Part five: No pointless decision making

My biggest pet peeve about computer RPGs and jRPGs in particular, is when designers try to create the illusion that your character has agency outside of battle and exploration by giving you lots of inane multiple choice dialog questions that change how other characters in the game respond to you ...

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Part four: Secrets that are (mostly) reasonable

It's become an RPG trope the story directs a character one direction, often urgently, while actually rewarding the character for taking a detour. FFIV does not avert this trope, but also doesn't suffer too badly for it. Many of the coolest secrets can be found easily without a ...

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Part three: Precisely Planned Linear Content

As a consequence of the fixed party throughout the game, the developers always know exactly which classes will be available to fight through a particular area. This is obvious even early on in the game, where the difficulty of each segment increases based on your party composition vs the enemies ...

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Part two: Pacing and focus

For a story-centric game, Final Fantasy IV really moves along. Although there's a substantial introduction before you gain control of the character (probably 5-10 minutes depending on how fast you read), it's both action-packed and introduces a whole SLEW of important conflicts: The long-term battle over the Crystals ...

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Part one: Characterization via gameplay.

In Final Fantasy IV, each character's gameplay traits match what the story wants us to think about them. Though present in other games, no other Final Fantasy in the NES, SNES, or PS1 era does this so well. Final Fantasy IV has an internally consistent set of gameplay rules ...

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