Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes Of Light – Review – DS

Crystals? Check. Warriors to save the planet? Check. Character progression? Check. Must be another Final Fantasy game. The most recent addition to the Final Fantasy universe is a mixed bag of good points and bad, mostly good, but at times this Final Fantasy may be one of the most annoying yet.

Story: In the Four Heroes of Light, the story starts off a little bit slow introducing you to the four main characters of the story. You take control of Brandt on his fourteenth birthday as he has to go see the King for an important mission. When you arrive at the King’s chambers, you learn that his daughter has been kidnapped. You set out on your mission to find her. In the cavern, you meet up with Jusqua who joins your party and then eventually you find Yunita, who is the princess’ loyal servant; together the three of you rescue the princess Aire. Upon returning to your village, you find a curse has been put upon it, turning everyone to stone. This is where the story begins to weave multiple tales. The story of the Four Heroes of Light, is non linear in the sense that you take command of different characters at different parts of the story. It is done especially well but towards the end, when they finally meet up for the final stretch, you realize that Yunita was particularly left out story line wise.

All of the characters do seem to grow up and mature as the story unfolds, but because of the uninteresting detail in the story, I feel that it is sometimes hard to stay focused on the story with it branching in so many different directions.

Gameplay: This is where I feel the game takes a mortal blow, pardon the pun. It’s old and stale and honestly not much fun. It feels like this is a long lost final fantasy game that should have taken place between FF3/FF4. The battle system is too slow and, when you win a battle, you often feel like you haven’t been rewarded well enough. This game would have been great 15-20 years ago, but it doesn’t quite hold up well enough nowadays. As you progress through the story, you gain crowns which allow you to change you character into different forms; this is a nice touch as it creates some substance in the game. Otherwise, every battle is tedious and be prepared for a lot of grinding in this game.

Graphics/Audio: The graphics for this game are especially vibrant. Towns are well detailed and you get a good sense of a living, breathing world. Secondary characters add a bit of personality to the game and overall I was really impressed with the art style in the game. It’s almost story book like in its look, which fits this game perfectly. Another nice touch is the change from day to night. At some points in the game it is imperative that you enter at a specific time of day. This adds to the atmosphere and overall appeal of the game.

Square Enix always impresses me with their music in their video games. No matter the platform, it always seems to deliver. All the composition for this game is really well done. A nice effect is when you are fighting and are close to death or are fighting a boss and he becomes close to being defeated the music will change to let you know what is happening. The music in the towns and over world adds a nice charm to the game. The only element missing is voice acting but, for a game like this, it isn’t necessary to be there. Overall, I enjoyed the music of this game.

Overall: I thought that this may be another great addition to the Final Fantasy universe and, to be fair, if you do think of it as a game that may have been lost in time it feels nice to play it. But in the year 2010 it just feels like an old port of a game with new graphics sort of like FF3/FF4. Overall, it’s good technically but just not great.

Overall score: 7/10

A Nintendo DS copy of this game was provided from the publisher for reviewing purposes.

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