Final Fantasy IV: The After Years was released for WiiWare on Monday so I downloaded it and just got done with my first play session. I thought I'd post my first impressions as someone who knows FFIV like the back of his hand.
First off, AY (The After Years, which I don't feel like spelling out every time) is very much classic FFIV. It looks and sounds almost exactly like FFIV Advance, though the sound quality is better and more akin to the original SNES version. The character sprites are also more like FFVI's in their animations and the way the same ones are used for both overworld and battle views. Battle and menu mechanics are nearly identical, right down to being able to manually sort your spells and using equipped weapons as items in battle, except for one welcome exception: You now have many, many more item slots than in FFIV so you don't have to constantly worry about running out of space. Most of the monsters I've fought have also been straight out of FFIV, though with some stats and abilities tweaked here and there. And the difficulty level seems about the same, though it's hard to say for certain this early in the game. If you're familiar with FFIV you'll feel right at home with AY.
There are also some new features to keep things interesting. The biggest I've seen so far is the addition of four phases of the moon that change over time or whenever you stay at an inn. Depending on which phase of the moon it is the strength of different types of abilities will be affected for both your party and enemies. There are four categories, melee attacks, white magic, black magic and ranged attacks, and during a full moon, for example, black magic will become more powerful while melee attacks are weakened and the other two are unaffected. It seems like each phase raises one category, lowers another, and leaves the remaining two unaffected. You can view the current phase and its effects in the pause menu and affected commands are also color-coded during battle to show if they're strengthened or weakened. The changes in strength are very noticeable and I can see the phases playing an important role in some fights.
You can now also perform Band moves, which seem a lot like the double and triple techs from Chrono Trigger. Apparently only characters that share a bond can perform them together. (Biggs and Wedge could do one together but Ceodore couldn't perform it with them. I forgot to try one with Cecil and Rosa while I had control of them.) They also don't just hand them out as you level up, though you do learn some through story events. To learn most of them you have to experiment by selecting the Band command in battle and then Search for Bands to choose which other character(s) you want to attempt a Band with. If the Band fails, you just lost a turn, but if it works you can then select that Band move any time you want from the menu. Bands take a small amount of MP from each character involved (characters that can't use magic now have a little MP to use for Bands) and obviously require all of of them to have their ATB gauges filled.
So far the story is very intriguing. The second moon reappears right after the start of the game and then things go south fast. If you've beaten FFIV you'll know the significance of the second moon. If not, you'll probably be pretty lost. This is a sequel to FFIV, after all, and the game expects you to know what happened so I wouldn't recommend AY if you haven't already beaten FFIV. (I would instead tell you to go play FFIV because it's a great game and my favorite in the FF series.) I'm not very far into the game yet but I'm really interested in seeing where it goes.
One thing to be aware of when buying AY (for 800 Wii points) is that it's not the full game. In Japan it was released on mobile phones in monthly installments, there being thirteen chapters total. From looking at the game's official website it looks like those will be condensed to nine chapters for the WiiWare release, with the initial purchase getting you the first one. The second chapter, Rydia's Tale, is also currently available to purchase from an in-game menu for an additional 300 Wii points. 800 + 8 x 300 would be 3,200 points altogether, which is about the same price as a new DS game, though who knows whether the others chapters will all be the same price.
I'm very pleased with the game so far and unless they price gouge us with the additional chapters I can't imagine I'll have any complaints. Since FFIV is my favorite in the series, I'm happy they left the core game mechanics the same and just added new features on top of them.
