Typically, by the time the fourth title appears in a series, you either get something good or an embarrassing black sheep in said series. Final Fantasy IV was thankfully the former of the two, and even now Final Fantasy IV Pixel Remaster is a worthy member of its franchise.

A bit of background needs to be covered first. Final Fantasy IV was released in Western regions as Final Fantasy II since the two NES titles after the first were not released there. Also, Western regions got the "Easy Type" version of FF4, which had what was deemed a lower difficulty. The original version with the original title would not appear until ports many years later, starting with the PS1 version. The version Pixel Remaster is based on is the original "Hard Type" FF4.

Final Fantasy IV is when they decided to further work on writing an ongoing narrative with established characters by further refining the storytelling pioneered in FF2. To that end, we have a complex plot with multiple different possible party members and a story that requires more than an index card to summarize compared to the first and third games. This title also further refined elements from the third game, as each party member who joins has a specific job class, and their unique skills must be leveraged while on your team to beat the game.

The story begins with Cecil, commander of the Red Wings of Baron, the mobile military arm of the Kingdom of Baron. While loyally following orders to retrieve the various elemental crystals from other kingdoms, by either persuasion or force, he is troubled by the fact his liege has insisted on the bloodshed of others and feels guilt for the blood on his hands. After getting proof that whoever he's serving is no longer the honorable lord he swore fealty to, he decides to seek the truth. From this snowballs an epic tale involving the fate of the world and his redemption from his guilt.

Final Fantasy IV Pixel Remaster follows the same core beats as the original game, and while Cecil will always be in the party, the cast tends to ping pong between various cast members rather often, forcing the player to adapt and tailor them towards whatever situation they are available for. Unlike the other ports, this covers the original core game experience; the extra dungeons or features from any port beyond this are not included. Unlike the first three Pixel Remasters, aside from some minor tweaks to the graphics, they are generally mostly identical to the original SNES/Super Famicom release with only some user interface and display tweaks from the other ports.

The core gameplay loop will be old hat for turn-based RPGs. You take turns in combat to defeat enemies, explore dungeons, get new equipment, follow the story via various cutscenes, and so on. FF4, however, was the first game to introduce Active Time Battle, where turns were decided by a filled bar for player characters that filled in real-time. This makes battles a bit less predictable and faster-paced than the original turns decided by command.

The Pixel Remaster does, however, fix two annoying things from older versions. Running away from battles no longer makes your character drop any money, a mechanic mostly to discourage running that is now gone. Second, earlier ports had some odd issues with the timing of turns; the code seems to be reworked so now both enemies and players follow the same rules instead of some being advantaged by shorter recharge timers for turns than others.

Graphically, this retains the pixel style of the original Super Famicom/SNES port, but per the Pixel Remaster remit, many things like character art now strictly follow the original concept artwork as closely as possible. Some spell effects now use fancier particle effects instead of the hand-drawn 16-bit animations, but for the most part this has the high fantasy colorful look that debuted with the original versions of Final Fantasy IV.

Sounds and music are largely the same as the originals in many areas, drawing from the same synthesized, high-fantasy well that Nobou Uematsu did for the original game. The samples are generally of far higher quality, and many songs have been remixed to have more complex instruments, which was intended but could not be done on the original 16-bit sound processor of the SNES. Some gothic choir and other vocals are now present in a few songs as well.

The game can be controlled via a keyboard and mouse or via any Steam-supported controller. While the keyboard is remappable and the default controls are usable, the controller is going to be the preferred experience. I used an Xbox One controller and found the game played just fine out of the box with the default settings.

Game stability is very good. It requires fairly modest system requirements and runs natively on Windows. It will run out of the box via Steam Proton on Linux and is Verified for the Steam Deck. Being based on the Unity engine, this game can be modded to some degree as well.

Morally, there are going to be some issues.

Violence is typical turn-based RPG "give orders and watch it happen". There is no blood and gore depicted, though there are mentions of blood at times. The language is generally mild, though there is the rare use of b**t**d along with a few uses of h*ll and d*mn.

Sexual content is limited to some very low-pixel dancers who will occasionally doff their dresses to parade in their undergarments in a brief animation. The low-detail pixels for this make it nigh impossible to get any detailed closeups of this though. There are a few female enemies who are scantily clad (the Lamia are technically topless but framed at an angle to hide this, for exampl,e and the Arachne have a very small fur top covering their chest), but that's the worst of it.

This is a typical high-fantasy RPG setting. There are demons and the undead, but generally only as enemies. There is some depiction of necromancy, again only used by enemies (and framed as depraved when it happens in the story). Religion is quite vague for the most part, with a considerable amount of sci-fi hidden under the high fantasy gloss.

You start out as Cecil Harvey, a morally conflicted knight who has to decide to follow orders to use his sword for evil due to his oaths of allegiance to his king or his conscience, and he quickly chooses the latter. There is a considerable amount of themes of redemption and atonement for many characters, Cecil being the most prominent example. There are pubs clearly indicated, but the player has no chance to get drunk themselves. There is a buff item called "Bacchus Wine", but it's basically more a hasting effect than an intoxicant.

Overall, Pixel Remaster is generally recommended, though it lacks some of the extra content from other ports. It does provide a well-done modern-day retro version of Final Fantasy IV, and it's technically sound. Morally, it's got some issues, but older children on up could handle the themes for the most part. It often goes on sale as part of a bundle with the other Pixel Remasters, and if you are a fan of Final Fantasy or simply want some quality retro turn-based RPG fun, then this game is well recommended.