The world will face an unprecedented crisis! Let's Play FF4: The After Years!

Hello! This time, I'm going to be showing off Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (commonly called TAY).



Now, most all of you know what TAY is. But I'm going to go over it a bit anyway. It was originally released back in February of 2008 over in Japan, for phones. About a year and a half later, in June of 2009, we got a port of the game, on WiiWare. For these releases, each of the game's several 'episodes' were sold separately. During its original mobile version, one new episode was released each month, with the final chapter coming out on Christmas Eve, 2008. When it was ported to WiiWare, however, episodes came in sets of three each month; the last three chapters from the mobile version were condensed into one which we got on September 7, 2009.

The version I will be playing came afterward. In April 2011 (shortly after the start of Brickroad's FF4 LP on this very site), we got Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection for PSP. It has (the best version of) the original game, every episode of The After Years, as well as an 'Interlude' which takes place between the two games; I'll be covering that as well. TAY has also gotten a 3D remake for Android, iOS, and Steam.

Now, as for how I'm going to be doing this. Each of the game's 'tales' is going to be split into two updates: first, I'll go through the tale's plot and show that off; second, I'll delve into the tale's "Challenge Dungeon", where I'll get into the mechanical details of what the party can do and how it can do it. I'll probably also cover stupid things like rare drops during this update. I'm aiming to cover one tale a week.

After the first tale ends, there's going to be several options for which tale to do next. I will gladly take votes for this, cutting off votes once I post the challenge update. Ties are gonna be broken in order of which one's at the top of the list, for simplicity.

All this is gonna change when I reach the final tale, of course, due to its length, but I'll address that when I get there.

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Table of Contents

Story Chapters

• Chapter 1: Red Baron Gives You Wings (Ceodore pt. 1)
• Chapter 2: A New Challenger Appears! (Ceodore pt. 2)
• To be continued...

Challenge Chapters

• None yet...

ohhhhhhhhhh brother

and now to disappoint people: i've just found out that my laptop does not like having the psp emulator open very long, to the tune of "instant reboot"

this may have to be temporarily delayed until i can get my desktop set up

*Fry squints* Can't tell if being trolled or not.

I like TAY, which makes me sad to acknowledge the fact that the game is almost universally a joke or a punchline on these forums when it gets mentioned. I just keep my mouth shut during those situations, because trying to come out as a fan would probably make people more sincerely go on about how they loathe it.

I will say that if you experienced TAY as "Hey look, I just finished replaying FF4 on the PSP and there's completely free, optional bonus content sitting right here if I'm feeling into it" you probably enjoyed it more than the way a lot of other people seemed to have experienced it. The original context for TAY was: expensive, episodic, out of the blue, and we the consumer were supposed to care about this weird "sequel" as a stand alone product (together with all that entails about being judged vs the original).

Like Unprecedented Crisis, TAY does some cool things, even if it also makes some missteps. Here's hoping you can highlight the cool things.

Glad to see that there are more people out there that like TAY, for me? It was an "ok" experience, because, while I enjoy playing with the cast again and how you can use anyone in the final dungeon, the story was just... bleh, and most of the added mechanics and ideas are hit or miss (and it probably didn't help that I was sick at the time of playing it)

I'll follow this thread and hey, maybe play along too, to see it's better than I remember it

Thanks for playing this so the rest of us don't have to, turtle. Godspeed.

How fitting that a TAY run would begin with disappointment.

Turtle will probably touch on this, but didn't this thing have a weird platform history? I seem to remember it being an episodic phone game in Japan (pre-smart phones). People lamented not being able to play it. Then it came to....WiiWare? And people lamented being able to play it?

Chapter 1: Red Baron Gives You Wings




The Moon that the Lunarians left on is back. The Crystals are exactly as helpful as they've always been.



Also we've got an idiot named Ceodore, whose name conclusively answers the question "do you add 'Junior' to your name if you're only half named after your dad?"



wait did i start the wrong game



Oh, no, we're good. We have a few generic soldiers, and then there's Ceodore up near the back, on the right. On his mirror side is Wedge, and in front of them in the center is Biggs.



And now we can move around a bit. We can also check our status page!




I'm not very impressed. Cecil had over seven times this HP at the same level! Most of this is basic stuff. We see stats got renamed a bit, but they're still in the same order, so you can probably figure out what's what. Though 'Intelligence' should've been called 'Smarts' for the initial.

Right, let's go talk to the folks on the ship.

Oh good, the f-word. And no, I don't mean 'father'; I mean 'finally'. Let me tell you, there is nothing worse than reluctantly doing something you don't want to do and being told that you're "finally" doing it, implying that the time you spent to work up your nerve was garbage and you should've just been perfect and good to go from the start.

...Right, where was I? Oh right, Biggs.

After you talk to everyone, the scene continues.



Does...does Ceodore really need to be told who his parents are? Wedge, did you think this through at all?



Biggs responds to this by slapping Ceodore so hard he flies back a tile before crumpling.



Ceodore spends the rest of the scene on the floor. He only had 80 HP; someone should check his pulse.



Apparently the isles have shifted a bit around Mythril, if the cave is accessible by land from town.





And now we get a to walk around a bit. Hooray! Let's go check out that cave.



The person at the stairs asks us if we have any rare tails. We do not, so I keep walking.



We can see some treasure behind him, but it's not accessible at the moment. There's nothing else to do in the cave, so I guess we actually have to go to Mythril.



From there, we can move around again. What's this about the moon...? Let's ask Wedge.

Wedge, please summarize better. Anyway, this is the "Phase of the Moon" system that was introduced in The After Years. The game will helpfully remind you in battle which skills get a bonus and which get a penalty. It's not a huge inconvenience, as you can cycle the moon with a Tent or whatnot, or just straight-up letting the game sit there.




There are a few treasures hidden in the grass around Mythril; in the same spots as in FF4, actually. The Ruby Ring is a good starting item for Ceodore here, for a bit of magic defense. The shops consist of "too expensive" stuff, so we'll leave them alone for now.

We can't progress until we stay at the inn, which is free this once, so let's do that.



The game tells us that the Waxing Moon has progressed to the Full Moon, so we're now ready to go enter the cave and start our trial.



No time to waste, let's get moving!

We literally just woke up. And I don't think he ever actually stated a time...

oh boy, treasure




oh boy... treasure...

Let's talk to Biggs in the middle.



And now we have real soldiers to carry us through supervise our mission.




Biggs is a pretty good black mage to go along with his sword prowess, and Wedge is a better paladin than Ceodore is. They will absolutely be carrying me for a while. Once we talk to the tail collector in front of the stairs, he moves to let us by.



Biggs calls out our first fight, against a pack of Goblins.

I'm starting to think that the threat of this mission was overblown a tad by the Mini people who work here... Of course, Wedge takes this moment to tutorialize more on the moon system, but I'll spare you all. It's nothing he hasn't already said anyway.

Further we go, until we get another thing from Wedge.

Nah. I'll cut him off there. Bands are Dual Techs from Chrono Trigger (and sometimes Triple, Quadruple, or Quintuple Techs). The difference, though, is that you have to actually figure out which commands to match up. The initiator gets a wildcard of sorts, so you don't need to know which of their commands to use, but if you pick the wrong command/s for your partner/s, the Band will fail.

Also the first time you discover a Band, the MP cost is free.



Biggs and Wedge demonstrate with Attack + Attack = Vibra Edge, a cross-slash attack that hits every enemy on the field. This only works between Biggs and Wedge, of course; Ceodore's Attack command wouldn't work. Once you've found a Band, it's recorded and you can just select it off a menu for the future.

But enough about that. Now it's time for treasure!




Slim pickings; get used to that, because dungeons won't have much in the way of big treasure.

In the next room, Biggs and Wedge stop.





I'm kind of curious what scenario would have to take place for Ceodore to not come back alive, but still have a shot at the Red Wings. But no matter. We're alone now.



The next room has a save point you can use; a Tent to shuffle the moon phase could be a good idea, but I don't bother. Onward we go!




A secret passage leads to an item that we can't actually use, and more incidental items are accumulated. Thankfully, your inventory space is unlimited, so you don't have to worry about sorting things out after a while.

It's about now that I realize that screenshotting every item is going to eat up my image limit real fast, so I'll just take to listing them. On the next floor, we find a Bronze Hourglass, Tent, Antarctic Wind, Echo Herbs, and Iron Gloves behind a secret passage (pictured below):



A door up ahead leads to another save point chamber; this time I do use the tent, because the level ups have made my HP more than double. In the Waning Moon, the Attack command gets a bonus, so I'm now killing things much faster, though they're also killing me more easily when they get turns (which is often never). This moon also lowers the power of techniques, though we don't have any of those right now.

Downstairs, we reach what looks to be the endpoint.



A treasure chest; don't mind if I do~

As we open it, though...


I love the PSP boss fade-in, with the screen crack.

It was trapped! The Sand Worm is our first 'boss'; never mind the Auto tag that's over to the side... It's slow, but when it hits...



Ow...

This fight's not bad, though. You have like three turns to each of its; a single Cure will undo its hit, so that's at least two turns of slashing its face-equivalent. After you beat it up enough, it responds...




This seems to be the end for us...until Biggs and Wedge rush in!





He could've at least accepted a Cura...



Or that. Ceodore now has the 'Awaken' ability, which is a lot like Terra's Morph. His attacks are dealing double damage now. After a short amount of time, the status ends and leaves Ceodore in critical HP. I don't really know how well his defenses improve, because after two hits...



The Sand Worm dissolves.



Wooo! Another text box mentions Awaken, but I just said that.

Ceodore then collapses.

The duo rejoin the party for the trek out. No one has Exit. ;_;

When we make it back to the entrance, Ceodore speaks up.



Biggs just walks onward, off the screen.

And now we can proceed. The airship is on the map where we landed, and there's a soldier there who asks us if we're ready to go back to Baron. There's also a Pot of Life here if you need it. Before I go, I pick up a sword and helmet for Ceodore in Mythril now that I can afford them.



I just want to say I love this joke and the implication that it's the very same Rat Tail that Cecil found in the Land of Eidolons so very long ago.

He doesn't get the chance to finish that sentence, because...





Where's a Lit-Bolt when you need it? Anyway, these Belphegors can actually punch for sizable damage. One of them hits Ceodore for 100, even. It's not a big deal, because if they don't focus one target, you'll probably kill them both before anybody dies.



Of course, there are still more.

And with that, the screen wides out, as Ceodore creeps closer to the edge of the ship.



Now we're in the Throne Room of Baron, with Cecil and Rosa. A soldier barges in.

He turns to the guard to his right.

Cecil and the soldier walk out, to the main hall.

We can do stuff now, as Cecil. Let's take a glance at his stats...



Wow, he's really let himself go since he killed Zeromus. We have the same inventory that Ceodore had; I decide to be silly and unequip Cecil, to see if I can pass the gear to Ceodore.

As we head toward the right...



A battle starts! Though the monsters are quickly killed.

Now we can access the chests up above, which have a Tent, Decoy, and Phoenix Down. On the wall outside, we get into another fight.

There's a save point in the room with the path to the treasury.



But we can't take the treasures.

Nothing accosts us on the way to the Right Tower, which has more treasures to loot: Hermes Sandals, Hi-Potion, Red Fang, Ether, Remedy on the first floor and basement.



Nothing's down here in Odin's old haunt, though, so we go up. More treasures as we ascend, including Echo Herbs, Bacchus's Wine, another Hi-Potion, a Heavenly Wrath, another Remedy, a Bomb Crank, and 500 gil.



We save the woman from the ogre, who goes to hide; now we return back as well. When we reach the center hall, the soldier to the left is gone, allowing us to go that way.



Well. "Gone."

A monster appears from the stairs and attacks. After it's dispatched, we head toward where it came from.



Of course, Rosa's not letting us go alone.



She agreed to that awfully quick... Anyway, I'll save you guys the status page and let you know she's also level 15. She's got a decent selection of white magic; Slow and Cura are always nice.



How...how do you not notice something like that? No, really.



I'm seein' double! Four moons!





Several scenes flash by, featuring characters both familiar and unfamiliar. We'll talk about them later, though.

A good question, for once.



From the balcony, Cid spots us and comes to say hi. He appears at this point to be more beard than dwarf man.



All these people joining and...I'm not sure if there's anything for them to fight. >_>

Anyway Cid is also level 15, which means he's literally worse than when you first get him in FF4.



I can't sleep here now, but I do like how they added the extra beds to Cecil's room.

There's another save point in the barracks, which suggests something's coming. We go up to the balcony.

Oh, never mind, we do use them for one fight. It's as easy as before with Ceodore and crew; easier, in fact, because these people have HP.


i won't tell anyone that's uc if you won't

?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????????????

Another fight, this time against an Ahriman and three Spirits. The Ahriman likes to inflict single-target Doom, which is annoying, but not particularly deadly.

A Strato Avis and three Cockatrices! The Strato Avis is just a Zu+; it alternates between Tornado and double-attacking. It's actually kind of annoying, though Rosa's able to heal through it just fine.



The pair of them finally leave, with Cecil now alone on the balcony.



Cecil notices something from above!



~ Mysterious Girl Theme ~

Is that...Bahamut? We also get the first song added for TAY here; you should really click that link.

Bahamut descends and a green-haired girl hops off.





Doesn't seem like she intends to answer that.

Bahamut is content to sit here until you've done enough damage to it, so just turn on Auto and wait. After a while, he starts counting down. I'm sure you know what comes next.






With that, we fade to white...



Now we're back with Ceodore and the Red Wings!



The ship starts shaking. That's always a great sign.

The ship continues to shake as the screen flashes, pieces of the ship breaking off. Biggs runs over to help Ceodore, who had collapsed after the wing broke.

Then we fade to black.



jesus christ can't we stay in one place

The King casts a spell toward Rydia.



And just like that, she disappears.



The girl from before shows up.

Without another word, the girl casts a spell, and the King and Queen turn to stone. This is absolutly cheating, because the Break spell doesn't work on bosses!

Then we fade to black again.



We get a close-up of the tower. I'm not sure I understand; was it ever...gone?

Anyway I'm getting tired of screenshotting all these scenes over the world.

Next we're in the Dwarven Castle. The dwarves tell Giott about the Tower's return. He is incredulous.

I'm going to cut this update here, because this tale is very long. Next time, we find out what happened to Ceodore! Please look forward to it!

I appreciate that, in the intervening years, Rosa learned that underwear goes on the inside of your clothes.

When I played TAY, I was genuinely excited at this point. I really enjoyed Ceodore's tale. FFIV is literally my favourite video game, and this was going to let me play Cecil again! I was determined to go in with an open mind, and I was absolutely picking up what it was putting down... so far. Before the dark times.

Maybe that was how women signalled that they were available to be courted. As soon as she was married to Cecil - the underwear went on the inside.

Cecil starts FF4 at level 10 (maybe 5?), doesn't he?

10 as Dark knight, but resets to 1 (and 600 HP) when he jobchanges.

Ah, good point.

Was this added in an edit, or am I the guy who comments without reading the article?

The latter! It's okay though, you're in good(?) company.

I mean, you can get away with it when you're a teenager, but Rosa is a mom in her thirties now. Having her teenage son see her in her underwear would be super awkward.

And she's a queen. You can't hold court in your underwear when you're a queen. The other queens will talk.

Other queens:

1. Yang's wife
2. ...do Troia's Clerics count?

Sheila Leiden does two things; beat the hell out of people with her frying pan, and throw shade.

I guess they didn't make her a playable character because then the game would be too easy.

This LP is all a ploy to get me to be nice to you again. Gdi turtle

what no that's terrible

sorry guys, lp over

kazin let's you and me fight

Chapter 2: A New Challenger Appears!

Welcome back! Now we're back to the Red Wings...or the wreckage, anyway. Knight corpses are strewn about the place.



Ceodore, at least, seems like he's alright...right under Biggs.

I don't think that would have mattered, Ceodore. Anyway, we can finally start doing things again. First things first: I give Ceodore his dad's armor. Talking to the corpses has Ceodore try to get their attention, until realizing that it ain't gonna work. But, over to the bottom, is that Wedge's helmet?

Once we check every corpse, Ceodore starts talking to himself.

don't you have white magic

And now it's time for a flashback!



Looks like Biggs was on the Red Wings back when they stole Mysidia's crystal.

The flashback ends there. Back to the present...

And with that, Biggs breathes his last. The best/only airship fleet in the world, reduced to one (1) boy, under whose command lies zero (0) airships.

yeah sure why not



We're now dropped off in this foresty area; no idea where we are. I guess we're out of luck if we somehow crash-landed in Agart.



We walk foward a short ways and are accosted by monsters! The first two die quickly enough, but...



Okay that's not even fair. What's a flamehound doing out here anyway?

After a couple turns, it uses Blaze which drops Ceodore to 1 HP. (In other words, it totally cheated.)

But just then...



A man comes in from behind and stabs the flamehound, killing it (and backflipping off its corpse, i guess)!





Things that we have learned from all that:
1) We are near Mysidia
2) ...wait no that's it

The Hooded Man comes in at, surprise surprise, level 15. He has no unique commands.



It's kind of sad that I know exactly where I am from this screenshot alone. Mysidia is less than a screen away, to the top-left. We get there without any fuss.

I find it funny how Ceodore doesn't ask what the Devil's Road is here, even though it would've been a perfect time for the game to dump more text on you.

The weapon and armor shops have general low-level gear; nothing worth buying. Let's go check out this Hall of Prayer. The Elder isn't in sight, but...



Now that Porom's identified, she gets a faceplate in the textbox.





Oh boy, faceless mooks. As we leave, though...

And we're off! Porom ends having moved out of the way, so we can go look at the Water Crystal if we wanted. It's as silent as ever.

The two mages come in at level 10, and have more spells than anyone we've played this tale, including Rosa. They have super-weak gear, though. I could go upgrade their stuff with the weapon/armor shops, but it really won't matter. Interesting to note is that they don't gain experience; they will be level 10 for the rest of the tale.

Amusingly, around this time I notice that Ceodore's class has changed from Prince to Red Wings. I guess that rat tail did its job after all.



The white mage magics the door open, and we go inside.



wait what happened to the instant teleport

Not this time; the Devil's Road is now a brand-new dungeon. It's a teleporter maze! There are harmful floor tiles in some parts, and just to finish the "whyyyyyy" trifecta...




Secret passages! The treasures here include a Bomb Fragment, Phoenix Down, Sage's Surplice, Silver Apple, Hi-Potion, Echo Herbs, and an Ether. The Surplice is nice for the white mage since it blocks Silence. The Silver Apple is to be saved for later, though.



Eventually we reach the mid-point of the dungeon, which thankfully has a save point to Tent up at.



The next room is grid-based, essentially, with a bunch of teleporters at intersections. At least, they look like teleporters.



But when you step on them, they push you off and become walls. There are rules to which way they push you based on what walls are open and which way you're coming from, but hell if I know them. Sometimes walls will open after you trigger another wall. There are no treasures here, so the goal is just to make it to the actual teleporter in the far corner. You essentially have to snake your way across the room, going to the top-right corner, then left, down, and left to the bottom-left corner, then up from there.



Once you get through there, though, you're at Baron. And Baron means loot! Hi-Potion, Potion, Arctic Wind, Spider Silk, Phoenix Down, Mallet, 500 gil, Dry Ether, White Fang, Unicorn Horn. A decent haul, honestly.

That said...wasn't Baron under attack? What happened to that? Maybe we should check the castle...



We head off, finding a quiet place away from the castle to talk.

We go to do just that! The most likely place to find the key would be...



Cid's daughter, of course.

hooray a key

Now let's go crack open that waterway. It's the same place it's always been, with the same secret passages. And treasure! 2600 gil, Unicorn Horn, Phoenix Down, Hi-Potion,--



Well this is new. It's not particularly dangerous; if you're concerned at all, just have the white mage Hold it; the Hooded Man will probably single-handedly kill it before it can move again.



Our reward is the lightning-elemental Coral Sword, which is a nice upgrade for Ceodore.

--Remedy, Soma Drop, Silver Hourglass. And with that, we're out of the Waterway.



...You've got to be kidding. He has to have figured it out by now. Why are we having this conversation. I'm not transcribing the rest of it.

Ceodore runs off to check on his parents, and the mages screw off because their job's done. So now we just have the Hooded Man.



A voice? That's always a great sign. Let's investigate!

He finds a bunch of Baronian soldiers locked up in the prison, unconscious, and runs off to go check on Ceodore.

Though the rest of the castle, aside from the two soldiers at the front gate (who don't seem to realize we're on the inside when we talk to them), is entirely empty. Until we get to the second hall.



Every soldier here says the same thing. On the other side is an identical row of soldiers.

Everything is fine.

The throne room is empty, too. At least, until we try to leave.



With that, the Hooded Man leaves. We run into Ceodore on our way out.



And now we walk out. The soldiers at the gate finally realize that we're behind them, and let us pass to get out.

The game now cuts to Cecil telling his soldiers "wait, crud, you guys need to find that man that i just let walk out of here".

At this point is one of the few times in the game that you get a Band as part of plot; Ceodore and Hooded Man get the Cross Slash Band here. It's decent single-target damage.