First impressions of FFIV

OK, to get straight to the point: I'm impressed. Square Enix have done a great job with this remake. There's more to do than in the original and the graphics are updated just enough to enhance the game without losing the charm of the original.

However, since I'm also playing Dragon Quest III at the moment, I'm struck by how very linear this game is. In DQIII you create your party by choosing between zero and three party members to accompany your hero. You can choose their class and edit their stats within reason. You can actually make more than three characters and swap them in and out of your active party. The game's mostly linear at first, though there are usually a few ways to approach something, but after a while it totally opens up and you can sail around the whole world in your boat and find your own adventures, the story being related to you through conversation with NPCs rather than through cutscenes.

By contrast, Final Fantasy IV forces your party selection on you from the very start, you can only go to the single next location; no room for exploration here. Because your party selection is forced, you can't overcome challenges by creating a great team that works together, you just have to hope you're already at the level where you either do enough melee damage or have been given the right spells for the job. Of course, the good side of the total control the game exerts over its players is that the game is far more cinematic (in terms of being story-led) than DQIII and you're going to be playing in order to see what happens to the characters or to see what the next location holds whereas in DQIII it's more of a general sense of adventure and exploration.