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Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light Review for Nintendo DS

Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light Review for Nintendo DS

Quick! Find the Stairs!

Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light can best be described as a crossover title. While the bare bones of the game take the shape of a traditional turn-based RPG, the game’s feels more sinister, like a dungeon crawler. This genre has terrified many gamers over the years, with its harsh fail stipulations and constant need for incessant grinding. Although the Final Fantasy franchise has dabbled in dungeon crawling before with the grossly underrated Chocobo’s Dungeon series, they haven’t really had a proper dungeon crawler to their credit. Final Fantasy: 4 Heroes of Light still doesn’t quite nail that formula, but it comes darn close.

Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light screenshot

The game starts off simply, with the titular 4 heroes meeting on a mission to save the princes (who actually IS one of the heroes) from an evil witch. Once this witch is defeated, the plot thickens, and our four heroes must traverse around a fantastical land filled with caves, dungeons, and plenty of mazes filled with enemies and traps. Oh, and stairs that you have to find.

And even if you do find the stairs, you aren’t quite safe yet. Although you won’t lose all your items and start back at level one, you’ll go back to the game’s hub if you fall while inside a dungeon area (even if you saved from inside the dungeon) and will have to navigate back to the area where you fell, no matter how far away it is. Of course, this often works in your favor, as grinding is the name of the game in Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light. Feeling underpowered is a constant issue, and even beating the first boss will take a small amount of grinding before you can succeed. And if you make the mistake of thinking the first level is just a tutorial (as I did), think again. This game is so hardcore it doesn’t even include a tutorial. If you’ve never played a turn-based RPG before, best leave this one on the shelf, as it doesn’t even make an attempt to explain the battle, item, or class system. But don’t worry; I’ll explain it for you.

Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light screenshot

The game’s battle system uses a turn-based system where you have a certain amount of action points that can be allocated to either standard attacks or to spells/abilities. In this game, every action requires points, so if you are used to RPGs with “free” standard attacks, you’ll have to rewire your brain just a little bit to get on board with 4 Heroes of Light. If you run out of attack points, you’ll have to use a boost command to focus your energy and get your action points back up. During this boost time, your character can’t even defend itself, so I found it easier to keep action point-boosting items equipped at all times.

Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light screenshot

Once you master the basics, the games gets a little complicated with the introduction of a class system that includes 28 “crowns” (one for each job class) that you can outfit your four heroes with. These crowns can be leveled, switched out, and used on the fly, which sounds pretty simple on the surface. But when you consider that you only have four main characters to outfit with your perfect roster of spells, attacks, and abilities, you begin to see the work that is cut out for you. And of course, the crown-leveling system is slow-going, so hopefully you like running back and forth between dungeons, as you’ll be doing a lot of that. But hey, it’s all in the name of success!

Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light screenshot

Don’t get me wrong. I actually really love Final Fantasy: the 4 Heroes of Light. The difficulty really amped up its charm, and the fact is challenging games rarely leave you bored. Frustrated, sure. But you always come back to them. And that’s really where The 4 Heroes of Light really gets its play value. One minute I’m slamming my head against a wall because I died on the 11th floor of a very important area, but an hour or later I’m back and ready for more. The game also benefits from being a lengthy experience, so if you are looking for a handheld game that you can really get some miles out of, 4 Heroes of Light is it.

Technically, this game is passable on the DS. The visuals feature some cutesy characters and simplistic animations, but nothing here is particularly impressive. The game’s art direction is also a bit weird, as locations, monsters, and dungeons vary widely from bright to grim. Even though art direction is all over the place, it works in this instance. I always looked forward to exploring a new area, and the constantly-changing visuals kept the game’s more repetitive elements at least a bit more fresh. The audio unfortunately isn’t as diverse as the visuals, and the game’s handful of melodies and tunes can get really repetitive during long play sessions.

If I haven’t made it clear already, this is the driving point: 4 Heroes of Light is not a game for the faint of heart. Most of your time will be spend leveling up your characters, and you’ll frequently find yourself wasting hours just fighting low-level monsters in the hope of gaining just one more level before attempting to try that dungeon another time. However, after all is said and done, the effort does feel worth it. Though the reward isn’t really from the story, the experience is solid and the game truly feels like an accomplishment when all is said and done. If you enjoy nail-biting, difficulty-driven gameplay, then this title will give you plenty of hours of frustrating and exhilarating gameplay. If you are more of a story-driven or action-RPG fan, leave this one on the shelf.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 3.8 Graphics
Graphics are minimalistic, but work well. 4.0 Control
Both stylus and button-based controls work well. 3.6 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
Background music is passable, but can get repetitive after a while, especially if you are doing a lot of grinding in one area. 4.0

Play Value
There may not be much replay value, but with an adventure weighing in at twenty hours minimum (more if you like to tinker with the class system), you won’t be putting this one down any time soon.

3.9 Overall Rating – Good
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

Game Features:

  • A Brand-New FINAL FANTASY For Nintendo DS: Experience an original story set in an all-new world created by the team behind the Nintendo DS versions of FINAL FANTASY III and FINAL FANTASY IV.
  • Beautiful Picture-Book Visuals: Akihiko Yoshida (FINAL FANTASY III DS, FINAL FANTASY XII) provides world-class art direction, lending the game’s cast and environments a charming picture-book style.
  • User-Friendly Controls: A simple Touchscreen interface offers easy access to the game’s extensive arsenal of physical, magical, and summoning abilities, meaning that players can forget about the controls and focus on the enemy.
  • Near Limitless Customization: Thanks to the game’s Crown System, characters can now switch their class at the drop of a hat or, more accurately, the change of a hat. Simply by changing the crown a character is wearing, players can assign them different abilities, and with over 20 crowns to discover (including Black Mage, White Mage, and Ranger crowns), the strategic options are practically limitless.
  • Share the Fun with Friends: Using DS Wireless Play, up to four friends can team up to tackle challenging dungeons. Apart from being a lot of fun, multiplayer mode allows players to collect Battle Points which can be exchanged for rare items that can be used in single-player mode.

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