More details regarding Final Fantasy IV DS
Takashi Tokita, director of the original SNES classic, has spoken further with Nintendo Power regarding the DS remake of his classic!
The following excerpts are courtesy of NeoGAF and Forever Fantasy, and have been extracted from Tokita's interview.
- This is by far the most difficult version of Final Fantasy 4.
- Useless abilities from the original version (Cry, Pray, etc) have been changed significantly to make them more useful.
- The team has addressed every criticism of the Final Fantasy 3 remake: More detailed character, loading times, wider set of abilities, etc.
- Bosses were all rebalanced, so people who played the older versions won't be able to use "tricks" to beat them easily.
- New auto-battle system: You assign a single action for each character and they repeatedly carry out that move.
- Lunar Ruins from FF4 Advance is not included, however a New Game+ mode with additional augments and new optional bosses has been added.
- Summons are called Eidolons, as a tribute to Final Fantasy 9 fans.
- Confirmed: Only 25% of the original story was used due to space limitations with the original SNES version. The new DS remake expands upon this story, including more of the originally devised plot.
- Asano thinks creating old-school RPG's with present-day technology is going well, and Square Enix shouldn't limit themselves to just remakes.
Lots of intriguing trivia there from behind the scenes on the newest remake from Square. There was some confusion with the '25%' comment - Tokita believed that 25% of his original storyline made it into the SNES version because of size problems.
Final Fantasy 4 DS is on scheduele for an English release in North America in July of this year. Stay tuned for a confirmed release date.