i'm going to explain the quick fundamentals of items and equipment: There are treasure items, found in chests or after completing a quest, and the're are drop items. These equipment are usually rare and never found anywhere else, hence they yield stronger stats. Now, in IV there was the rarest drop item of them all, that had you fight the rarest and most difficult boss battle of them all; the flan princesses. (sure you heard of her in later games right?) Well they are a bitch to defeat and originally had a 1/65 chance of droping a 'pink tail' which could be traded to someone for the best armors in the game. Now, with the DS's release, it's even harder to get it; approximately a 0.2 percent drop rate, and look they added more tails available via drop from hard monsters. JUST as frikken difficult to get.
-does not include items from IV advance, which were 'treasure items' and were ALOT more godly then the rare drops.
-does not include new dungeons of any sort.
-does not include the use of alternate characters like yang, cid or edward.
-New game +, not Game Completed *. Meaning in order to get any new stuff from your play through, you need to play the game, AGAIN. and it's nothing that great, you just keep the augments and rare tail drops you got from the previous game, EVERYTHING ELSE IS GONE. This is alot like X-2. Cept with X-2 it was a relatively quick game and it had alternate endings and new items to collect, IV is long and all you get to do afterwards is just fight an optional boss if you stole a dark matter from the last boss. BIG DEAL.
- Glitches. yeah, they fixed alot of the glitches from the original, and yeah it plays smoother than the gba version. BUT they added a glitch which can permanetly mess up your data card. Crashing your game!
- Inferior translation. Seriously, the GBA version is much better translation wise. First of all they censored everything. Cid no longer cuses and the four elemental "Lords" were changed into the four elemental "Archfiends". Apparently it was for anti eastern religious desputes. But most importantly, The little boy in baron no longer quotes ninja enthusiast Robert Hamburger by saying " You're a Dark Knight??? I think Dark Knights are cool and by cool i mean tottally sweet!!" Instead he says something like " hey, you're that dark knight. Some think you're scary but i think you're kinda sweet." Seriously WTF. If i was a dark knight and some little pansy ass boy said that to my face i would Soul Eater his nose off!!!... ahem.

The Cons of FFIV Advance:
-does not contain any of the above features from the ds version.
-lags in the United States version ( not the Euro or Canadian version)

Well basically if you have the original SNES version FF IV DS is the one for you if you want something new. But yeah, I hate how you cant unaquip the Augments after equipping them. But I thought the voice acting was great!

[Garland]

Did you play the GBA version WD Cecil? I'm just sayin' fans of IV really liked the advance version. But if you havn't played IV yet, you might as well get attached to the newest version on the market. Even though i can list off alot of problems i had with it. I fully played both titles , so... :P

[WD Cecil]

Originally Posted by Garland

Did you play the GBA version WD Cecil? I'm just sayin' fans of IV really liked the advance version. But if you havn't played IV yet, you might as well get attached to the newest version on the market. Even though i can list off alot of problems i had with it. I fully played both titles , so... :P

Yeah I have played a bit of the GBA version, it was quite good. I loved the opening sequence. At the moment i'm playing IV DS and I enjoy that one more. III on DS was pretty good as well.

[Garland]

III on DS was terrible, Imo!

[WD Cecil]

Originally Posted by Garland

III on DS was terrible, Imo!

As if! I loved it! I hope they do a V, VI on DS. Then a VII on PS3 and then start focusing on the main series again.

[Garland]

No i hope they do V VI on ps3 and do VII on the Nes you mofo! lol. GBA rules polygons teh suxors!

[RedCloud]

FF4 is the only one I've never completed, though I've played it half through already on a ROM. I don't want to play the GBA version as it is like playing the original through AGAIN. I'll play the DS version.

I seriously hope they STOP making all these remakes, I don't want a V or VI remake or a VII remake, just leave it all alone and continue making NEW games with NEW stories like the good old days.

[WD Cecil]

Originally Posted by Garland

No i hope they do V VI on ps3 and do VII on the Nes you mofo! lol. GBA rules polygons teh suxors!

?

[Garland]

heed my pros and cons towards the two systems, Redcloud. Playing IV ds is very different from playing IV. But i guess since you arn't as farmiliar with it's predecessor port like i was you won't be thoroughly disapointed. After completing the ds version, i decided to pick up my old advance version and continue playing it.

[FFking]

Originally Posted by Garland

III on DS was terrible, Imo!

I second that!




You should go for the PSX version of FFIV. The only one I played, the only one who needs to be played.

[Garland]

Originally Posted by FFking

I second that!




You should go for the PSX version of FFIV. The only one I played, the only one who needs to be played.

I do not second that.


The only thing the psx version had going for it was the difficulty, other than that the graphics are terrible and the translation sucks beyond compare. I couldn't get past the 2nd cave what with all those frog maidens casting toad on me.

[FFking]

Originally Posted by Garland

The only thing the psx version had going for it was the difficulty, other than that the graphics are terrible and the translation sucks beyond compare. I couldn't get past the 2nd cave what with all those frog maidens casting toad on me.

The graphics was not that bad, but who cares if it was. These old Final Fantasy games is not about uber graphics...

[Garland]

I mean the wonderSwan had better graphics than the PSX. Remember that IV was a last minute snes port from the dev team. So the original look, made it too... 8 bit. The GBA changed it into what it was supposed to look like. The psx translation was worse than anything though.