If you’ve somehow missed Final Fantasy IV over the past two decades — a feat in itself, given how many times the game has been repackaged, remade, and rereleased of late — you should drop everything and pick up Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection without hesitation. FFIV was a revolutionary work that did nearly as much to define the console RPG as the first three Dragon Quests did, and while parts of it seem incredibly dated these days, it’s still a compelling work. It’s a fast-paced take on the RPG that trims the fat from the genre, pushing players through a brisk, twisty, uncomplicated tale before setting them loose on a bunch of optional content leading up to a memorable finale.
If, on the other hand, you’ve played Final Fantasy IV before — especially the most recent iteration for DS — the Complete Collection is a harder sell. While the DS game wasn’t quite the definitive version of FFIV, it added a lot to the aging masterpiece. This rendition of FFIV is derived from previous releases, losing not only the 3D graphics and cinematic voice acting of the DS game but also its expanded and improved script, its refined (and often brutal) play mechanics and combat balance, and also its revamped systems. This PSP revision is essentially 2005’s Final Fantasy IV Advance with fancier graphics, which feels like something of a step backward — although certainly no one will miss the DS iteration’s terrible Augment system.
