Final Fantasy IV on hard mode is a challenge, every battle feels like something new, and winning is worth it!!
I have played other Final Fantasy games before, but I never finished most of them for some reason or another... So this time I'm playing FFIV to win it after trying it years ago on PS1 & GBA but didn't finish it. Maybe because I played the GBA version, the PC version's hard mode made me notice how well-designed the battle/party system is.
Even though I think PC version is a bad port.
FFIV forces you to use different play styles
The characters in the party are always changing, and each one of them have his/her own set of unique commands, add to that the different battle styles of the enemies and story challenges, I find myself always changing how I use my characters.
Unlike Final Fnatasy games with large amounts of customization (FFV, FFXII) where you're free to choose from hundreds of play styles as you like. In Final Fantasy IV (especially in the hard mode,) you are forced to change your battle-style to survive.
What I love with FFIV however is how smartly designed the party system is. Dungeons & Enemies can be beaten with any of the different parties you have through the game, but the roles of each party member needs to vary depending on the opponent & other characters you have.
Paladin Cecil can go from the attacker in one party, to the main healer in another... Yang can be the main physical offense in one battle, or play the defensive role ("brace" command) and the party's life-line against an enemy with strong party wiping attacks. Any player with "Cure" attacks becomes the damage dealer in battles against zombies... etc.
Final Fantasy games before IV didn't had that feel. While FF2 also changing party members, you can easily abuse it's "growth" system to play with the style you want. And FFIII (and FFV) offer too much customization to say that it "forces" you to change the play style.
But I don't remember much of it, so I'll leave it until I play it again!!
(Oh, my backlog of games.)
FFIV bosses are actually puzzle games
Bosses change their attacks, defense type and behaviors to make the battle feel more varied and engaging. That's true for all RPG games, including Final Fantasy games. You need to find the enemies patterns and weak points to defeat them.
So, depending on how much grinding I'm willing to do, I sometimes take the second option in RPG games, and in the "normal" mode of FFIV it's easy to just do that. But it's not in the Hard Mode. You see, abusing the enemies weak points and noticing their patterns might be the only way to win here, due to enemies strong stats, and the difficulty of grinding a changing party.
But since you need to experiment to know these weak points, it's really hard to win against strong bosses the first time you battle them.
What do you think?
and I'd love to see what you have to say in comments.