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 - Final Fantasy Chronicles, Great Compilation GameSince this is a compilation game that consists of two games I'll review them separately. First, before that, I just want to remark that these two games were perhaps the two of the greatest RPGs to hit the SNES in America. Final Fantasy IV was marketed to the American audience as Final Fantasy 2 and Chrono Trigger is often called the best RPG ever created and has a fan base larger than many of the big hits of today. Final Fantasy IV: ----------------------------- Final Fantasy IV (or 2 American) is definitely one of the more interesting storylines and is as exciting to play now as it was back when it was first created. The general story revolves around one man's quest to understand himself and in the process atone for his sins committed in the past. It's different than the usual Final Fantasy's in that characters who are in your party leave and come back throughout the storyline but you never have the ability to select your own party. So one character may run off to do something and you'll quickly have him replaced by another. It definitely removes the need to switch around characters to level them all up but when you get stuck with characters you may find goofy (cough Cid, cough) you're stuck with them until the story progresses. The most groundbreaking thing about the story, which never really happens in RPGs these days so much was that characters in the story may die at times (as part of the story). It's just something that most stories today shy away from but playing through Final Fantasy IV I never knew if I'd lose someone in my team and it always made me cling to the story hoping for the best even when put into impossible situations in the story. Pros: The game's major flaw was how slow your character moved. That one tiny enhancement makes a world of a difference playing. Same great story. Cons: It still uses the old four block save system. How does this translate to the playstation saves? You have to save this gigantic file onto your memory card and then inside of that file save on one of the four saves. It just doesn't make sense why they didn't update that. It's a slow process to save as well. ----------------------------- Chrono Trigger ----------------------------- Had this game been released without any changes, it likely would have been fine as it was. Still the CG movies added to it are somewhat interesting. The game revolves around an interesting story dealing with time travel and brings you to the edge of your morality as you understand the complex interactions between the characters. As you begin to unravel the story you instantly remember pieces of it unveiled earlier and begin to make connections, something most stories in RPGs today lack as well. Another fun piece of the game was the multiple endings it had. This isn't like Final Fantasy X-2's good or bad ending style but a unique ending system that involved how you went about beating it and at what point in the game you were at when you beat it. For example, one ending, if you beat it before completing one storyline, caused the world to become an imp only world where they lived like humans do. It's just a fun game all around. Pros: Great game, I don't even need to list these, an amazing piece to add to your collection. Cons: Nothing I can really speak to. Rating: - Chrono Trigger & Final Fatasy IV in review This is a 2 game disc for the sony playstation, also plays in the sony playstation 2. Both games are fun and remind me of when I was young and used to play them on the SNES ( super nintendo entertainment system ) I would suggest this game for anyone that is into RPG's. This game is good for all ages, so there is no need for parents to worry about the content their children are getting into. Rating: - A happy day in my gaming lifeI must say how happy i was to receive this package in the mail. Final Fantasy VI (then II) was the first RPG i ever played in my heyday. it's always held a place in my gaming life that no other game can replace (with maybe the exception of FF7) the story, the battle system, the music, i could go on... soon after i was introduced to chrono trigger by a friend from school. he had told me that the same game company that made the Final Fantasy series also create Chrono Trigger. naturally, i was intrigued. as with FF4, everything the game encompassed completely hooked me from the get-go and i couldn't stop playing. both were an amazing experience for me when i was young, and it still is to this day. it's a bit unfortunate that today's crop of gaming youngsters can't appreciate this game simply because it doesn't look nearly as good as todays games do, which is understandable, yet still kinda sad. both are a great starting point for really young gamers that wish to get into this genre, and more power to them for wanting to do so. Rating:  - Big title reissue draws little enthusiasmI owned the cartridges for FF4 and CT way back in the day and thought they were excellent. Buying up the new versions to see what had changed ended in disappointment. While the dialogue of FF4 has, thankfully, been improved and flows better, the rest of the game has not improved. What used to be an easy fight for me resulted in several restored games. Having all the deleted items restored to the game only served to muddle it up. Additional abilities were not all that useful. I found myself doing what I have always done: used what was familiar. The game took much longer to complete and I was getting rather bored before I reached the underground. To add to disappointment, there are a multitude of opportunities for new CG scenes to help with the tangled skein of the story and every one of them is wasted. As for Chrono, not much has changed about this either. The animated scenes are a nice touch but there are too few of them. Their insertion is rather sloppy as well. They *look* cobbled on and don't really contribute anything. We should see the trio enter the Dome and find Robo and Lucca gets to work on him, not enter the dome, approach Robo and see the scene repeat in a way that we *know* did not happen (because we just saw it not happen that way!). We should see Crono killed by Lavos only once, not twice. We should see Ayla's approach and fighting Reptites only once, not twice. It exists in two different versions and having both options was a bad choice. The galleries of both games are a good addition, but I think there's not enough of it. At least it's something to do when the game bores you. These games are all right if you've never played them before. To longtime fans like myself, you might get why I feel a little cheated by the set. As a sidenote, months before the release of FF3 on Nintendo DS, I wrote to Square and suggested that FF3 be paired up with one of the Game Boy FFs (such as FF Legend), in similar fashion to Chronicles and Anthology. They said no - it was already in production for another platform. Rating: - Masterpieces: Final Fantasy IV and Chrono TriggerFirst some warnings: These games mostly play on the PS II, but there are some glitches, and Crono Trigger slows down at times even on the Playstation. Final Fantasy IV was the first Squaresoft game I ever played and all I could think of at the time (1993) was: "This game totally blows away those Enix Actraiser and Soulblazer games!" FF IV still holds up even today with its involved story and multiple worlds. This version includes some nice CGI rendered opening and closing sequences. Some comments on this "real" version and the American (SNES version): Why did Nintendo in 1992 need to change the word "pray" to "wish"? Why did Nintendo need to change the word "Gysahl" to "Carrot?" And why did more than half the items of the game need to be taken away? Now I finally know what the Big Chocobo is for! :) Anyway, this FF IV is one hard game, forcing me to level much farther to finish the game then the SNES game ever did. Now for Chrono Trigger: This is a masterpiece of a game that I still haven't seen story or game play surpass since. Being able to fly around in your world is one thing, but being able to fly around in your world in 5 time periods is quite another. Just the ability of changing one thing in the past having an affect on the future is such a cool concept that has never been duplicated. The Square and Enix developers outdid themselves on this game and they truly were the "Dream Team" of RPG developers for their day. I have only gotten two of this games endings but I hear it has over 10! There is no CGI in this game, the opening is done in very nice Anime style of the games characters. It really looks like a real cartoon. That is one cartoon I'd watch if it existed. Overall rating: 10/10 !!!
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