This is a title that was originally released on Japanese cell-phones, but has now taken a new incarnation on Wii-Ware. You can purchase it on the Wii-shop channel for 800 points. ($8 US dollars)

I hadn’t heard about this game until the day it came out. But since I was a big fan of the original Final Fantasy IV, and it has reminiscent graphics and game play to the original 2-D RPG’s,  I decided that I might as well check it out.

I always thought there was a void that opened when they stopped releasing 2-D RPG’s, and only released 3-D RPG’s. I have replayed all the original games over and over again thinking there was nothing wrong with these games, and hoping that the genre would come back. Dragon Warrior 8 took it back to the basics, and I was pleased with how it felt like playing the games of old, but there was still something missing. There have been a few other exceptions, and a lot of re-releases of some good 2-D RPG’s, but for the most part they have died out. Which isn’t completely relevant, but I just wanted to get the idea across of why I decided to spend $8 on something like this.

I think the first problem I have with this, is the title “The After Years” I immediately got the impression that this was kitschy. Although some of the other Final Fantasy remakes that are really cheap concepts have still been fun to play. This one is maybe even slightly better, just because it stuck to it’s roots vehemently. I only say it might be slightly better because I felt like a whore when I played Final Fantasy 10-2. (Which is a hybrid of Final Fantasy X and Charlies Angels.)

As stated it has stuck to it’s roots, it’s really similar to Final Fantasy IV, and it doesn’t make me feel like a whore. The problem is that it makes you feel like you are paying a whore. Because the way the game is divided up you pay in installments, they have the base game for 800 wii points, and then everyone’s story is 300 additional points, and the ending of the game is an additional 800 points, and so by the end you have paid just a little under $40 dollars. I think you can get by with just playing the start and the end though. I still think the pay as you go style is pretty lame.

It isn’t really good, it’s a little lame, but being a Final Fantasy IV fan I am going to buy it and play it, and form an opinion about it. So in retrospect, if you are a fan of FFIV and 2DRPG’s, than you might want to spend money on this, other wise it isn’t that good.

To sum up the story of the first chapter spoiler free, The main character is Rosa, and Cecil’s son. His name is Ceadore, he teams up with a hooded man, and they fight some of the old school bosses. They keep the old fighting system, but add in a moon factor, so depending on the phase of the moon you do different damage with different types of attacks. This could be really fun if it gets challenging.

I want to complain more about this, but I’m not feeling to well today, and it isn’t worth my time, it is really cheap entertainment, but the word entertainment applies.