Twelve Years of The After Years
The year is 2009. Square Enix releases a digital sequel to the long-loved Final Fantasy 4, titled "The After Years". It concerns the story of Ceodore -- the son of FF4's protagonist, Cecil -- and his journey in saving the world from a mysterious moon that appears. The After Years pulls in all of the characters from the prior game, extends character development and story for a lot of characters, and introduces more; most of them simply the progeny of some main character from the prior game. Fan bait!
I had recently 100%ed Final Fantasy 4 Advance, back around 2008, so naturally I bought its sequel! However, it was not quite what I expected. While the new characters were welcome, a lot of the changes to gameplay negatively impacted my experience for the entire game, despite my initial interest in them. This article isn't a review, per se, but I will briefly discuss what I didn't like about the game, to add context.