Final Fantasy IV developers explain the Decant Ability system

Years before Aeris kicked the bucket in Final Fantasy VII, tragedy was already an intrinsic part of the Final Fantasy series. In particular, regular storyline characters in Final Fantasy IV have a tendency to suddenly drop out of the story with a sudden case of respiratory failure. Enter Matrix Software’s solution with their new skill system for its Final Fantasy IV remake on the Nintendo DS.

If you’re familiar with the remake of the game when it came out on the Game Boy Advance, you’ll notice that they came up with the idea of letting players swap their characters who “died” in the end. However, the developers at Matrix Software found this rather unrealistic and broke the flow in the original story.

As a solution to this, they fashioned the new Decant Ability system. When a character “dies”, they entrust their powers, such as Edward’s song ability, into an item that can be used to give another character a skill. While, it’s unsure whether this skill swapping system is interchangeable with other characters or what happens to the item during the later part of the game is still a mystery.

Asides from the improved graphics and added cutscenes, that isn’t the only thing Matrix Software will be adding to the game. To spice things up, they decided to change some of the boss patterns as well, to give old players something to look forward to despite having finished the game a dozen times already on previous platforms. All in all, as remakes go, Final Fantasy IV is something old players and new can look forward to when they finally release the game this December in Japan.

Years before Aeris kicked the bucket in Final Fantasy VII, tragedy was already an intrinsic part of the Final Fantasy series. In particular, regular storyline characters in Final Fantasy IV have a tendency to suddenly drop out of the story with a sudden case of respiratory failure. Enter Matrix Software’s solution with their new skill system for its Final Fantasy IV remake on the Nintendo DS.

If you’re familiar with the remake of the game when it came out on the Game Boy Advance, you’ll notice that they came up with the idea of letting players swap their characters who “died” in the end. However, the developers at Matrix Software found this rather unrealistic and broke the flow in the original story.

As a solution to this, they fashioned the new Decant Ability system. When a character “dies”, they entrust their powers, such as Edward’s song ability, into an item that can be used to give another character a skill. While, it’s unsure whether this skill swapping system is interchangeable with other characters or what happens to the item during the later part of the game is still a mystery.

Asides from the improved graphics and added cutscenes, that isn’t the only thing Matrix Software will be adding to the game. To spice things up, they decided to change some of the boss patterns as well, to give old players something to look forward to despite having finished the game a dozen times already on previous platforms. All in all, as remakes go, Final Fantasy IV is something old players and new can look forward to when they finally release the game this December in Japan.