If Square Enix ever decides to pursue a full-blown remake ofFinal Fantasy 4, it would need to make one big change to the narrative to improve on the original game.Final Fantasy 4is one of the most influential video games of all time and a landmark release in theFinal Fantasyseries, laying the groundwork for what would follow in the franchise for years to come.Final Fantasy 4’s active-time battle system was groundbreaking at the time of its release, and the impact it has had on the JRPG genre can’t be understated.
Square Enix has a tendency to remake, re-release, and remaster its biggest games, andFinal Fantasy 4has been no exception to that rule, even if it hasn’t received quite the same attention as other games in the series.Square Enix has released numerous versions ofFinal Fantasy 4over the years, including a remake for the Nintendo DS that re-imagined the game’s graphics with chibi-inspired 3D models and incorporated some story content that was missing from the original release.
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TheNintendo DSFinal Fantasy 4remakeis a great game and still worth playing today, whether that’s on an actual DS or through one of its ports, but there’s still improvements that could be made. If Square Enix ever decided to pursue anotherFinal Fantasy 4remake, it would provide a unique opportunity to address some of the shortcomings with the game’s narrative, particularly how character deaths are handled.
Please note that the rest of this article will have SPOILERS for Final Fantasy 4
Final Fantasy 4was one of the first JRPGs to feature a major focus on the narrative, offering a dramatic fantasy tale featuring numerous characters, plot twists, and more. WhileFinal Fantasy 4’s story was groundbreaking for its time, it leaned too heavily into fake-out deaths, ruining the emotional impact of the story’s biggest moments and robbing the game of its stakes in key parts. So, to improveFinal Fantasy 4’s story in a potential remake, the deaths would need to be made permanent.
Early inFinal Fantasy 4, Palom and Porom sacrifice themselves to save the group from being crushed by trap walls, but they are later resurrected, and their sacrifice loses the weight it once had. Later in the game, martial artist Yang seemingly sacrifices himself to not only save his fellow party members, but the dwarves that live in the game’s underground areas.RecurringFinal Fantasycharacter Cidalso makes the ultimate sacrifice in this area of the game for the good of the party, but both he and Yang wind up coming back anyway, and so these potentially huge plot developments are sadly diminished.
To be fair, there are some important characters inFinal Fantasy 4that die and stay dead, though they are few and far between. For example, the powerful mage Tellah is one playable character who sacrifices himself and actually stays dead. But still, it would go a long way in strengthening the games narrative if characters actually stayed dead instead of the fake-out deaths that currently permeate theFinal Fantasy 4story.
This doesn’t mean thatallthe characters with fake-out deaths would need to stay dead in aFinal Fantasy 4remake, of course, but if it’s going to happen, it should really only happen one time. Otherwise, the gimmick is diluted and other character deaths are cheapened as a result.
Final Fantasy 4is available for Super Nintendo and a variety of legacy platforms.
