Final Fantasy IV: The After Years Impressions

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After having Final Fantasy IV: The After Years on my iOS devices for awhile I figured it was time to actually try it out.  The structure of the game is broken into "tales".  Different characters are highlighted in each tale but (according to howlongtobeat.com) altogether they add up to about the length of a typical JRPG.

This game is the same world and lots of the same characters as Final Fantasy IV.  It's a direct continuation of the story, only years later.  One of the main character's is the son of Final Fantasy IV's main characters.

It really feels like I'm retreading old ground when I'm playing The After Years which is probably what some people want, I'm just finding it boring instead.  I don't think I can force myself to push through and find the fun in this game.

Although I want to try all the spin-offs from the Final Fantasy series, I feel no desire to force myself to play through a spin-off if it isn't engaging.  Where I really struggled to get through a few of the mainline Final Fantasy games I still felt it was worth it for a sense of mainline completion.  I definitely don't have that drive for spin-off titles.

I think the problem is I'm probably not the target audience for this game.  There is a huge Japanese fan base which feels that Final Fantasy IV was the best game in the series.

This game is for those people.

I'm not one of them.  I thought Final Fantasy IV was pretty good, but not fantastic.  My golden age for the series happened in the PSX era of Final Fantasy VII through IX.

I'm putting this game down, most likely permanently.  I played enough to know what it has to offer and that's all I needed to see.

The next Final Fantasy spin-off I'm most likely going to revisit is Final Fantasy X-2.  I remember just loving the battle system in that game.  I hope it holds up to my memories.

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