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- 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 !!! Rating: - Finally I can play final fantasy III loved Final Fantasy II when I was younger and used to play it non-stop even though I wasn't very good. I know it's technically final fantasy IV but it will always be FFII to me. I'm still a little ticked about the money I wasted on the REAL FFII but I won't hold it against this game. My favorite of the final fantasy series and I've played just about all of them. I haven't played Chrono Trigger, couldn't tell you how that one is. Rating: - 2 great games for a reasonable priceIf your like me and you are tired of the shallow games with little play time and a story line thinner than deli meat pick this up. Both games have a rich story line and excellent game play. Enjoy. Rating: - Chrono trigger is borderline unplayableIf you're going to purchase this, do it only for FFIV, for whatever reason there are horrible delays during chrono trigger battles. I found myself only able to put up with it for an hour before just downloading an emulator and the snes rom version on my laptop. FFIV on the other hand was fine and very enjoyable.
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