Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light - Classic JRPG Adventure Game for Nintendo DS - Perfect for Fantasy RPG Fans and Retro Gaming Enthusiasts

I picked this up after playing through miscellaneous 8-bit RPGs on my old Game Boy, plus DS remakes of older Dragon Quest games, and it definitely is reminiscent of those early games. It is not a "real" Final Fantasy game, so in that respect it is like those old Final Fantasy Legend (SaGa) Game Boy games ;)I wasn't sure about the artwork style when I first bought the game, but it won me over after a short while. It is definitely reminiscent of the old 8-bit RPGs but translated into 3D. The towns also have an interesting 3D scrolling perspective in place of a fully movable camera or 3D characters moving against 2D backdrops. The music is catchy and also sounds like a refresh of 8-bit RPGs, complete with some 8-bit sounding synthesizers.The story is your typical old school Final Fantasy-type plot, complete with magic crystals. The story takes you through a variety of areas with various nods to classic Square/Enix RPGs, including the tower dungeons from the Dragon Quest games and "normal world"/"broken world" trope from Final Fantasy 6. I thought the main two male characters were selfish jerks right down to the end of the game, but the two ladies do have some character progression.The difficulty is reminiscent of late 80s-early 90s RPGs. If you are really careless, you WILL die. If you wander into the next area before you are remotely ready, you will either die or just barely escape. The inventory system is also limited in a way reminiscent of 8-bit games: each character can only hold a set amount of items, so you definitely need to mind what you're carrying with you into a dungeon or another new area.The battle system is really simple to pick up, but the buttons are large and optimized for stylus use if you choose. My favorite part of the battle system is the AP gauges. Each character has a maximum of 5 points, and some actions consume more points than others. The downside is that you periodically need to make your characters defend themselves so you can re-build your gauge. You have to plan out attack strategies, which I definitely missed when I moved back to more traditional DQ/FF style RPGs after this game. The MAJOR upside is that you don't have a finite amount of MP that needs to be replenished through outside means. If you're exploring a dungeon and it's taking longer than you thought, you can still re-build your gauges with careful planning instead of blowing through a finite number of MP-restoring items. I didn't even bother with AP-restoring items except before boss fights.Once you get into the job class system (the hats), that adds another element of strategy. You unlock abilities that are only present while you have that particular hat on. As you unlock various abilities, you may have a certain combination of hats you favor for trekking through a dungeon, but switch off to something different for the area boss. There are many, many ways you can approach the job class system, but I will note that I had a lot of fun making the airhead princess into a formidable martial artist.Finally, you can level up your weapons and armor using the same gems that you use to level up hats. I personally didn't find this useful until the very end of the game, when I finally got several endgame pieces of armor and some powerful weapons that didn't have any one elemental affinity. Even if you aren't using the wireless co-op feature, you can still periodically rack up enough points to buy interesting weapons like that in those shops.The biggest downside of the game is that, like Final Fantasy Legend 1 and some old RPGs with lots of collectibles, it only gives you one save slot per cartridge.All in all, I enjoyed the game greatly and will play through it again at some point. I would give it 4.5 stars if half-stars were allowed. While the story is nothing special, the rest of the game is the retro RPG equivalent of comfort food and the job class system does have enough variety that my next playthrough is guaranteed to be different. Some of the game's limitations are old school when there aren't really technical reasons for them anymore, but it does add to the feel and the strategy of the game. I definitely look forward to buying Bravely Default, which is by the same studio, when I eventually get around to picking up a 3DS.P.S.: If you can get a copy of the official strategy guide, definitely pick it up. It has a comprehensive inventory of all of the items, weapons, monsters, etc. complete with pictures. I used several online guides for the actual strategy portions when I was stuck.