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I just realized here we haven't said anything about Final Fantasy IV. There's a lot to report so here goes.

Final Fantasy IV was released in Japan this past December to quite a fanfare. Rumors spread that it wasn't going to get a US release, but without proof I didn't find it prudent to post about it. Rumors spread that the game was too packed to be translated into English as English does take up more space in a game than Japanese characters. Nintendo Power has stated that it is to be released in July in North America. As of right now I can't find any information about an European or Australian release.

Final Fantasy IV was a game first released in 1991 on the Super Nintendo as Final Fantasy II in the US. It is one of the most beloved of the series, a fan favorite of many a player of the RPG genre. In my own opinion it wasn't that great. The original release in the US had reduced difficulty along with the removal of the jobs system. Secret passages in the game were labeled blue, many character-specific special abilities were removed, and much of the game's story was removed due to space constraints due to the wordy translation. I still to this day cannot see how anyone could have loved the original release here, but I can see how people loved the game after fans properly translated the japanese version's ROM, playable only through emulation usually. This is not the first remake, and the previous remakes released outside of Japan haven't been much better. Thankfully that won't be the case with this remake. Lots of information about the game's development have been coming from the official blog.

Okay. You might say, "How in the heck can he read that?" Well it's true, I can't. But I have a friend that can read Japanese, so you guys can get some news only the Japanese have for a while. The game's original project lead is back on the remake adding more story and background information on the characters that was severely lacking in the original. It does sound odd that its sucessors on the Super Nintendo (only one was released stateside) were not devoid of story by any means, but Final Fantasy IV was released during the Super Nintendo's infancy and many of the components that were affordable later on in the SNES's lifespan were expensive. Super Nintendo games at the time were mostly Nintendo games with better graphics. That's the way things are with every console. Takes a few years for developers to get the hang of the system.

A reworked job system is being put into this remake, allowing characters to learn from other characters. This is similar to the freedom Final Fantasy X's sphere grid gave players where especially later in the game multiple characters might have the same abilities learned from one another's grid. It's unsure how this will work out in this DS remake, but I doubt it'd be as complex as the sphere grid. The DS cartridge can only hold so much. That brings me to a problem the developers are having.

This game will feature voice acting for much of the game along with acted pre-rendered CGI movies. Because of this the developers ran into problems with storage space, further bringing up the possibility when rumors spread of it's being only a Japanese release. This wouldn't be the first time a game never made it here because of English language storage space problems. Apparently the developers had to compress the japanese text quite a bit to make it fit. I hope they can do good with the English one as well. It looks like the better the compression they can get the better the translation can be.

I suggest to you enplussers that are interested in this game go perusing the blog (even if you cannot read it). There's much eyecandy to behold of new character design and artwork. It appears that different towns are being given different cultures and appearances despite the monoculture of the original. It looks to be a nice improvement.

I always wondered why Square Enix didn't start with Final Fantasy IV. Final Fantasy III was never released in the US and probably for a good reason. It was one of the weakest of the original series (pre VII). People are tired of remakes, but these old games are problematic for youngsters to play today as they are used to advanced graphics and such. It's nice to see a game that deserves a remake get a proper one finally, giving a great game a chance to be played by a new audience.