So, the first SNES I owned was in 1999. I was a Sega guy during the competing time period, but eventually I got a used SNES from a friend. He threw in a handful of games… Super Mario World, F-Zero, Zelda… Nosferatu? You can guess which one I tried first when I got home. I still consider it a top note for the SNES, and a great topic to usher us into October.

Published by Seta in October of 1994, Nosferatu wouldn’t be released in America for another year. It got mixed but mostly positive reviews, many citing its dark, cinematic atmosphere and challenging gameplay as strong points. Nosferatu caught some heat for its controls and its combat system; they took some getting used to but could be used to good effect once mastered.

Japanese cover reveals an unedited version of the artwork. Slightly less “K-A,” but whatever.

Now, what comes to mind (and rightly so) when the term “Nosferatu” gets thrown about is the 1922 FW Murnau silent film, perhaps specifically Max Schreck’s awe-inspiring portrayal of Count Orlok from said film. Sadly, we’ll find this to have nothing at all to do with the film, but it is almost as classy. I say almost because our protagonist in the game does a good deal of fighting the living dead with his hands and feet. It’s not classy, but it’s insanely badass.

If a trope ain’t broke, don’t fix it… Nosferatu took your gal. That’s the entire plot. Apparently he’s really bad about this kind of thing. While you’re up there, see if you could talk to him about all the bloodsucking.

After you fall into some kind of trap door right inside the castle gate, you’ve got a timer ticking down and little gargoyle men after you. Naturally, you fell in a dungeon, so there’s pits and ledges, and of course, TRAPS. So you can see what kind of game this will be right from the start. Everything’s a puzzle, but you’ve got your blood and guts, too; our hero has a surprisingly fast set of hands and is in very good shape. So the job of the day (night?) is to reach where Nosferatu’s got your lady friend, getting there in one piece. Needless to say, his whole realm is a hellish place. There’s the undead trying to add you to their ranks, and there’s away to deal with them, but it’s easy to get carried away and hurt. The game requires careful strategy and a bit of thought as you pick your way through.

The graphics are pretty amazing, especially the bits of cinematic we get. Lots of high quality background and animation work, especially on little baddies and the like. I feel like in places, the music falls short. Most of the tracks are good horror music; they build tension and convey stress. Some of the tracks just sound… dated, I guess, but it’s good where it counts.

I give Nosferatu for the SNES a 7 out of 10. It was an underrated but forward-thinking title that came out at a weird time for the console, but like the (unrelated) 1922 silent film, it still has its fans to this day. There was a great adventure game in there, and they did a lot right. Don’t let this one slip through the cracks.

As many JRPG fans know, when Final Fantasy II was released for the SNES in America in 1991, it was actually the fourth installment in the series. As all too often happens between here and there, the second and third titles weren’t released stateside until a long time after their inception. Nonetheless, US and European fans were pleased to have another entry in the loosely-connected saga of FF, and were blown away by its monumental quality.

The Japanese box art for the Super Famicom version. The characters depicted are more evocative of the first game than this one, and the art is of a cutesy “super-deformed” style now very popular in anime and manga.

Everyone who loves the classic Final Fantasy games has their favorite title… for many (perhaps most), it is Cloud and Tifa’s tale in VII, or maybe even the return to form seen in part IX. I have always loved IV more than any of them, for a slew of reasons. Firstly, it’s a fantastic, richly detailed story, ahead of its time by far. Secondly, I love any tale that strongly features redemption as a theme (spoilers). Thirdly, it is the first RPG video game I ever played that was truly character-driven.

The Red Wings on their way to beat some ass and steal a crystal. (SNES version)

FFIV revolves primarily around Cecil, a dark knight in the service of the Kingdom of Baron, leader of a group known as the Red Wings. The Red Wings have been tasked with collecting a set of powerful magical crystals, and have been instructed to do so no matter what they have to do. The game begins, in fact, with a cinematic sequence showing them doing just that. They slaughter a group of mages who barely resist to claim the Water Crystal for the King. Upon returning with it, Cecil questions the King’s motives and is stripped of his command. He and his friend Kain, a member of the King’s Dragoons, are sent on a quest to deliver a sinister magic ring to a village called Mist. This begins the story in earnest.

Cecil battles the Earth Fiend Scarmiglione with the help of the sage Tellah and the twin mages Palom and Porom. (GBA version)

In the process, Kain betrays and reconciles with Cecil, and the group of heroes expands to include others who reject the evil of the King. It is found that a villain named Golbez is behind all the wickedness afoot, and Cecil must step up to the plate and redeem himself to stop it. There’s so much more detail, and I really recommend you grab the game in one of its modern incarnations to play yourself… but we’ll get to that. In between, the player leads a changing crew of warriors, mages, healers and scoundrels across the world. The adventures go from ruined cities like Damcyan and exotic settings like the city of Fabul to strange locales such as the inside of a mechanical colossus and even the moon!

One of the more interesting battles, the CPU inside the mechanical Giant of Babil. You must destroy them in a certain sequence… (PSP version)

Squaresoft has refurbished and improved this title several times, beginning in 1997 with a PS1 version. It was later released for the Game Boy Advance and the PSP, again for the Nintendo DS. I’m currently replaying it via the incredible Android/iOS port, which is possibly the most easily found by modern gamers and is fairly affordable for such a detailed game. In 2014, FFIV was also released for Windows. The music, scored by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu, is fully half of the immersion experience, and is often hauntingly beautiful. It ranks among his finest work in the series, which is truly saying something since Uematsu is easily among the masters in VG scoring. I have embedded the Nintendo DS version, but almost all the other versions can be found on YouTube if you wish to hear them.

I would rate Final Fantasy IV a strong 9/10. It is a benchmark in its genre’s history, not to mention a work of art that could easily stand on its own if not already part of gaming’s finest RPG series. Like many of its prequels and sequels, it remains popular and retains the attention of generations of gamers.

Here’s a glimpse of the final boss fight from the iOS/Android version. See you later, RetroFans!

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