Just after I sent this review over to Tom I counted how many iterations of Final Fantasy 4 I’ve owned. I think, in my attic I have: the original Japanese Super Famicom version, the American Super Nintendo version (FF2), the Japanese Super Famicom version of the American Super Nintendo version (Easy Type), the PlayStation standalone release, the PlayStation Anthology release (Japanese and US), the GBA release and now, a production cart of the new DS version.

And then I saw my life mapped out ahead of me in biannual reviews of games I first played in my early teens subsequently released onto every successive new mobile, handheld and console platform until the END OF ALL TIME. Can you make it stop now please Square-Enix? I need to get off.

The Final Fantasy series polarises gamers like no other. Believers defend its shortcomings, idiosyncrasies and cynical spin-offs with blind fury while detractors are only too eager to dismiss the entire mythology off-hand. Final Fantasy, as an idea, can do no wrong to those blinded by fond memories of younger days spent dreaming in Midgar or doodling pictures of Aerith, Squall or Tidus just as it can do no right to those who won’t see past the random battles, overblown dialogue and kindergarten philosophy.

The problem with these black and white opinions is that they leave no room for nuance and subtlety, those shades of grey in which truth is so often painted. Because, within the Final Fantasy series, quality and ingenuity vary greatly, even when the games appear very similar. Nowhere is this more apparent than when comparing this update of Final Fantasy IV to last year’s overhaul of Final Fantasy III.

Both games, developed by Matrix Software, are aesthetically identical. They employ the same fonts, menu screens, squat polygonal characters, washed-out colour palette and world textures as one another; both games reinterpret their source matter in very similar ways and yet, by way of some subtle tweaks and balances, and the benefit of stronger source material, this Final Fantasy manages to be a marked improvement over the previous one in almost every way.

You can read the rest of this review over at Eurogamer here.