Final Fantasy IV DS Preview: The Art of Re-design

I first did a preview which touched on Final Fantasy IV DS some time ago, but there were only a paltry few images out there to show for the game. Now more artwork and screenshots are turning up on the internet, and I’m compelled to do a another one… simply because FFIV holds such a special place in my heart, and the new artwork being done for the game looks so awesome.

This new preview shows off the new CGI character renderings for the game, assessing how they compare to Yoshitaka Amano’s original artwork and the original SNES sprites.

For the uninitiated, FFIV DS is a remake of the original SNES game (known as Final Fantasy II in the US) which has already been re-released once each on the PS1, GBA, and Wonderswan. This new version for the Nintendo DS is getting a complete graphical overhaul, in the same style has the recent Final Fantasy III DS. The story is also being expanded upon, as apparently only small portion of the initial script for the game was ever actually used the original writer is now adding some of the omitted material back in. There is also rumor of changes being made to the gameplay, though what exactly they will be has not been completely nailed down.

I first stumbled upon these images looking over a forum I used to post at, the Final Fantasy Online forums. A few of the moderators there disliked me for my strong opinions, so I was eventually banned (I was ChrisG, for any FFO members reading this), but I still check back there every once in a while to see if anything of interest is happening. Usually, there isn’t, as the mods maintain an intellect-stifling iron grip over the place. But, this time, there was a huge FFIVDS thread full of links to magazine scans and refreshing discussion of the game. It was probably about the most you can enjoy a forum when you can no longer actually participate there.

When FFIV DS was first announced, we only saw a few images, giving us merely an inkling of how the characters would look in the remake. Fortunately, there was a production drawing showing the “schematics” for how Cecil would be modeled in game. It clearly was inspired directly by one of Yoshitaka Amano’s original illustrations.

The design mimics Amano’s illustration very closely…the only hitch is that because Amano draws his characters slightly differently from picture to picture, that particular illustration shows Cecil looking differently than he does in most of Amano’s other illustrations, and how he looks in the original SNES sprites. In particular, while Cecil is almost always depicted with many different horns on his helmet, two horns (one on each side) are usually emphasized as longer than the others. In the above illustration, and in the DS design, all the horns are of roughly equal size, giving Cecil a different look than in the SNES sprites and some of the other illustrations.

Now we finally have finished, fully rendered images of most of the cast, which are being used in the CGI cutscenes for the game, scanned out of recent issues of Famitsu and other Japanese game magazines. For each character, I will display the new CGI image on the right, with the original sprites, and some of Amano’s other illustrations on the left to give you an idea of how the new DS rendering compare:

To be fair, this depiction of Cecil still misses the “two-horned look” that the original sprites and much of the artwork had, but it’s so detailed and so accurate to Yoshitaka Amano’s work in every other respect, that I love it anyway.

Also notable is that they thankfully didn’t cop out and go for the “Boba Fett look” when handling the face and eyes, a phenomenon strongly present in the original SNES portrait sprite. As much as we all love Boba Fett, he’s not Cecil, and his face is plastered in enough places as it is. We don’t want Cecil’s identity as a character design to become simply the derivation of a Star Wars character, as happened with Vile from Mega Man X.

Lastly, I must admit that had they emphasized two horns on either side with more length, as was done in the sprites and some of the original artwork, it first of all would run the risk of trespassing into a “batman look”, and secondly, would run risk of being confused with Final Fantasy I’s “Warrior of Light” character, which apeared in Yoshitaka Amano’s artwork, and is now being reworked by Tetsuya Nomura for the new Final Fantasy Dissidea fighting game.

But enough about the dark knight, let’s look at Cecil’s Paladin form. As before, these are his original SNES sprites, followed by the Yoshitaka Amano artwork that inspired them. Then finally, there is the FFIV DS rendering on the right:

Here we have yet another exquisitely detailed representation, my only complaint is that there isn’t enough color. Granted, in Amano’s artwork, Cecil is pretty much all white, but there are still some colors there which could have been better represented. The crown/tiara thing, in gold encrusted with red gems, probably would have been cooler than the plain black headband on his forehead. Furthermore, given how colorful the SNES sprites were, which for most was our only conception of Cecil for years until the internet and mail-ordered books allowed us to see the original artwork, it seems that the rendering could have used that much more emphasis on color.

I would have liked to see a strong presence of yellow, particularly in the cape area, rather than Cecil being completely blue and white. It also would have been nice to have a bit more tinge of purple in his hair, the green eyes of the sprite, and maybe a few spots of red on his clothes here and there. In other words, I wish it looked more like this. I feel my 5 minute photoshop job strikes a better compromise between Amano’s illustrations, and the SNES sprites, and serves to be a little more varied.

Oh well, FFIV DS’s rendering is still very well done and very faithful to Amano’s original work.

Kain’s is looking to be one of the best renditions in the whole game. It’s extremely true to Amano’s designs, while still containing enough purple and blue to bear resemblance to the original sprites. I suppose to some degree, unless his armor is changed to turquoise, Kain will still never quite look completely like his old SNES self, but who cares? Turquoise is for fags!

It should be noted that while it’s a staple class in the FF series, FFIV DS marks the first time we’re seeing a proper dragoon/lancer rendered in high detail cgi, instead of some flimsy stand-in like Freya or Khimari. Kain’s badass-ness speaks for itself.

Rosa’s design is one of the few cases where FFIV DS’s CGI renderings actually seem to compromise heavily between the look of Yoshitaka Amano’s illustrations and the original in-game sprites. While the basic details of the clothing, like the spiked shoulder pads and the sash around the hips come straight from Amano’s illustrations, the color palette is clearly derived right out of the SNES graphics. Amano’s mottled grey, beige, and blue tones are converted to pink, purple, magenta, and cream colors.

Hardcore Amano fans would probably lament this decision, but I think it was a smart move. Granted, Amano’s color choices are excellent in their own right, but in the context of a game, there are more considerations to a character’s palette than than simply whichever colors make a nice illustration. By using the comparatively stark pinks and purples, Rosa is differentiated more from the other characters; if the graphics were constructed solely using Amano’s color choices, then half the cast would be wearing blue, beige, and white.

I suppose to some, Rosa may now look a little too much like “Fantasy Sorceress Barbie”, but I think it works. As I said before, the way most people came to know FFIV’s characters was mainly by the original sprites. No fans got to see Amano’s original character illustrations until several years after the game came out; therefore, for most people, if the new depictions were based solely on Amano’s designs, they simply wouldn’t look like the characters we’ve come to know and love since 1991.

My former cohorts at the FFO forums complained that Rydia’s outfit somehow looked “low rent”, but I don’t quite see it. I mean, sure, I guess the fabric rendered could have been less “flimsy” looking, and the clothes could have been cut differently to look less like modern stripper’s garments, but if you look at the sprites and the original art, it’s not far off from the original designs.

The new rendering matches up particularly closely with the original SNES sprite. If anything, I suppose her hair could use more of a stylish “flip” to the side, but all in all I’m quite happy with the new rendering. These are some of the best character designs I’ve seen from Square in years.

The distinctive issue with Yang is that he’s clearly a Chinese-inspired character, but Yoshitaka Amano represented him with blond hair. In the sprites, his hair color was changed to black, and that’s how we all grew to know him. I wondered how he would be handled in FFIV DS, as despite being an ardent Amano fan, I couldn’t imagine the blond hair “looking right”. However, the way it’s been pulled off, it works quite well; he looks neither too Chinese, nor too white, and the result is a design that feels truly creative rather than derivative.

I can’t say I’m sad that the pink smiley-faces on his pants from Amano’s original depiction were omitted from the FFIV DS rendering.

Here is Edward, the spoony bard everyone loves to hate. His new rendering is dead on. No one is at better delivering effeminate wimp character designs than Square, and nowhere is such a design more appropriate than for this cowardly minstrel that fights by shooting music notes at his enemies from a magic harp.

I suppose he could have looked a little more like a true white/Caucasian pretty-boy and a little less like a random Asian kid with bleached hair, but hey, Square is a Japanese company developing for a Japanese audience, so who are we to complain?

Here’s Edge. He looks cool. He seems to be missing a bit of red from his costume, and his haircut seems a little too symmetrical, but otherwise, not much else to say…solid work.

If anything, the only issue with Edge arises out of problems with paladin Cecil’s new design, which places a huge emphasis on the colors white and blue. Had Cecil’s new design placed more emphasis on gold, purple, and red, then Edge and Cecil would be amply differentiated, but as it stands, especially in the small in-game models, where both characters wear exclusively white and blue, and have white hair, they look far too similar.

Perhaps it would help if Edge’s pants and face mask were more bluish than white, but again, this is mainly a problem with a lack of gold in Cecil’s palette.

Above are the “twins” Palom and Porom. They’ve always been rather subtle “Plain Jane” characters, so it’s nice to see that their “chibi” factor was not over-emphasized, nor their hair styles made overly spiky and ridiculous, as is typical of modern Square-enix releases.

Beyond just the character designs, it’s quite exciting to see memorable scenes from the original game depicted in 3D with actual cinematic camera angles, even when it’s just with the simple, small in-game models.

Some of the small in-game models I feel are handled very well given the amount of detail their have to work with. Rosa, Rydia, Edward, and Tellah look exactly as I would have imagined them.

In other cases, I feel the in-game models missed the mark somewhat. Paladin Cecil’s rendering looks good, but his in-game model is way too high on blue and way too devoid of yellow. He just doesn’t register as Cecil to me; he just looks like some random anime dude wearing blue and white armor. I also feel that Kain’s in-game model doesn’t look quite right either…his helmet doesn’t seem to have the “dragon horns” in the proper places, and he’s missing the wing-like flaps protruding from the back of armor, putting far too much emphasis on his scrawny legs. Again, he doesn’t really register as Kain, he looks like some stupid super-deformed rendering of The Tick.

Moving on, there’s this awesome poster-style image done for FFIV DS’s release:

I’m not so crazy about the foreshortening on Kain’s spear, but it’s still cool to see this scene illustrated in high detail, considering we’d only seen it represented in 16-bit tiles n’ sprites, and used our own imaginations to fill in the blanks up to now.

Finally, saving the best for last, here are two trailers, showing various cgi clips, in-game clips, and voice acting in action. Also, I threw in the music video for Ida Emi’s rendition of FFIV’s “Theme of Love”…

It looks awesome, and almost makes me want to buy a DS just for FFIV, solely on the basis of the game’s visuals. At the same time, some of the FMV makes me wish this game was made for PS3, Wii, or 360 with full-scale graphics and not just PS1-grade stuff…then the whole game would be depicted with the same detail as the FMV’s, and we wouldn’t be stuck with blocky, pixelated, chibi-fied characters and simplified lego environments.

Oh well, at least it’s not just another lame FFVII or FFXII spin-off.

The only thing that remains to be seen which could potentially mar the quality of this release is the gameplay changes which may or may not take place.

Personally, having played through the game a few times between the Super Nintendo and Playstation versions, I’d love it if the gameplay were made a little more challenging and complex…up the strategy factor that already exists to make it truly worthwhile playing again. As flawed as Final Fantasy XII was, after having it’s gambit system essentially fight through the redundant, repetitive parts of RPG combat for me, and being burned out enough on RPG’s as it is, trudging through an RPG I’ve already played repeatedly throughout the years is going to need significant improvements to negate the “been there, done that” factor and be bearable to me.

Unfortunately, the main gameplay improvement I’ve heard rumored to be coming to Final Fantasy IV DS is the ability to change your characters’ classes, or teach them new abilities from other characters. As much as I’d like some additions to gameplay, this seems like it would just water down one of FFIV’s better features…

The fact that the game’s characters are unique, and you have to actually think in order to take advantage of their limited, but focused skill sets, it what makes the game a refreshing change from other titles in the series. I don’t want FFIV to become like most other Final Fantasy titles, where you can just get all abilities on every character, and then have them all do the same ever round regardless of your party combination. If FFIV plays anything like FFVII or FFVIII, or even FFVI or FFX, then I can’t see the fun in giving it another run, even with the enhanced visuals and story.

Regardless of how Final Fantasy IV DS will turn out as a game, it’s great to see its characters revitalized with new renderings which do justice to Yoshitaka Amano’s original illustrations, while taking on some traits from the original sprites. At the very least, I will pick up the art book, or the strategy guide, just too look at the pictures.

~ by Julian Gnam on December 11, 2007.