Final Fantasy 4 DS Options

[Crushinator]

I picked this up yesterday, just some quick preliminary impresions.

• The animations and graphics are fantastic. Its a step up from what they were doing with FF3.
• The presentation on the cutscenes is top-notch. Its almost jarring (in a good way) to see these cutscenes i've seen for years with stumpy sprites now in full 3d with dramatic camera angles and voice overs.
• The opening CG is pretty amazing, its total fan-service, and just watching it got me totally psyched for the game
• Some combat abilities have been changed up, for example Cecil's "Darkness" ability now enchants his blade with dark elemental, adding additional damage but sacrificing some of his life for each hit. It stays on for a certain period of AT time, so depending on your character's speed, you can get in 2 or 3 hits while it remains active.
• You also have new powers called "augments" which you can equip onto characters. These are classic FF job skills like Auto Potion, Steal, etc. Once a character "learns" it you can customize their main combat menu with these new skills.
• Rydia has a special summon (Eidolons in this game) called "Whyt" whose abilities you can customize, similar to the Augment system. Rydia can summon him in combat, and you can also battle your customized Whyt over Wi-Fi with another player. He also has stats, and you can train him to level up his stats by playing little mini-games. I only have one minigame available now (a brain-training style Rydia-themed math game) but its apparent you can unlock more.
• The game is a SHITLOAD harder. And I mean harder than "Final Fantasy 4 Hard type" or whatever the fuck the non-gimpified japanese original was called. I know some people were giving me shit last night on Skype over dying on the Mist Dragon, but the game is seriously not joking around this time.

[Crushinator]

OK, after getting over the hurdle of the Kaipo desert/Octomamm cave I'm moving along at a faily brisk pace. It seems like you just need to grind a little bit (I got Cecil and Rydia to 13 in the desert) before tackling the cave, otherwise the normal enemies will just rape you. After the grind I've just been able to cruise through all the other zones and boss battles without much difficulty. Also, make sure you clear the maps 100% each time, you usually get a decent prize for it, like a bunch of Phoenix Downs or Potions.

The Octomammoth battle was pretty much the same as usual. However, the ant lion battle was very different, now his eyes will change color between red and white, and depending on the color he will counterattack magic or physical hits.

Also, Edward doesn't suck quite so much now. He's still frail as hell, but now his new BardSong ability is actually useful. The songs affect all the enemies or party members at once, so its actually useful having him do mass sleep/silence/confuse, or cast regen on the whole party.

Can't wait to get Yang in the party tonight, and do Mount Ordeals