FF4 the complete collection

OOOOHHHH yeah guys, the perfect remake for probably the best Final fantasy to date, is now available.

It boasts:
Re-orchestrated soundtrack (and the original for all you purists)
Improved graphics probably the best 2d FF ever.
The original game with more bonuses than ever
The sequel, The after years
and the all new untold interlude between the two games
DLC for Duodecim for the ultra sexy FF4 Paladin and dark knight costumes for cecil
And some of the most impressive added features a remake has ever seen

Our resident FF4 lover Nemo will fill us in with more details in a bit
(lucky dog just got it.)

Yup, it is nothing short of the perfect remake. The FFI remake was fun, but I plan to play this for hours on end. I was rushed with a wave of nostalgia when seeing Cecil as he was truly concepted, a true knight worthy of compassion, honor and an undying sense of duty.

The remake includes Amano artworks of the remake displayed in what is best described as trading cards, but it is a collector's item nonetheless. It has a brand new orchestrated soundtrack along with the original 16-bit music I used to love. Graphics are definitely improved and leave a different, yet still impressive impact on the player. It includes an opening scene of The After Years upon initial play, and an option to start on the sequel right off the bat. Dialogue has changed somewhat noticeably, but memorable quotes such as, "You spoony Bard!" are still witheld.

Not very far into it, but I've already decided to put Duodecim on hiatus until completion of this great and memorable game.

saw some stuff on it, and I thought it looked pretty sweet, never played ff4, so I will definitely have to get around to it sometime, but right now I just started the original final fantasy so I have that to play

I recommend it, only downside I've found so far and it is a constant annoyance is the limited inventory. You can hold up to 99 of one item, but can only hold 48 different items, equipment included.

Another downside, imo, is Cecil has his DS costume, but in sprite form. Didn't care for his DS concept, but I dealt with it.

I also got my hands on it. If you want the closest resemblance to the SNES/PSX version then get this.

The sprite work is fantastic. Battle graphics are fun and all the character portaits and sprites are exactly the same as the SNES version but cleaned up, redrawn and look great. Cecil's design is more like his Amano artwork and the DS versions but they still have some parts of the original sprites to make him just look cleaned up. His Dark Knight outfit has some added spikes and whatnot but it still looks like his old costume. Yet to see Paladin in action but I'll be getting to that part very soon. The game doesn't constantly bite you in the ass like the DS version too which I hated about the previous remake. The voice acting is gone (kinda okay with that) but the entire soundtrack is the DS version's soundtrack but they cleaned it up so the music doesn't sound distorted and shit because of the DS' shitty speakers.

I like this version a lot more than the DS version. The DS has its perks but this one just is what I think FFIV should be. I just like the sprite based game more than the 3D one. I played up to meeting Golbez for the first time and I'm off to cook dinner for tonight. I've wanted to play the After Years since I heard its release for Wii and I'm intersted in this middle interlude between IV and After Years.

^Truth, I'm up to the moon, and directly before that point is when the game's difficulty spike skyrocketed. There isn't a decent grinding spot I can survive in, and bosses are actually easier than the monsters roaming everywhere.

To anyone who has not fought Asura, SPAM REFLECT ON HER!!!!!!!!! She constantly heals herself and casts Protect on all of her heads, with reflect active, she'll be boosting you instead, but it does go away after a while. Leviathan is tons easier, sadly...

This game is a completely clean version of the GBA remake. I realized that when after clearing the Giant of Babil, you get to switch Kain, Rosa, Edge and Rydia for Yang, Cid, Palom, Porom and Edward. And a secret cave opens on the mountain where Cecil turns into a Paladin and you can get Yang, Edward, Cid and the Twins' best weapons. But Kain, Rosa, Edge and Rydia are the game's best characters and their armor and weapons are so much more powerful and useful than the others.

After clearing Zeromus, another dungeon should open and for every character you took to fight Zeromus, you unlock a special area to fight the Dark Eidolons and get even better weapons for each character. It sucks for Edward fans though because his best weapon you get in his area breaks before you leave. That's some bullshit ain't it? But Edward is the game's worst character. You've gotta be talented to use him in battle.



I'm at the Moon and I tried to fight Zeromus but he kept spamming Big Bang. I haven't gotten this far in FFIV in a long time. In fact, I've only fully played the GBA version. The DS version I kept getting my ass handed to me by Rubicante because of the low fucking levels and the retarded difficulty spikes!

I'm leveling my characters and trying to get Kain's Holy Spear but that Plauge Arihman keeps killing me with the group Doom attack. I forget how I killed him the first time. I've gone through the Moon and the only weapons I'm missing are one for Cecil I think and Kain's spear. I've gotten the rod, staff, whip and the two katana's. I got all of the Dragon and Crystal armor (Kain and Cecil's best armor), I got the White Robe, Minerva Plate, the Black Cloak or whatever (Edge's best armor) and I gave Edge the Genji armor that Kain had equipped. The only summon I need to get is Bahamut and I totally forgot that spamming Jump is the only way to kill him. That or have retardedly high levels so his Mega Flare doesn't kill my party in one blow. Spamming Reflect is the only way of taking down Asura or else she'll heal 2000-3000 HP for like 3 times a turn. Odin was a lot easier than I remember. All I did was have Kain Jump, Cecil and Edge attack and Rydia casted Thundaga and he was finished before he even lifted his sword.

I'm behind you by a lot. I've just taken down the CPU, then I went back to my grinding strategy cause the four fiends nearly cleaned the floor with me, and I know for a fact that Zeromus is about ten times harder. I have no awesome equipment aside from Excalibur for Cecil and Kiku-Ichimonji (something like that) for Edge. I'm trying to get Bahamut atm, the Behemoths eat up my HP bar, but they're still beatable, they only seem to counterattack, so I can heal no problem.

I had Asura and Leviathan before even attempting to reach Fusoya, Asura was fun as hell once I figured out to use Reflect, and Leviathan was a pushover compared to the good Queen. Running around trying to get the minor summons like, Goblin, Cockatrice, Mindflayer and Bomb. I tried to fight Odin, but he used Zantetsuken after one turn, so I had no chance there since I was only level 40. It's an invisible timer, apparently, cause that's the first thing he did. Bahamut should be fun if I get there without rage-quitting and going back to grinding. :/

All the awesome equipment is on the Moon. There is pretty sweet shit in the Secret Cave where to get Cid, Yang, Edward and the Twins' best weapons but the shit on the moon is 10 times better. It's kinda tough though because most of the items require you to fight a fucking hard ass boss. Getting the Ragnarok is a pain in the ass. Seriously, Dark Bahamut is retardedly hard.

I've only been able to get Goblin once and that was by chance when I first played IVDS. I've never gotten the others and I've never attempted to since I already have the great summons like Sylph and Bahamut.

I beat the game last night and I think I'm gonna skip fighting the Lunar Eidolons to play the Interlude and After Years. Here's what you need for Bahamut, Reflect. Mega Flare is repelled off of reflect so what you should do is have Rosa cast reflect on herself and have Kain Jump when Bahamut's countdown is at 2. The attack will kill the other characters but Rosa and Kain will be alive. Cast reflect on Kain and then have Kain revive a character with a Phoenix Down and Rosa immediately cast reflect on the revived character. Have Rosa and another character do this until all the characters are alive again then just start beating the shit out of him with whatever attacks. He'll be down in minutes.

Plague Horror, the Ahriman to get Kain's Holy Spear, I found the perfect strategy. Have Rydia cast Stop on Rosa after Plague casts the group Doom attack. Plauge only uses Doom and Haste so Rosa's speed will be increased and Haste seems to last even when a character is KOed. When Rosa is no longer stopped, have her give a Phoenix Down to anyone. Every time a character is revived, Plague casts Doom again and it resets the cycle for anyone who has the spell. Attack with the characters until the timer gets low, Revive someone and the Doom cycle restarts. Save Rydia for last if Plague is not dead and stop Rosa again but after you revive the entire party again you shouldn't have to use the stop strategy again.

Zeromus, I'm warning you, is a Big Bang spammer. Every other turn is Big Bang. This is what I came to terms with in the fight, Rydia will not survive after one Big Bang. The attack does 1500-2000 damage so the characters who will be alive are Cecil, Kain and Rosa. Rosa spams Curaja, Kain Jumps, Cecil attacks. No if, ands or butts. If Rosa's low on MP, have Kain or Cecil give her an ether or elixer and just keep doing that shit. If Edge lives, THROW EVERYTHING YOU HAVE. I threw my Excalibur at the fucker and it did like 9000 damage then I had like 4 Fuma Shurikens and a few other useless weapons. You'll know that Zeromus is low on HP because he starts spamming Meteor. Good thing is it will miss some characters but it does a SHIT TON OF DAMAGE. Try to revive characters if you can but you gotta keep your HP high in this fight. My characters were in their 50s, Rydia and Edge being the lowest at 51, Rosa at 54 and Kain and Cecil being 57 and 56 respectably.

If you need some tips on killing these fuckers, lemmie know.

I managed to beat Bahamut and Odin after I posted that. Got all the Cystal and Dragon equipment except for Ragnarok. Deathmask is the biggest problem I'm facing, since he respeawns if you leave the area to maybe, SAVE! Plague Horror lost maybe 14,000 health before Doom took place, I'll try that strategy you laid out.

One thing that continuously bugs me is the ridiculously high enemy encounter rate is in the Lunar Subterrane. I take a step, BATTLE, two more steps, BATTLE, bit of a cruise, maybe three steps, then ANOTHER BATTLE. It's a nice grinding spot, since I have 99 cottages on standby, but it gets annoying when I'm just trying to get to the save point.

lol agreed. The random encounter rate is retarded. Wait until you play the After Years, it gets stupid how many times you'll run into enemies.

The Interlude story was a waste of my fucking time. It's literally a 3 hour story and it's really bad. Nothing makes sense at all. Honestly, everyone, skip it. It's purpose was to get players ready for the After Years but it does what the VII spinoffs do and add shit to the story that makes no sense earlier and later in the game. There's no need to play it.

The After Years has been fun though but it's really rehashing the first game in bosses and in story. But they did that for a reason so old players of IV are like, "OMG, NOSTALGA" and whatnot but it's not that great for people who have JUST played IV in the same collection of games. Some of the characters, since they've aged 17 years, have serious character changes that are a mix of good and bad. Edge is REALLY likeable which is shocking because I never liked him in IV. Now, he's probably my favorite character in the After Years. He's become very wise and optimistic, he's not so energetic but he still has his brash way of talking and thinking. Polom has the biggest character change, he's become Squall almost. I hated playing his story because of how much of a downer he is. I just finished Edge's story and I think I'm on Porom's story. I've been going in the order they appear. Edge's story was so far my favorite with Yang as a close second. The new characters are cool but because this game is episodic, you don't feel like you've gotten to know most of them.

Warning: Rydia's story is HARD. It's just Rydia and Luca, no summons and niether of them know healing skills. It's super hard towards the episode's conclusion because earlier you have two other characters who's special is that they can heal the party but they split towards the episode's end.

^Damn, can't wait for that.

Been grinding my ass off, thanks to those fucking Deathmasks. Got to level 80 last night, thanks to the plentiful EXP available in Lair of the Father and the miracle that is Auto Battle. Took me all of three hours to get up 20 levels. Still think the Deathmasks are gonna prove to piss me off trying to get to Zemus. Thankfully, I've got a shit ton of elixirs cause of all the Gil I got from grinding. I managed to reach Zemus last night, at least, but I got a ton of stat boosts since you have no choice but to fight these damn things, so I'll just wait till level 99. That way, I can just cruise through all the fights and not worry about losing any hard earned EXP.

Sweet, I'll do some grinding when I play through the Lunar Ruins sidequest. Well Nemo, after you beat Zeromus you'll get to save a cleared game file. All your stats and items remain and when you load the file you'll be sitting outside the Lunar Palace with the entire party's HP and MP fully restored. So feel free to just stroll through the final dungeon to Zeromus, all those level ups stay.


So Im at the final chapter of the After Years I believe because I have every single character now and I've been sent to the Moon and forced to stay there. Word of Warning to everyone, LEVEL YOUR CHARACTERS IN THEIR RESPECTED CHAPTERS. Why? Because the monsters on the moon and the bosses you face before the moon are FUCKING HARD. By each character's chapter conclusion, your characters should be leveled to around 30-35 before the conclusion (Except Ceodore's story, don't over level him and the Hooded Man too much. Get them to be 20ish. You regain control of both of them during Kain's Story. When in Kain's story, get Ceodore and Hooded Man to be at the most, level 30 (At least until Kain becomes the Holy Dragoon) because the lower leveled the Hooded Man is, the better the stat boosts Kain gets as a Holy Dragoon). When the chapter starts, you have control of Luca, Rydia, Edge and "The Man in Black" (Guess Who?). The good this is the Man in Black will be very high leveled after going through the Lunarian's chapter (He'll be at level 40ish by the chapters end) but Luca, Rydia and Edge were in their early 20's and that made this entire chapter fucking hard as shit. All four characters are made for Attacking and you'll have no healers at all. Good thing is because the Man in Black is such an ass kicker and has SUPER HIGH HP, when you fight the bosses, he'll walk out of every attack with hardly a scratch. The thing with the beginning of this chapter is you are regaining control of the Eidolons for Rydia and some of them require a few things before you get them.

Here's where they are:

Ifrit: Attacking Eblan. The whole dungeon is tough but there are monsters all over the castle so you can grind your characters a little and they're all weak to ice/water damage so Rydia use Blizzara (or Shiva) and Man in Black use Blizzaga. Luca should attack and Edge should use High Potions every turn because he's so fast.
Shiva: Hiding in the Cave by Troia (The place where the Dark Elf was). When you reach the crystal room, she'll attack. Use the same strategy as Ifrit but with Fire Magic and she'll be down.
Sylph: These guys are attacking Fabul and Kaipo but you don't have to confront them, they're looking for Yang. Go to Fabul and talk to Yang's Wife to get a couple items. Then go to Kaipo and go to the house where Rosa was sick and use the items to wake up two characters. The Sylph's will join without a fight. You can fight the Sylphs, they have only 1600 HP so just kill one to put in your Bestiary.
Ramuh: This battle is hard if you don't have any Diamond equipment and your level is at least 30. Use Bio a lot because it's a fast spell and it poisons him. Use a Spider Silk if you've got any as well to slow him down. Heal as much as you can, use Sylph alot because it drains his HP and heals yours.
Titan: You can't get him until you beat Ramuh. Why? Just because, that's why. He's in Agart, you've got to talk with the Mysterious Girl in order to start the fight. Use everything you've got, eventually a story moment happens and afterwards you'll have Float casted on you. His Earth attacks will do nothing against you. Use Bio and as many attacks as you can muster. He can only target one person a turn so there's no need to worry on group healing. He does have a one hit KO move and if a character dies, Float is cancelled and you have no way of casting it again.
Mist Dragon: Go to Mist and a story moment happens and you get it. Sweet.
Odin: Story event, no need to fight him.

WARNING: Rydia will speak in each battle after taking a severe amount of HP off the Eidolons and say to stop attacking so the Summon can regain itself. If you don't listen and kill the Eidolon, it's GONE FOREVER. I read a faq on gamefaqs and I'm relieved I found that out. Summons are the only thing Rydia should be doing in battle since now there are like 5 black mages in this game. Then later on, you're going to get Leviathan, Asura and Bahamut back and she needs to be in each of these battles to get them back. After getting the Eidolons and doing a few scripted Battles and a tough boss fight, you can make your party of any character. Before you head off to Baron to continue the story after getting the Eidolons, just do a treasure hunt to get some sweet armor and shit. You also need to find and pick up the other party members. If you didn't transfer data over then you won't have access to these characters. (Leonora, Ursula, Edge's 4 Ninjas, Calca and Brina (if you saved them in Rydia's chapter) and Harley).

Thanks for the heads up. I'm cleaning up the Lunar Ruins right now, so I haven't started on anything else, yet.

Zeromus barely did a damn thing, I was way too powerful for the fight to even be interesting, I mean, getting to him was still more of a workout and I walked away from Zeromus with only Kain hurt and 7/10 of health left on him.

One cool thing is that Cecil is a freakin' tank at level 99, his health maxes out around 9,300 and he almost always hits enemies at 4,500 damage with Ragnarok, even more with Lightbringer. His defense is also top notch with the Crystal equipment, enemies only do around 1,000, unless it is a spell. Kain is almost as broken, but slightly weaker, and his defense is noticeably lower. Edge...sucks. Rydia and Rosa are magical beasts when using Holy and Meteor. And they have around 850 MP by level 99, so they can get plenty of uses out of them.

Sweet.


Okay, so I've been playing the Final Chapter of After Years and it gets FUCKING RETARDED. Throughout the entire dungeon (which is a good 30 some levels I think with all this crap), you will encounter monsters that will rape you without question and since now you have to find all the best equipment in the dungeon and cannot buy anything, your stats are going to be absolute shit. I've come to terms that you will pick 5-6 characters to use through this dungeon and you'll use absolutely no one else.

You get Cecil at the midway point of the Chapter at Level 40 with some kickass equipment but it doesn't mean shit because he cannot use his White Magic, Cover is half effective and his attack and defense are awful. It's story shit. So I recommend not using him at all until the story Boss that will make him snap out of his "I'm useless in battle" streak. My party throughout the entire dungeon has been Kain, Rydia, Rosa, Edge and "Man in Black". Why? Because you spend most of the beginning of the chapter with all 5 and they're all really good levels compared to my other characters who are in their 20's (Some are lower (Edward, Harley, Some of Edge's Ninjas)). It's a pain in the ass going through this dungeon because you must refight nearly every single major boss through IV (The 4 Archfiends, The Giant's CPU, Baigan...) and then you have to fight the 4 Fiends from FFI (Lich, Krakken, Marilith, Tiamat), The 4 Demons from II (Beelzebub, Lucifer, Baigan's Ghost and some other fucker), The 4 Dark Beings from III (Echidna, Cerberus, Ahriman, Some other fucker) 4 of V's Iconic Bosses (Gilgamesh, Atomos, Omega, Shirinyu) and 4 Iconic Bosses from VI (Deathgaze, Phantom Train, Ultros, Typhon). It's retarded how hard this game gets. Scratch what I said before, get every character to be at their level cap in each chapter (which is around level 40-50 but still wait on leveling Ceodore and Hooded Man because Hooded Man's stats are so much better as a Holy Dragoon so wait until Kain becomes the dragoon to grind with him to get better stats).


Word of advice for 2 bosses.

First: Rubicante. If you bring Edge along to fight Rubicante, you can fight mano a mano. DO IT. I fought him with both Edge alone and a full party and this is my conclusion: In a full party, Rubicante's HP, Strength and Defense are insanly high not to mention when he's halfway down his HP, he'll start healing himself for 3000-4000 damage twice a turn and there's nothing that can stop that. When fighting with Edge, he'll recover himself once or twice for only 1500 HP max. Stick Edge in the back row, buy a lot of shurikens and throw. If you have a Hermes Sandel, use it. That way Edge's high speed kicks in and he'll be doing 5000+ damage before Rubicante even attacks. Rubicant still has his 3 stages but he's a lot more predictable now. When he says "I am Rubicante," he'll hide under his cloak. When he says, "Wh-What are you doing?" he'll use Inferno for about 600-800 damage. Then when he says, "Strike me! Strike me now!" he'll remove the cloak. Never stop throwing Shurikens unless your HP is below 900ish. Use X-Potions of Edge's super useful Heal Pill to recover. Lather, rinse, repeat until Rubicante ends the battle. Fighting with Edge alone also gets you Rubicante's Cloak as an exclusive armor for Edge which absorbs all fire damage. It's kickass.

Second: Dark Kight. This battle is pretty scripted. You'll come to the DK in a room that looks like the lowest levels of the Moon in IV but there are crystals surrounding the room. Prepare with these 4 characters. Cecil, "Man in Black", Rosa and Ceodore. Have whoever you want as the 5th character (Make it Kain or Rydia because they're helpful). Why do you want Man in Black and Cecil? Because without the both of them in the battle, it's an automatic game over. If you bring Man in Black and Cecil but no Ceodore or Rosa, the Man in Black will DIE. Yeah, like fucking dead! And btw, he's the most helpful and powerful character in the game. DON'T LET HIM DIE. Bring Rosa and Ceodore so the Man in Black will live. Just bringing one of them still results in his death. After a story event, you'll fight DK with just Man in Black and Rosa. Then another sotry event will happen and the other characters will be in the battle but Cecil is knocked out and can't be revived. After a little into the fight, Cecil will revive himself and he'll be super useful. Heal him then attack the DK with everything you have. After the fight, you'll get the Excalibur for Cecil.

^Goddamn, y'all. o.o I still haven't started, trying to complete other games I bought that are collecting dust, but soon as I do, Imma re-read everything you posted, fer sure. :p