🐋 Final Fantasy 4 - Week 1

[simias]

Final Fantasy 4 Beginner Club W01

Week 01	2026-06-26T15:00:00Z
Next week	🐋 Final Fantasy 4 - Week 2
Home Threads	FFBC / FF4BC

Vocabulary sheets, transcriptions etc.:

Final Fantasy IV script

Please be extra-mindful of spoilers, as these games become more and more plot-driven it’s important to avoid revealing even minor details of future events, characters and locations. If you’re not sure if something is spoilery or not, better just throws it in a [spoiler] just in case.

Stopping point

After the cutscene that will trigger when you first enter Mist, the village of the summoners.

More details

Sit through the lengthy intro sequence and ponder how far we’ve come from FF1.

Once you gain control, feel free to explore the area at your leisure. There are many people to talk to and some treasures to find. When you’re ready to move on, go to bed in the tower located on the North West.

You’ll regain control on the world map. If you want you can immediately reenter the town of Baron for some more NPC dialogue or to go shopping. Buying some potions is always a good idea. The shops sells Ethers and Phoenix Downs! If you play the Pixel Remaster that’s nothing new, but this is the first appearance of Ethers in the original games. We don’t have a mage yet though, so they’re not massively useful.

At this point you may be tired of all the text though, so time to go adventuring! Our next objective is to go to the village of Mist in order to get rid of some monsters. To get there we must go through a cave located North-West of Baron.

Note that Cecil’s あんこく special attack is really useful, but it drains his HP. Kain has the same jump attack that 竜騎士 had in FF3. By the way I’m pretty sure that it’s the first FF game where characters don’t start at level 1.

Make your way through the cave, there’s nothing really special gameplay-wise. Eventually you’ll reach a prompt asking you whether you wish to proceed. Unsurprisingly, it’s because a boss battle awaits. If you struggle defeating the boss, the trick is that you shouldn’t attack when it’s in mist form, otherwise it will counter-attack with a powerful spell..

Once on the other side of the cave, simply follow the valley until you reach Mist. A cutscene will automatically trigger when you enter the village, save once it’s done.

Map

Miscellaneous

ACTIVE TIME BATTLE

We’re getting a lot of modern upgrades in this game, although if you’ve been playing the modern remakes like the Pixel Remaster you may not notice many of them because they’ve mostly been backported to earlier entries. For instance the inventory management in the original FF1-2-3 was really painful, but FFIV basically uses the same inventory as the Pixel Remaster with minor limitations.

There is one change that’s going to be very notable however, it’s the change in the combat system. The previous games used a pure turn-based approach where every turn each of your party members and each enemy would get one action. You picked all your actions at the beginning of your turn and watched the battle unfold.

FF4 switches to the Active Time Battle (ATB) system that’s going to be used for all subsequent games until FF10.

The way ATB works, to put it simply, is that every character and enemy has a gauge that fills up and when it’s full they take an action. The speed at which the gauge fills (and therefore how many turns a combatant can take) is stat-based.

The enemies’ gauges aren’t visible but in the Pixel Remaster you can see your party member’s gauges in the bottom right corner, which is going to be the standard for future games:

In the original version no gauge is visible:

The system still works the same in the background however, you just have to wait for the command dialogue to pop up when a character can make an action.

By default the ATB setting is “wait”, but you can switch it to “active” in the options. I don’t recommend doing that:

• In “active” mode, time almost never stops during fights, meaning that the enemies will keep taking turns while you’re navigating the menus to select your next attack.

• In the default “wait” mode, time stops while you’re in submenus (such as selecting a spell or item for instance). Note that time still passes while you’re in the top-level menu (the one with たたかう、まほう⋯), so you still have to be quick there.

If you still find the combat too fast-paced for your taste, you can change the battle speed and battle message speed from the コンフィグ submenu.

Mode 7

With the superior Super Famicom hardware we have access to new effects, including the iconic Mode 7 that lets the console display a very primitive 3D perspective transform effect for the ground layer while on a flying ship:

If you’ve been playing the Pixel Remaster of the previous games, you’re already familiar with this effect, but this was not accurate to the original versions of FF1-2-3 that were released on the Famicom which was incapable of doing this graphical transform.

It may seem trivial by modern standards, but Mode 7 was actually a selling point for the Super Famicom/Nintendo back in the days.

Final Fantasy Ⅱ−２

Final Fantasy 4 is the 2nd Final Fantasy to get an official release in North America (after FF1). In order to avoid having a gap in the numbering, it was released as FF2:

They were clearly concerned that the 馬鹿外国人 wouldn’t get it, so they have added some dialogue in the intro:

This dialogue was excised from the Pixel Remaster version, even if you play in English.

The gameplay was tweaked as well, they removed a bunch of config options including using “active” ATB, cutomizing control, multiplayer controls and cursor memory settings:

Apparently the difficulty of the combats was significantly reduced in the English version as well.

By the way, playing through the English version to take those screenshots, I can say that the original translation is pretty bad.

Nowhere near as funny as the unfinished FF2 translation however:

Track of the week

Since there’s so much good music in these games, I thought I could highlight one track every week for discussion.

This week, the 赤い翼:

[Video Soundtrack] The Red Wings [FINAL FANTASY IV]

Participation

• I’m playing along
• I will catch up later
• I’m still playing but I haven’t reached this section yet
• I’m a filthy preplayer but I’m here for the discussion

• I have played this game before (in part or in full) in English
• I have played this game before (in part or in full) in Japanese
• I have never played this game before

• I have taken part in the FF1 club
• I have taken part in the FF2 club
• I have taken part in the FF3 club
• It’s my first participation in one of these clubs

Which version are you playing?

• Super Famicom
• Pixel Remaster
• 3D
• GBA
• PSP
• Other

[frequent4832]

First off I want to congratulate everyone who survived the Famicom games! I wasn’t sure this day would ever come.

Opening crawl because the spreadsheet's a bit tough to use on mobile

かくして、バロン国、飛空艇団
「赤い翼」の部隊長であった
暗黒騎士セシルは
その座を剥奪され
竜騎士部隊長カインと共に
辺境の村、ミストを目指し
霧深く立ち込める谷へと
バロン城を後にした･･･

人々の夢であった
天かける船、飛空艇…
だが、その飛空艇の機動力は
夢の実現ばかりか
欲望を満たす手段にまでなりえた。

飛空艇団 「赤い翼」により
最強の軍事国家となったバロン国。
なぜ、その強大な力を持つバロンが
クリスタルを求めたのか･･･
そしてなぜ、あまたの魔物が
白日のもとに
その姿を現し始めたのか･･･

クリスタルは、ただ静かに
その光をたたえていた･･･

[JupiterJesus]

Reposting this (from the guy who did the unofficial first Mother3 translation, among other things), for anyone who didn’t see it in the main FF4 thread: Final Fantasy IV Translation Comparison « Legends of Localization Worth reading.

[simias]

As discussed previously, I’ll post next week’s thread this weekend so that the people who are busy around July 4th can filthy preplay if they want.

I’m curious to get feedback on the pace of W1 however, to know if I need to adjust going forward.

[eefara]

@simias

Which version are you playing?

What option should I pick if I’m playing the PSP version? (Which I think is a port of the GBA version, if my memory’s correct.)

[simias]

Ah, I forgot to check for other versions, since most people seem to play the PR anyway.

I’ll try modifying the poll, probably breaking it in the process.

[eefara]

Awesome, thanks!

[simias]

Ok I couldn’t change it, I just remade this one, others will have to revote.

[scottaf]

When I was in Elementary school there was an exchange student from Japan and he brought the Japanese version of FFIV to my birthday party before it was out as II in the US. So it’s been a long time coming, but I’m excited to actually play this in Japanese!

[coraldragonstar]

Yay, time to start FF4!! Of course, I’m still finishing up week 11 of FF3. But I intend to do that tonight/tomorrow while watching the World Cup games, so I should be able to start this game by Sunday. Let’s go!!

[JupiterJesus]

So, uh, don’t feel bad if you have trouble with this game’s opening crawl text. I briefly watched a stream where a japanese person playing the original SFC version struggled to speedread the whole thing out loud, tripped over several words and barely finished before it reached the top of the screen. It’s also chock full of words you’ve probably never even seen before. IMO watch a video or check the spreadsheet.

[simias]

Those opening crawl have been a hurdle for every game so far… I think FF6 is the last one to have them.

I used my Switch’s screenshot feature to read them at my leisure.

[LazyWerebear]

Got tripped up on an N3 grammar point I hadn’t seen before from the intro regarding the volitional form + とする, so here’s my own parsing out if others could use the help, or want to provide constructive criticism

Row 28 from the shared spreadsheet

何かが･･･起ころうとしているのか?

何かが - something (subject)

起こる - to occur (intransitive verb)
+[Volitional]+とする
+ている

のか - endorsing and questioning the preceding statement.

I’ve never really liked the dictionary entry of “endorsing and questioning the preceding statement” as it doesn’t feel like a great explanation to me, I still have fully getting it. But I think this is the explanatory の combined the with pondering out loud か which comes out like this in my head…

1. か marks something as unknown/questioned; it needs no context and in plain form sounds blunt or masculine
2. のか adds の’s explanatory feeling, so it questions a situation understood from context rather than a bare fact — often with a rough, doubting, or pointed tone

Altogether, I think this sentence is something like, “Could it be, something is about to happen?”

[simias]

I feel like the way we’re taught the 〜よう・〜う form is a bit misleading when we start to reach more advanced grammar because all textbooks, as far as I know, focus almost exclusively on the volitional meaning of the form (that’s literally how the form is called in most places) but there’s more to it than that.

This exchange discusses this:

Why do English speaking learners of Japanese use term "volitional" to refer to 未然形+う?

Basically there are quite a lot of uses of 〜よう that don’t really have anything to do with volition and are more about presumption, i.e. expressing an hypothesis.

Overall this is yet another case where Japanese grammar is made more complicated by trying to make it fit in the European language mold.

Anyway, in the case you point out I think that’s what’s going on, I think that it’s equivalent to something like

何かが起こっているだろうか？

But you effectively fold the だろう into the verb conjugation, yielding you the “volitional” form, which in this case is not really about volition at all.

EDIT: looking more into this, I think there is an additional nuance for the 〜ようとする form which is that something may be about to happen, whereas my version says that something may be currently happening. I would argue that in this particular context the distinction is not very meaningful however.

So basically:

何かが起ころうとしているのか？

“Is something about to happen?”

何かが起こっているだろうか？

“Is something happening?”

[simias]

By the way, if you look at Japanese grammar sources (as in, grammar sources about Japanese grammar in Japanese), you’ll see than the 〜ない stem form of verbs (読ま・ない) and the “volitional” stem form of verbs (読も・う) are grouped together as the 未然形 forms of the verb, 未然形 meaning “irrealis”, or something that didn’t happen (but might).

未然形

未然とは「まだそうではない」という意味であり、否定の「ず」や意志・推量を表す「む」によって作られる語形を意識した名称である。

In old Japanese, negation was with ず instead of ない (which we still have in some set forms in modern Japanese), and the “volitional” form was む instead of う, and they were both attached to the same form of the stem:

書く→書かず(not write)・書かむ(“let’s write” or “may write”)

In modern Japanese:

書く→書かない・書こう

Anyway, I think it’s interesting to note that the “volitional” and negative forms originate from the same root, in both cases it’s about the “irrealis”.「まだそうではない」

[VikingSchism]

And so it begins!

Week 1

https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY

Man, what a step up narratively from the previous games! There’s so much to dig into with week 1 alone. Feels like the king of バロン has been corrupted somehow - kind of like that bit with ガルダ in the previous game. A lot of NPCs note that he’s different lately, and セシル and カイン have clearly observed a change. I wonder what he wants the crystals for?

Having our protagonist take part in some awful actions at the start of the game is a bold choice, but it’s always clear that セシル has a moral compass and is clearly uncomfortable with what he’s being made to do. But I guess he feels a duty to the king due to the king being like a father figure to him

And the dialogue here is just leagues ahead given that we have more actual characters now. Like the scene between セシル and ローザ in the bedroom was good. I appreciate that we can have things going unsaid and left to implication

I also enjoyed that the quest to the nearby village was a ruse - though maybe セシル should have realised that a ボム ring probably isn’t sunshine and roses.

Gameplay-wise I didn’t mind the ATB too much this week, though the boss fight against the mist dragon did drag-on (pun fully intended) a bit. Just felt like it had a little too much health. I got caught out with the ‘cast-time’ on カイン’s jump command during the fight, and it transformed into mist before カイン landed so I had to eat some damage there. Also before the fight I didn’t notice until セシル was almost dead that the 暗黒 command uses some health. I always enjoy that kind of mechanic - health as a resource is fun

I actually didn’t struggle too badly with the opening text crawl - though I did gloss over a couple of words where I couldn’t get the reading but knew roughly what it meant (through inference). Double checked on the sheet anyway just to confirm that I had gotten the gist

[simias]

reply

@VikingSchism

https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY

I almost posted this next to the link to this thread in the home thread, but went for the Spec Ops: The Line quote instead!

@VikingSchism

Man, what a step up narratively from the previous games! There’s so much to dig into with week 1 alone.

I had never played FF2 and 3 before this club and always assumed that the games would incrementally develop to reach the Final Fantasy “final form” (FFFF) but instead we have the 3 Famicom games with a weird, underdeveloped, clunky story and then suddenly FF4 starts and we have a proper FF story out of the blue, with a bunch of relatively well developed characters, complex intrigue, betrayal, a shades-of-grey protagonist (as opposed to the goodie-two-shoes 光の戦士たち) etc…

@VikingSchism

though maybe セシル should have realised that a ボム ring probably isn’t sunshine and roses.

I assumed ボム was a proper name of some sort (I did remember that it was used to mean bomb in previous games but I didn’t think it made sense in context, naively) so I was surprised! I completely forgot the plot of this game, it’s as if I’m playing it for the first time. I thought we would actually have to go hunt some monster in the outskirts of the village, a pretty traditional RPG quest.

The translator of the GBA version of FFIV decided to change the name (warning: the interview probably contains further spoilers, I haven’t read it in full):

RPGamer > Feature > Inside Gaming - Interview with Former Square Enix Translator Tom Slattery

The Bomb Ring had to go as well. Talk about spoilers! In Japanese it’s not quite as obvious since the “Bomb” part is the English word (the name of the Final Fantasy series monster) and not the actual Japanese word for “bomb.” You’re simply being handed some sort of signet ring to deliver to the village as a message. In English, you’re handed a “Bomb Ring,” and as the player you instantly think “Oh, okay. The king wants me to go blow up this place up!” There’s no real surprise when you get there and events unfold.

[Sisthra]

Week 1

I’m so hyped!! Out of the GBA ports I definitely played IV-V-VI much more than I-II so just booting up the game and hearing those familiar tunes was hugely nostalgic.

I’ve always liked how the game starts, it throws quite a lot at the player and is not afraid to leave things a bit unexplained and mysterious for now.

Language wise I managed to sort of skim the text crawl and will reread it on screenshots later, but I felt quite comfortable. Even going out of my way to chat with all the NPCs in town and in the castle, it came just short of one hour of playtime and I didn’t have to stop at all.
(I did however take plenty of screenshots to double check some readings.)

@VikingSchism

I got caught out with the ‘cast-time’ on カイン’s jump command during the fight, and it transformed into mist before カイン landed so I had to eat some damage there.

Something similar happened to me!
There was a moment where I inputted the command for セシル a second before it switched forms, セシル missed (he’s already smarter than me at the game, made me laugh), and he still got counterattacked…

One small detail I liked is that セシル uses 僕 while カイン 俺. It’s nothing huge, but it’s the kind of tiny specific nugget of characterization that’s only possible in japanese, so I liked to see that.

[PotatoKaraoke]

Having a blast with this! Learning lots of great new words.

Does anyone have any insight into the meaning of おけん In the sentence 赤い翼をまかせてはおけん?

It’s just another kind of negation, right?

[JupiterJesus]

のか is just のですか. Masculine casual version is のか, feminine casual is just の？ My understanding is that the の nominalizer in questions indicates that you DEFINITELY want to know the answer to the question. You’ll notice throughout FF4 especially that か is used REALLY often for rhetorical questions, which I translate as something like “huh” or “so”. For example, “so you’re Cecil, huh?” would be something like あんたはセシルか。Not really a question. However, stick a の on there and it becomes clear that the question is actually “Are you Cecil?” (I don’t know and I want to know).

I’ve never seen a sentence in FF1-4 that I would interpret as whatever that dictionary entry is that always pops up.

I don’t think there’s anything complex about the volitional + とする. It comes up so often in these games that I stopped writing complex explanations of it, though I still bring it up when it occurs in the spreadsheet. It’s usually used for “active” verbs where someone’s going to do something, but I can imagine it would be used for more “passive” verbs like 起きる. Which is why I’m surprised I wrote that translation… When you wrote your post, I was absolutely sure I would have translated it as you said, but I apparently wrote a totally different translation. I either got tripped up by 起きる and assumed it was 起こす, since ようとする is so often used with transitives, or I just translated it as しようとする for whatever reason (which is what my translation actually applies to). Maybe I was just tired or drunk.

So yeah, it’s definitely “something is about to happen”. But, I think the ている gives it a nuance more like “something has been happening”, and with のか I’d translate it as “has something (implied: strange) been going on?” or in English, “What (the heck) is going on here?”