This review is for the Final Fantasy IV VX public demo released on June 25, 2012.

Final Fantasy IV is easily one of the most famous RPG's in existence, it was one of the first RPG's released for the Super Nintendo, it had an incredibly massive impact upon both the Final Fantasy series and RPG's as a whole with the introduction of the ATB system, it played a key role in helping Square overtake Enix in the West, and if you like RPG's you've probably played it at least once either on the Super Nintendo or on one of the half a dozen systems upon which it has been rereleased and outright remade. With this in mind, I have to question just why this remake exists in the first place; Final Fantasy IV is both widely available and generally affordable with each version having either minor or major tweaks to the gameplay and script, so it is somewhat confusing as to just why yet another remake was thought to be necessary. That being said, it would hardly be fair to base an entire review around the mere fact that a game exists, so from this point forward I shall be reviewing Final Fantasy IV VX based upon how it stands both on its own and as a 'remake'; to clarify my own experience with the source game, I have played both the SNES and PS1 versions of Final Fantasy IV and played through the PS1 version up to Mount Hobs immediately after playing through the demo. Furthermore, as this is a remake and neither a wholly original creation nor a fangame, I will not be reviewing the plot and I will be directly commenting on events in the demo without attempting to avoid spoilers (though I will not be tossing out any spoilers pertaining to events outside of the scope of the demo).

Perhaps the most confusing thing about Final Fantasy IV VX is just what it's supposed to be. The creator's description states "It will be as faithful as possible to the original USA release, also known as Final Fantasy II", yet a quick glance at the game shows this to not be the case. Character sprites are two tiles tall like in the PSP version, the game opens with a CG cutscene (again from the PSP version) Cecil has his 'Dark' abilities, there are 'standby' slots for additional party members, dungeon layouts are somewhat remade, boss fights are very different, and the script is recognizable as Final Fantasy IV's, but is certainly a far cry from the heavily censored SNES release. Thus, if anything, this version is closest to the much newer PSP version. So, just what is this supposed to actually be? it can't be a faithful rerelease of the USA release, it has too little in common, it can't quite really be a 'remake' either since their are some very substantial gameplay changes which I will soon discuss, but it doesn't fit in as a 'reimagining' either since the plot and events still remain the same; I honestly don't have a clue as to just what this is game even really is and its creators would be wise to clarify their intentions as soon as possible.

Aesthetically, the game both looks and sounds nice, with the music being from the DS version, but it again suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. Character sprites and tilesets are, to the best of my knowledge, all original creations, but many of them have an 'RTP' look, resulting in a graphical style which tends to resemble 'RPG Maker' more than it does 'Final Fantasy IV'. Effects for spells and cutscenes also seem to be unique animations, but many (perhaps most notably Rydia's Titan summon) seem to be made using RTP assets. Enemy sprites are taken from the PSP version of the game, although sprites used to represent bosses outside of combat seem to be unique. While the assets used fit together nicely enough and creating custom sprites (not to mention the Mode 7-esque moments) is certain a nice touch, the mixture of PSP sprites, entirely unique sprites, and RTP assets further contributes to Final Fantasy IV VX's overarching problem of having an unclear categorical identity.

There are, however, a few outright aesthetic issues which have nothing to do with the game's 'remake' status. Some of these, such as Cecil's head disappearing beneath beds and Cecil standing on water next to the airships at the start of the game, have already been noted by the game's creator. Yet these aren't the only issues. For example, the Dark Design Games logo appears when starting up the game, but after that the screen will usually stay completely black until a player presses the Escape key. Environmental objects also seem to entirely lack interaction; what little flavor text Final Fantasy IV had when interacting with things such as fireplaces is gone, none of the various pots and other objects around towns seem to contain items, and even a pot in Damcyan which normally acts as a free inn no longer works. The second dungeon of the game, the Water Cavern, has the most severe aesthetic issues as cave entrances look like they're a foot off the ground and, more importantly, the waterways themselves have some significant layering issues and Cecil will frequently run into invisible walls while in them. Finally, some cutscene effects just look sloppy, such as a group of guards which attack Cecil in an inn just 'appearing' on the screen instead of coming through the door and Anna's ghost looking like she is walking backwards across the water instead of floating away.

The battle system is where most of the problems lie though. By far the most notable issue is the complete lack of an ATB system; as a remake of the game which introduced the concept, it is utterly inexcusable for a standard turn-based system to be used and instantly throws away any claim of this being a 'faithful' remake. The encounter rate is also extremely high, not just for Final Fantasy IV, but for an RPG in general; for the sake of comparison, by the time I finished the demo Cecil was level 22 with over 32,000 experience points, but in the time it took me to reach the same place the demo ends at in the PS1 version Cecil was still only level 15 with 11,010 experience points. When a player is running away from battles nearly as often as fighting them simply out of boredom, the encounter rate needs to be scaled back. Encounters are also significantly harder. In the case of boss fights, this is a good thing; giving the Mist Dragon skills which actually make it threatening and making the Octomammoth's tentacles individual enemies instead of all just part of a single whole are both nice touches. On the other hand, enemies which normally hit for somewhere in the 1-13 damage range now consistently hit for about 50 at a time when Cecil has under 300 HP, making it so that even some of the first encounters in the game can far too easily lead to a Game Over. There are a few nice changes here though, such as Cecil getting more than one Darkness skill, arrows no longer being consumable, and casters in general gaining access to spells more quickly; implementing Final Fantasy IV's somewhat weird system of being able to use any spell on either allies or enemies and either as single or multi-target is also an impressive feat and, yes, healing spells still hurt undead enemies.

Unfortunately, there are at least two bugs with the combat system. First, enemy hitpoints are not normally displayed, but pressing left or right to switch targets will display both total health and remaining health, resulting in needing to press a direction button as though to switch targets even when fighting only one enemy in order to see its health. The second bug is also mainly an annoyance, but it can sometimes get in the way of actual gameplay; the Shift key usually is used to switch between single and multi-target with spells, but sometimes when using a spell the game will refuse to let the player select between enemies at all until the Shift key is pressed and then the Shift key will need to be pressed yet again to actually target multiple enemies at once, which can result in accidentally using a single-target spell when a multi-target spell was intended.

I love Final Fantasy IV, but this version is too different from the source to be considered a faithful remake, too similar in other ways to be considered a creative reimagining, and, perhaps most importantly of all, just wasn't a very fun game to play.