Final Fantasy IV: the After Years
Final Fantasy IV (2 in the United States) was an awesome game and a pivotal experience for a 2nd grade kid who had never experienced narrative-driven gaming before. Unfortunately, it hasn’t held up as well as the games that followed - the storyline devolves quickly into a boring scavenger hunt, and the dungeons become overly tedious quickly. Nevertheless, based on nothing but pure nostalgia, I gave “The After Years” a download - for a mere 8 bucks, you can play a sequel of sorts on WiiWare. Unfortunately, after completing the first portion of the story, I have decided that continuing may not be worth it.
By “it,” of course, I mean $20.00 or so total. You see, they make you pay $3 for each installment of the game as you come to it. I knew this going in, but figured it might be worth it if the story was really compelling. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. You spend most of your time as Ceodore, son of the main hero and his love interest from the last game, who is joined by a mysterious masked stranger, who can only be one person, as far as I could tell. I played the game, hoping beyond hope that there would be some kind of twist ending or dramatic reveal, but the truly predictable happened.
What a let down.
I don’t know, though. I might buy one of the add-on stories just to see.
Or maybe I won’t.