Picked up this little beauty yesterday. Haven't had a long time to play it, but there's some awesome new features in the game that weren't in it before.
For starters, the graphics are a notch up from the Final Fantasy III remake on the DS. I honestly feel like I'm playing a handheld version of Final Fantasy VII, but with Final Fantasy IV characters/story/music. As for the music, I can't decide if it feels like it's more MIDI sounding than before, or if this is actually how they intended to make it sound. Either way, I'm digging it.
The voice-acting is ... well, let's just say it's obvious they didn't put their budget in to the voice-acting. Kain's voice is pretty cool though, and that's all that matters. Kain is Final Fantasy IV, why do you think he's on the cover for crying out loud?
The battles are much different. Where before you'd get hit and take, oh, 9 damage, or maybe 15 damage ... no, this time, for example, the Myst Dragon hits you for 55 to 65 damage. Random encounters (Goblins, Rats, etc.) in the beginning area will hit you for anywhere from 15 to 24 damage. And when they all target the same person at once (say it's a 4 monster party) and you got "Surprised!" to start the battle, that's close to 100hp of your starting 200hp gone. So they upped up the difficulty, but I leveled Cecil and Kain twice in 10 minutes. So I'm not sure if they possibly changed the level grind in the beginning or overall.
They have a new feature called "Augments" ... basically, as you progress through the game, you can receive various character augmentations. This gives your characters more special abilities.
EXAMPLE.
Palom and Porom do "Twincast" ... where they cast a spell together. Takes twice as long to cast, but it's usually a powerful spell that does serious damage. Well, if you meet certain requirements (I believe you have to give them each two augments to receive it), you will receive their Twincast augment. You can then give it to Cecil and Rosa, and together, they cast Ultima, which we know is the most powerful spell in Final Fantasy (and has never been in Final Fantasy IV) before. Or give it to Cecil and Kain to get "Boost", which boots everyone's hit points up to start the fight. Or give it to Rydia and Rosa to have them boost up everyone's magic points.
The character "Namingway" has a significant role in this game. Sadly, you can no longer change your characters' names in the game, but it ties in to a Namingway story that lasts the entire game.
Rydia has a little summoning thing called "Whyt" ... and it's an interesting thing to say the least. But she starts with it.
They've also added "Onion Armor", which you get from even MORE rare rat-tails (because the pink tail was never a pain in the ass to begin with). All those stats are based on your level. And when you beat the game THE FIRST TIME (you can beat it up to three times), you not only get a New Game+ feature (you get to keep your previous augments), but you also get the "Limit Break" augment, so you can do more than just 9999 damage.
Overall, it looks like an amazing remake to a classic game. If you love Final Fantasy, or have an affection for these oldschool games, or you loved Final Fantasy VII and would like to see what a classic 16bit Final Fantasy looks like remade in the eyes of Final Fantasy VII ... then pick this bad boy up.
kthxbye
