Having finished all three of the NES-era (or I suppose I should say Famicom-era, given that only the first was released on the NES in the states) Final Fantasy games, I have moved on to IV, which was released on the SNES in the US as Final Fantasy II.
The one area where this version doesn't seem that much improved is its graphics - which is purely because I've been playing the "Pixel Remaster" versions of these games, which upgraded I-III with SNES-style 16-bit graphics. So IV doesn't look all that much better, which is fine. One thing I have considered doing is reverting the Background Music to its original version, rather than the modern orchestration, because 16-bit sound got way, way better than the simplistic 8-bit music.
But let's talk about changes:
First off, this has introduced the Active Time Battle system, which is certainly an adjustment to make. In the first three games, there's actually not really any reason for a pause button because nothing is time-sensitive. Not so now! You've got to get good at quickly navigating command menus. The only game I've played a significant portion of which such as system was Chrono Trigger, and that was about 18 years ago, so it's going to be an adjustment.
Perhaps the most welcome improvement here is the story. From the start, there's a more sophisticated cast of characters and more time spent on dialogue and scenes that flesh these people out than we've gotten before. FFII did give the characters some specificity, but just barely. Now, however, it feels like a real character-driven story is possible.
Our central character is Cecil, introduced already as a powerful Dark Knight and head of the Red Wings, the airship-based air force of the city-state of Baron, which has been engaging in an aggressive series of conquests to capture the elemental crystals (yes, we have elemental crystals again). Cecil and his soldiers are straight up murderous conquerors, but this weighs on his and some of his men's consciences. However, perhaps because of this doubt or, more likely, some court intrigue, Cecil is divested of his rank and sent with his Dragoon friend Kain to deliver an item to the town of Mist. Kain is your second party member to start with, but I'm given to understand that the characters in this come and go with the story, and Kain is not there for terribly long. I don't have a great read on Kain - he seems to share some of Cecil's doubts about Baron's imperialism, but shows hints of carrying a ruthlessness that Cecil seems to want to avoid.
To get to Mist, the two need to fight through a cave guarded by a Mist Dragon, which is your first boss. Upon arriving in the town, though, the item they were sent to deliver turns out to be a weapon, which unleashes a number of Bomb monsters on the town, massacring it. The sole survivor the two find is a little girl whose mother was a Summoner, and by killing the Mist Dragon she had summoned, Cecil and Kain inadvertently killed her. Kain says that the king decreed that all Summoners have to die for the safety of Baron, but Cecil tries to stop him - only for the girl to summon Titan and seemingly kill Kain and leave Cecil and the unconscious girl trapped on the other side of a rock slide.
Cecil takes the girl to a desert town to let her recuperate, but a group of soldiers from Baron come to take her, and Cecil fights them off. The girl, whose name is Rydia, joins the party as a Summoner - having access to summon spells (just one for now) and some Black and White magic. While Cecil begins at level 10 or so, Rydia is just a kid, so in the early parts of traveling with her, it very much is a knight protecting a vulnerable girl, but as she levels up, she starts to be a real asset.
Cecil discovers that his friend and likely romantic interest (if only he weren't barred from such things as a Dark Knight!) Rosa is in the desert town and sick with some poison that needs a rare antidote. Traveling with Rydia, they encounter an old man from the town, Sage Tellah, who is trying to retrieve his daughter after a bard seduced her and whisked her away. Tellah is more powerful than either of them, clearly very experienced, with a lot of magic an a "Recall" ability that seems to cast a random spell (with a chance to fail.) I think this doesn't consume MP, which is good.
Anyway, the group goes to Damcyan, where Tellah's daughter went with the bard, only for the city to be bombarded by Baron's Red Wings before they get there. Tellah's daughter is mortally wounded, and the bard turns out to be Damcyan's prince, Edward. Edward is consumed with grief, especially for his responsibility in getting Anne killed, while Tellah storms off to take vengeance on Golbez, the new commander of the Red Wings (whom Cecil has never heard of). Edward joins the party, and provides a hovercraft (because sure) to let you enter the Antlion Cave where the antidote for Rosa can be found. Edward's mechanics reinforce the idea that he's not a fighter - he can Sing, which creates various status effects on foes, Heal, which is a nice MP-free group heal (if a little weak) or Hide, where he just briefly goes off screen for safety until he can return on the next turn.
When you bring the antidote back to Rosa, she recovers and joins as a White Mage, but there's also a scene that night where Edward leaves the inn to play music and process his grief, only to be attacked by a Sahagin, and where Anna's spirit encourages him to fight.
I mean - look, we're grading on a curve here, but holy crap is this more characterization than I've gotten at all in the series so far (not counting later games I've played, obviously).
I wonder if, on a technical level, the capacity just for more data on an SNES cartridge allowed for them to put more writing in the game, or if perhaps the company had actually started hiring people whose task it was to actually write dialogue for the games, or if they just got better at this. But we're talking about a giant leap in terms of storytelling.
The progress system here is also fairly simple - you get XP to level up, and spellcasters automatically learn spells with their levels. So you don't have to worry about finding all the right magic shops to buy the spells you want.
Currently I haven't found any Ether for sale, which makes me think I should probably try to be conservative with spell use - Tents, on the other hand, seem to be easily found, so that might be the new thing to invest in, and that will replenish MP.
On top of that, some dungeons now have save points in them, where you can use Tents as well (something I'm familiar with from Chrono Trigger and from the maybe fifth or quarter of FFVI I've played).
Really, the main thing I now need to worry about is not sitting too long trying to decide what a character should do, thanks to ATB. I think - I think - that the game pauses once you're in, say, the "White Magic" menu, but it's not when you simply have the base options available.
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