Final Fantasy - The 4 Heroes Of Light (first game from bravely default team)

[aweigh]

this was the bravely Default team's first game and supposedly it's still their best to this day. it has a reputation for being punishingly difficult, with the kind of difficulty/balancing that the BD games themselves lack; but besides that i was kinda stunned at how beautiful this game looks when prettied-up on Desmume at high resolution.

The damn thing looks better than most 3ds games, and it's a Nintendo DS title. I think it easily looks better aesthetics and graphics-wise than the BD titles.

 

[Siveon]

I vastly preferred this game over BD. While the job system was simplified, I had a lot of fun playing around with it and fighting bossfights within the limitations. And just like the combat, the story/setting was simple but engaging to me.

Bravely Default wanted to have its cake and eat it too, while 4 Heroes of Light knew how to deliver a tighter experience. It's weird to see how overshadowed FHOL is, I haven't tried the sequels but I hope they're at least better than the first Bravely Default game.

 

[Duraframe300]

I personally prefer Octopath, but yeah. 4 Heroes is a close second. Sadly it also shares Bravely Defaults flaw of repeated dungeons/weak second half.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Ah, the first ever RPG I did a Let's Play of. Brings back memories.

It is pretty fun. It's really not difficult though, I never understood where all the talk about punishing difficulty came from. I blame game journalists.

 

[aweigh]

Oh, I wanted to point out that I'm not using any kind of texture smearing filter... the game looks like that by default, I only up-rezzed it.

 

[aweigh]

Ah, the first ever RPG I did a Let's Play of. Brings back memories.

It is pretty fun. It's really not difficult though, I never understood where all the talk about punishing difficulty came from. I blame game journalists.

In the case of JRPGs it's just weebs. Weebs are always to blame. They tend to hate anything difficult for whatever reason, it's hard to explain or understand. Any time I've ever made a thread talking about a JRPG's balancing or difficulty anywhere other than the Codex I get bombarded with "IT'S UP TO YOU TO MAKE UR OWN DIFFICULTY!!!! JUST DON'T EQUIP THE BEST WEAPONS DUH!! GAME IS FINE!", and other stuff like that. Also see it a lot when just reading.

I believe it comes from the misapprehension that most weebs have about JRPGs being "about the story" only. As with CRPGs, almost every wrong opinion can be traced back to storyfaggotry of some sort.

EDIT: TBH, I've come to realize the misapprehension that "it's about muh story" is something that affects all modern video game players, not just RPG players. Take any genre you can think of and I've realized that your average joe will say the most important thing is "the story", and things like challenging gameplay (of any kind) are a distant concern.

 

[CryptRat]

I had a lot of fun with this game, by the way Paper Sorcerer uses the exact same combat system, including keeping remaining APs from one fight to the next. I really can't understand why remaining APs are kept from one fight to another, I am not sure what should be done instead but I feel that anything else would be better.

 

[Siveon]

I had a lot of fun with this game, by the way Paper Sorcerer uses the exact same combat system, including keeping remaining APs from one fight to the next. I really can't understand why remaining APs are kept from one fight to another, I am not sure what should be done instead but I feel anything else would be better.

I would've just balanced the games off a fresh start 0AP or a full AP combat start. Otherwise sometimes I just did a filler battle before a bossfight to stock up on AP, lol.

 

[Endemic]

TBH, I've come to realize the misapprehension that "it's about muh story" is something that affects all modern video game players, not just RPG players. Take any genre you can think of and I've realized that your average joe will say the most important thing is "the story", and things like challenging gameplay (of any kind) are a distant concern.

You have can both though, without one hindering the other. It's just that story-gameplay integration isn't taken seriously by your average AAA studio.

I would argue something like La Mulana would be a lesser game without the story elements.

 

[aweigh]

You have can both though, without one hindering the other. It's just that story-gameplay integration isn't taken seriously by your average AAA studio.

I would argue something like La Mulana would be a lesser game without the story elements.

Of course storytelling is important, it's what gives meaning to the subject. Two stick figures fighting it out can be good gameplay, but the player will be disconnected from it; frame it as a knight fighting a dragon however and players become attached on a higher level. I find that the best kind of storytelling in games is the archetypical and the symbological kind, and that though there is room for more straightfoward plot-driven narratives it should be handled with restraint, as I believe the core fundament of RPG gameplay lies in abstraction.

 

[Endemic]

I wouldn't mind seeing more games that have the protagonist and his\her party as supporting characters in the overall plot. It would certainly reduce the need for the stereotypical "epic" moments, and allow sidequests to be more naturally integrated.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Had this on my R4 back in the day. I think what bothered me was when it started splitting your party up. Idk I don't remember much of it.

 

[Vorark]

Sadly it also shares Bravely Defaults flaw of repeated dungeons/weak second half.

It was a big letdown to an otherwise charming little game.

A bit offtopic, but thinking back Square-Enix was quite decent during the NDS era, be it as developer or publisher. Dragon Quest IV-VI remakes and oddball games like 4 Heroes, The World Ends With You, Blood of Bahamut. Good times.

 

[Siveon]

Sadly it also shares Bravely Defaults flaw of repeated dungeons/weak second half.

It was a big letdown to an otherwise charming little game.

A bit offtopic, but thinking back Square-Enix was quite decent during the NDS era, be it as developer or publisher. Dragon Quest IV-VI remakes and oddball games like 4 Heroes, The World Ends With You, Blood of Bahamut. Good times.

I want to say that portables, with smaller budgets, is just inherently a good environment for interesting games to come around. Just look at the Gameboy to even 3DS libraries.

 

[Ventidius]

I haven't played The 4 Heroes of Light, but the first Bravely Default didn't strike me as being particularly easy, by JRPG standards. The annoying thing about that game was the fact that you were forced to do the same bosses over and over again during the second half of the game. One of the very few examples in which a single design decision ruined a game for me. Difficulty up until that point was pretty much about right for a JRPG, not noticeably easier than Final Fantasy 5-9 or the The Legend of Heroes games, IMO.

The issue with JRPGs is that level tends to be disproportionally important to success in comparison to other factors (compare with DnD-based games, for example), which means there is often very little than can't be trivialized by simply grinding a lot. The good news is that you can usually hit the difficulty sweet spot by simply not going out of your way to grind excessively. In the better JRPGs you don't really need to go out of your way to avoid encounters and gimp yourself to hit that sweets spot either, but they are rarely exceptionally challenging even then.

Obviously, I am mostly talking about conventional JRPGs in the FF4 mold, not about weirder stuff like the Saga games, dungeon crawlers, or tactical RPGs like Fire Emblem. The only classic-style JRPG that strikes me as having above-average combat difficulty is Final Fantasy 4 itself, and it achieves that by simply having a very fine-tuned power curve and tight balance.

Returning to Bravely Default, I recently completed the demo of Bravely Default 2 on the Switch, and I liked it a lot. I might well end up getting it once it's out. The Job system is fantastic as usual (still the best of all the Final Fantasy character systems), the visuals are gorgeous, the exploration is actually pretty decent by JRPG standards, itemization is solid, and it has plenty of welcome QoL improvements on the classic formula. Perhaps most encouragingly, the bosses were surprisingly difficult, especially the sand worm boss. To be fair, the latter probably benefited from the demo's level cap, but still, great stuff.

 

[aweigh]

Yeah, SaGa games and games in that mold (like Alliance Alive and Legend of Legacy) neatly sidestep over-leveling by having the stat increases be somewhat randomized and linked to specific factors; for example in RS: Minstrel Song you have a base chance of raising any stat that is modified by the enemy you are fighting, your current amount of that stat, the type of weapons or armor you're currently using and what attacks or abilities you use and probably some other stuff I don't know about; what that translates to is that while it is possible to raise something like Strength on anyone, at any time, the best way to do it is to fight stronger enemies than you while using a specific STR-related weapon like a Zweihander.

This means that your back-row Archer-type character won't be getting tons of STR raises while your front-row 2-hander user will get them often. Technically you can still "over level" by "grinding", but you reach soft caps as you begin outpacing the enemy you're fighting in terms of your stats versus theirs, and this also serves as a nice way to restrain a player a bit from staying in one place doing the same thing too long. Truth be told the SaGa games are the only RPGs I've ever seen that have a legitimately good use-case for raising individual stats through specific usage, and they put western attempts like the Elder Scrolls to shame.

EDIT: One thing that you quickly realize is that the single most important stat is the raw HP pool. In Wizardry, in Elminage, and in SaGa games. Don't really have any further observations about this, and in retrospect it seems like a very obvious thing, but it's food for thought for RPG design theory.

 

[Casual Hero]

Saved for future reference, thanks.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

I don't like any of the games from the Bravely Default team, they're all bland, generic and repetitive, with the same horrible cartoonish art style. This is of zero interest.

 

[victim]

I vastly preferred this game over BD. While the job system was simplified, I had a lot of fun playing around with it and fighting bossfights within the limitations. And just like the combat, the story/setting was simple but engaging to me.

Bravely Default wanted to have its cake and eat it too, while 4 Heroes of Light knew how to deliver a tighter experience. It's weird to see how overshadowed FHOL is, I haven't tried the sequels but I hope they're at least better than the first Bravely Default game.

I assumed I was the only one who held this opinion. Nice to know I am not alone. 4 Heroes is probably my first of second favorite FF game ever. (Note I've played none of them after 7 for more than 15 minutes total)

 

[victim]

Ah, the first ever RPG I did a Let's Play of. Brings back memories.

It is pretty fun. It's really not difficult though, I never understood where all the talk about punishing difficulty came from. I blame game journalists.

A little vague on this but wasn't there REALLY random towers at the end where your best strategy was to use the class that let you evade 90% of encounters? Might be post game.

 

[victim]

I personally prefer Octopath, but yeah. 4 Heroes is a close second. Sadly it also shares Bravely Defaults flaw of repeated dungeons/weak second half.

Octopath is still like $60 isn't it? Planning to get it eventually.

 

[Thac0]

This post pushed me to buy the game, had heard of it being good before but didnt know it was from the Bravely Default team. It should arrive today, Bravely Second disappointed me a little bit so maybe this scratches that SNES FF itch.

 

[Thac0]

This is pretty neat. The game is very minimalistic, every party member can only carry 15 items, equipped weapons, armor and spells (!) are items. So you get very little room to hoard stuff and lot of inventory management. There is no MP, only HP and Action Points, somewhat similar to Octopaths and Bravely Defaults extra turn points, but you only need them to activate your spells and skills. There is only like 5 attributes in the game and every hero has only four equipment slots (armor, shield, weapon, ring). There are classes you can upgrade, but I dont think the game has any multiclassing.

Still while there is nothing besides the very core Go to dungeon > beat shit to death > equip new items > clear dungeon > go to town > sell and buy and watch some cutscenes > Go to new story dungeon loop is smoothly executed. Mob design is good and they die fast, same as your units. No MP means you only need to return to the city to save or to ressurect or clear some status ailments, since you can heal with the ap against trash way faster than they can damage you. Bossfights are were the game is best, since its most annoying feature doesnt come to play.

You cant target anything. Like not at all, if you use a healing spell it will always heal the one with the lowest hp. Bows will always hit the rightmost background enemy swords the leftmost melee etc. There are two people poisined? Well better hope the more important one will be cured by the antidote. Extremely weird choice that adds nothing to the game but doesnt manage to spoil it.
I do like it a little less than FF 3-6 but it definitly scratches the same simplicistic adventure itch. It also has an european fairytale dreamlike charm to it, which I am super into.