After the most hilarious final fight ever (I downed Zeromus' last 40,000 HP or so using only Kain, who had a total of 1 HP, doing this weird cycle of Phoenix Down-Jump-Phoenix Down-Jump. Zeromus would use "Meteor" on the characfters I somehow managed to revive, killing them, and Kain survivng only because of Jump), I just finished Final Fantasy IV and holy shit, that game rocked hard. I loved seeing the first FF with actual plots and characters (an evolution from II, which started it). I have some comments about the plot itself, but I'll mention those in a moment.
I think this is the FF I've plowed through the fastest and without much problems at all (though I did spend an awful lot of time grinding and grinding just so I don't have a lot of trouble with bosses), and I really enjoyed it. It had a cool finale, though it's funny to see how almost every single surviving character ended up in some place of power (whether King, Queen, Prince, etc.). Though I did think that the scenes leading up to the finale were 10 million times better than the finale itself. I adored the entire sequence with the characters praying, reviving the characters, Golbez getting owned, the whole dark/light stuff with the really well written dialogue and the FF anthem playing in the background. Cool stuff.
I also enjoyed how it was one of the most consistently tragic FFs (every character gets massively fucked up at some point or another).
*SPOILERS*
I did think the Zemus twist was something of a copout, but I LOVED the scenes when it was revealed. The flashback to Golbez and Cecil's childhood rocked shit, and Golbez was a pretty cool character when he went 'good'. It does make me wonder two things, though.
1. Why the hell does everyone make such a huge fuss about Ultimecia turning out to be the big bad and not Edea in FFVIII? FFIV does the same, only much worse.
2. Why the hell does everyone make such a big deal about Aeris' death? It's not the first time a main character has bit it halfway through the game. Although I have to admit, after Tellah, I thought the 'fake' deaths (Yang, Cid) were for real and was kinda disappointed when they turned out to be fakes ("Oh, somehow he's okay. It's not like the room he was in exploded or he fell from the sky to a pit of lava.")
*END SPOILERS*
Loved it, in the end. Really cool. Presently I'm not really interested in playing the sequel, but I'm definitely curious to see where they take the plot.
So as it works--
Tier 1.
1. VIII.
2. IX.
3. VII.
Tier 2.
1. XII.
2. X.
3. IV.
Tier 3.
1. II.
2. I.
3. III
Tier 4.
1. XI.
With this, I've completed all Final Fantasies except V and VI. I'm gonna go ahead and skip V and go straight to VI (which I'm like 10% into) so I can see what the fuss is all about.
Peace out, homies.