Final Fantasy IV Alter Destiny
Sep. 19th, 2016 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroA fan game, made in RPG Maker, that painstakingly reproduces the visuals and events of Final Fantasy 4. Well, mostly—the plot isn’t quite the same, and the gameplay has to approximate at points.
The biggest addition is the 7th Saga-style monster minimap that shows you where the random encounters are. Also, several characters get new special attacks (Cecil gets a bigger variety of Dark Knight powers, Kain gets a few more Dragoon attacks). There are only 4 characters allowed in your party at any given time, so Cid and FuSoYa only accompany you as non-combatants and Rosa, Rydia, Edward and Edge never join you. This leaves your party much more stable.
There are four different difficulty levels which affect the strength of enemies in battle. The one hiccup is that you need to re-set the difficulty every time you restore a save, which I forgot to do a bunch of times and kept wondering why I’d stopped steamrollering everything. Still, nice.
The designer obviously had trouble with scripted events: Scarmiglion doesn't back-attack the party, for instance. Defending against the mirror-Cecil does nothing; you need to actually kill it. Most battles that are automated in the original are actually fought here.
A number of things weren’t/couldn’t be implemented: You can't use weapons as items; the twins lack their Twin magic; you never get a hook to move the hovercraft. Most secret passages are missing (though some are replaced with visible passages; some are just gone). The town of Mithril doesn't even exist, which makes sense given that mini, toad and pig ailments don’t either.
Plot changes:
The game goes off the rails early. After Mist, Rydia falls into a crevasse and Kain stays with Cecil. Rosa is missing from Kaipo and never gets sick. When the party arrives in Damcyan, monsters are still there and an antlion is attacking the throne room. Tellah outright kills Edward, and then opts to stay with the party, who head straight to Mt. Kolts (where Tellah melts the magical ice). The siege of Fabul basically goes as usual, until brainwashed Rosa arrives in the crystal chamber under Golbez's command. Leviathan attacks the boat as usual and Cecil ends up in Mysidia; Palom and Porom join and Tellah is in his usual spot on Mt. Ordeals (Golbez cackles to Rosa and has Yang hostage).
But then Cecil becomes a Fell Knight instead of a Paladin. And immediately after exiting, adult Rydia appears and summons Gilgamesh to attack the party. When they win, she tries to escape and Palom pursues her solo...and gets killed. The party returns to Mysidia and then to Baron, and finds brainwashed Kain in the pub. Baigan is an enemy from the start; instead of the crushing walls Rydia appears and sics Ramuh on the party. Cid doesn't join the fighting team, keeping it at 4 members. There are no black chocobos; there's a land-bridge to Cave Magnes. Aerith is comatose in the bed in Toria. The magnetic field is buggy, but you can race through the cave and Rydia actually counters the field so you can kill the Dark Elf.
The tower of Zot is very close to the original, but after Tellah dies casting Meteor, Rosa absorbs Golbez's evil and becomes Auranox, and Golbez joins your party. You rescue Yang, but he needs to recover before he can fight. Porom teleports the party to Baron, and Golbez gives the exposition about the dark crystals and the Magma Stone. In the underworld, everything is normal through the Calcalbrina fight, when Auranox shows up. Rydia rescues Cecil from the shadow dragon and beats Auranox, but then they realize they both want Cecil dead and join forces, leaving with the crystal. There are still three underworld crystals unclaimed at this point.
The party goes to Bab-il to try to retrieve the crystals, fights Lugae, and then since Yang can't disable the super cannon, they fight it from the airship. Then Cid jumps out of the airship and explodes. His assistants give you an explosive to enter "Eblan Crater" which has a brief new map and then leads to the standard Eblan Cave. Edge fights Rubicante and then takes off after him; Rydia shows up and sics Jenova on the party. Then the Bab-il map is slightly edited to reflect Edge not sneaking you in. At the top, Edge fights his parents and is then killed by Rubicante. The party fights Gilgamesh (who Rydia summons again) and then Rubicante before falling in the pit trap and retrieving the Falcon. When they return to the Dwarf Castle, Cid isn't there.
The Sylph Cave is replaced with the Tiamat Cave (same layout without damage tiles or secret passages); you fight Tiamat at the end and then Auranox makes you fight a brainwashed Yang while she steals the crystal. The Feymarch is now the Aegis Pass (a short switch-dungeon), where Rydia shows up and sics Leviathan on you while she steals the crystal. At the end of the sealed cave, Auranox and Rydia show up and steal the crystal, leaving Ultima (FF6) for you to fight. Then you also have to fight the Evil Wall. (There's no betrayal scene at the end, obviously.) Since Cid is dead, instead of attaching a drill, you find that a warp to the overworld magically forms.
If you retrieve Adamantite from the mine (there's no tail to trade), you can bring it to Kokkol the smith to get Excalibur's Bane. FuSoYa joins you on the moon and he reveals Cecil and Golbez are brothers, which carries less weight when they've been fighting together for half the game. You return to fight the giant, and except for the people who come to help, it's pretty much the same. At the end, Rydia reveals that she's seeking Bahamut's power and Auranox is seeking Zemus' resting place.
The Lair of the Father is unchanged except for the removal of secret passages (the spiked Behemoth battles remain); and at the end is the final battle against Rydia, who'll summon Bahamut once her health gets low. The Lunar Underground is similar, though a number of items are replaced with the best equipment for your party of Cecil, Kain, Porom and Golbez. At the core, Zemus bests Auranox, and FuSoYa binds his power so the party can beat him—it seems that Auranox isn’t Rosa, but she’s gotten a measure of free will back. Then Zemus revives as Zeromus, all the dead characters pray the party back to life, and the final boss happens. Then Auranox goes with FuSoYa, Cecil becomes king of Baron (and adopts Porom), Yang’s widow becomes queen of Fabul, and Golbez becomes the new king of Damcyan.
After the credits roll, you can access the homemade Lunar Expanse bonus dungeon, which is less a dungeon and more a boss rush of final bosses from the other Final Fantasy games.
Overall: I thought that FF4: Unprecedented Crisis was a much better execution of a similar concept, but applaud the sheer amount of effort that went into this.
The biggest addition is the 7th Saga-style monster minimap that shows you where the random encounters are. Also, several characters get new special attacks (Cecil gets a bigger variety of Dark Knight powers, Kain gets a few more Dragoon attacks). There are only 4 characters allowed in your party at any given time, so Cid and FuSoYa only accompany you as non-combatants and Rosa, Rydia, Edward and Edge never join you. This leaves your party much more stable.
There are four different difficulty levels which affect the strength of enemies in battle. The one hiccup is that you need to re-set the difficulty every time you restore a save, which I forgot to do a bunch of times and kept wondering why I’d stopped steamrollering everything. Still, nice.
The designer obviously had trouble with scripted events: Scarmiglion doesn't back-attack the party, for instance. Defending against the mirror-Cecil does nothing; you need to actually kill it. Most battles that are automated in the original are actually fought here.
A number of things weren’t/couldn’t be implemented: You can't use weapons as items; the twins lack their Twin magic; you never get a hook to move the hovercraft. Most secret passages are missing (though some are replaced with visible passages; some are just gone). The town of Mithril doesn't even exist, which makes sense given that mini, toad and pig ailments don’t either.
Plot changes:
The game goes off the rails early. After Mist, Rydia falls into a crevasse and Kain stays with Cecil. Rosa is missing from Kaipo and never gets sick. When the party arrives in Damcyan, monsters are still there and an antlion is attacking the throne room. Tellah outright kills Edward, and then opts to stay with the party, who head straight to Mt. Kolts (where Tellah melts the magical ice). The siege of Fabul basically goes as usual, until brainwashed Rosa arrives in the crystal chamber under Golbez's command. Leviathan attacks the boat as usual and Cecil ends up in Mysidia; Palom and Porom join and Tellah is in his usual spot on Mt. Ordeals (Golbez cackles to Rosa and has Yang hostage).
But then Cecil becomes a Fell Knight instead of a Paladin. And immediately after exiting, adult Rydia appears and summons Gilgamesh to attack the party. When they win, she tries to escape and Palom pursues her solo...and gets killed. The party returns to Mysidia and then to Baron, and finds brainwashed Kain in the pub. Baigan is an enemy from the start; instead of the crushing walls Rydia appears and sics Ramuh on the party. Cid doesn't join the fighting team, keeping it at 4 members. There are no black chocobos; there's a land-bridge to Cave Magnes. Aerith is comatose in the bed in Toria. The magnetic field is buggy, but you can race through the cave and Rydia actually counters the field so you can kill the Dark Elf.
The tower of Zot is very close to the original, but after Tellah dies casting Meteor, Rosa absorbs Golbez's evil and becomes Auranox, and Golbez joins your party. You rescue Yang, but he needs to recover before he can fight. Porom teleports the party to Baron, and Golbez gives the exposition about the dark crystals and the Magma Stone. In the underworld, everything is normal through the Calcalbrina fight, when Auranox shows up. Rydia rescues Cecil from the shadow dragon and beats Auranox, but then they realize they both want Cecil dead and join forces, leaving with the crystal. There are still three underworld crystals unclaimed at this point.
The party goes to Bab-il to try to retrieve the crystals, fights Lugae, and then since Yang can't disable the super cannon, they fight it from the airship. Then Cid jumps out of the airship and explodes. His assistants give you an explosive to enter "Eblan Crater" which has a brief new map and then leads to the standard Eblan Cave. Edge fights Rubicante and then takes off after him; Rydia shows up and sics Jenova on the party. Then the Bab-il map is slightly edited to reflect Edge not sneaking you in. At the top, Edge fights his parents and is then killed by Rubicante. The party fights Gilgamesh (who Rydia summons again) and then Rubicante before falling in the pit trap and retrieving the Falcon. When they return to the Dwarf Castle, Cid isn't there.
The Sylph Cave is replaced with the Tiamat Cave (same layout without damage tiles or secret passages); you fight Tiamat at the end and then Auranox makes you fight a brainwashed Yang while she steals the crystal. The Feymarch is now the Aegis Pass (a short switch-dungeon), where Rydia shows up and sics Leviathan on you while she steals the crystal. At the end of the sealed cave, Auranox and Rydia show up and steal the crystal, leaving Ultima (FF6) for you to fight. Then you also have to fight the Evil Wall. (There's no betrayal scene at the end, obviously.) Since Cid is dead, instead of attaching a drill, you find that a warp to the overworld magically forms.
If you retrieve Adamantite from the mine (there's no tail to trade), you can bring it to Kokkol the smith to get Excalibur's Bane. FuSoYa joins you on the moon and he reveals Cecil and Golbez are brothers, which carries less weight when they've been fighting together for half the game. You return to fight the giant, and except for the people who come to help, it's pretty much the same. At the end, Rydia reveals that she's seeking Bahamut's power and Auranox is seeking Zemus' resting place.
The Lair of the Father is unchanged except for the removal of secret passages (the spiked Behemoth battles remain); and at the end is the final battle against Rydia, who'll summon Bahamut once her health gets low. The Lunar Underground is similar, though a number of items are replaced with the best equipment for your party of Cecil, Kain, Porom and Golbez. At the core, Zemus bests Auranox, and FuSoYa binds his power so the party can beat him—it seems that Auranox isn’t Rosa, but she’s gotten a measure of free will back. Then Zemus revives as Zeromus, all the dead characters pray the party back to life, and the final boss happens. Then Auranox goes with FuSoYa, Cecil becomes king of Baron (and adopts Porom), Yang’s widow becomes queen of Fabul, and Golbez becomes the new king of Damcyan.
After the credits roll, you can access the homemade Lunar Expanse bonus dungeon, which is less a dungeon and more a boss rush of final bosses from the other Final Fantasy games.
Overall: I thought that FF4: Unprecedented Crisis was a much better execution of a similar concept, but applaud the sheer amount of effort that went into this.
