Final Fantasy IV: The After Years hits iOS and Android today, and while it’s not as egregiously offensive as some other games in the once-beloved series (like the microtransaction machine All The Bravest), it is a terrible game, and you should stay away.
I wrote a little bit about The After Years last year, so for a full list of reasons you should stay away from Square Enix’s newest mobile game, check out that column. In short: it’s a derivative, stale rehash of a game that regurgitates its predecessor’s plot points, characters, and dungeons in unpleasant fashion, then uses its final dungeon to rehash boss battles from other games and shit all over Final Fantasy‘s universe as a whole.
If you want to play an FF game on mobile, check out Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy Dimensions, or maybe even the upcoming Final Fantasy VI, which Square says will be out for iOS/Android this winter.
Comments
5 responses to “There’s A New Final Fantasy Out Today, And You Should Stay Far Away”
I got The After Years when it came out on WiiWare, I loved it…
So did I, but I absolutely loathed it, this coming from a huge fan of the original.
I’m also I pretty big fan of the original, it’s probably my favourite Final Fantasy, played it through multiple times on multiple systems.
I liked the individual stories, seeing what the characters went on to become, and how they all meet up for the final story. The stuff with Kain was great.
I really liked the moon phases and how that forced you to not only rely on one tactic, and I also really liked the Bands, reminded me of Dual Techs from Chrono Trigger, and they were awesome.
You do realise that this is a port of the original that was released years ago right?
Also, I loved the after years. A nice continuation of the story.
This game seems to have been fairly well-received on the Wii. Weird. I’ll give it a shot when I can afford it
It’s no more tedious than the original, I thought it was alright too.
I’m playing The After Years right now on PSP (via The FFIV Complete Collection), and it really is quite terrible imo. In some of the individual episodes, there were more than one instance where you have to do a totally random fetch quest that’s unrelated to the main story (eg get fuel because you’re shipwrecked). I know JRPGs do this a lot but it’s particularly bad here for some reason. I’m up to the final dungeon right now, and seriously WTFing at the design and structure of it (20+ level dungeon with a boss on pretty much every level). And holy cow the random encounter rate is ridiculous in this game. So basically it takes probably 50+ hours to complete all the episodes, and two-thirds of it is just fat. Ugh don’t want to talk about it anymore, just want to say that after playing The After Years & The 4 Heroes of Light, I might be done with Final Fantasy for good. Shame because it used to be my favourite series…
/rant
I refuse to buy any FF games on iOS purely on principle. Proper FF5 and FF6 remakes were practically promised for 3DS years ago, and still haven’t appeared. Seems that S-E is once again abandoning its loyal fans and aiming for the lowest common denominator… Besides which, I played the entirety of The After Years on WiiWare all those years ago. It wasn’t the worst thing ever, but it was tedious, frustrating and entirely unnecessary.