‘FINAL FANTASY: THE 4 HEROES OF LIGHT’

‘FINAL FANTASY: THE 4 HEROES OF LIGHT’

Grade: B

Details: Published by Square Enix for DS ($39.99); for age 10 and up

“Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light” is something of an introductory role-playing game.

The story is pretty light, the characters are familiar archetypes and the visuals are rendered in a breezy storybook style somewhere between “The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks” and “Final Fantasy IV DS.”

“The 4 Heroes of Light” is not easy. The game demands careful attention to the state of the player’s party, and some foes can be quite tough to put down.

But “4 Heroes” is uncomplicated, especially compared with “Final Fantasy XIII” or “Dragon Quest IX,” two Square Enix RPGs from earlier this year whose battles and character management are pretty complex.

In this game, when players attack, use an item or cast a spell or ability, the computer chooses the targets, and does a good job of it — the weakest character gets the healing spell, the most vulnerable enemy is attacked, the poisoned hero receives an antidote.

All actions use Action Points. Each character has up to five AP, with one regenerating each turn. Some commands use up a single point, while others use more. The Boost command makes a player forgo action for the turn to generate an extra AP, and certain events can cause a character to spontaneously generate an extra point.

Through a combination of equipment and ability-granting Crowns, “4 Heroes of Light” avoids forcing players into focusing on one set of abilities or another for a character. Any of the game’s characters can equip any kind of item and cast magic from any spell book they carry. But Crowns heavily influence how effective a character will be in a given role.

A character wearing the White Mage crown will be able to heal the entire party at once with a Cure spell; one wearing a Black Mage crown would heal only one ally with Cure but would have significantly more powerful offensive spells.

Each Crown has three abilities — the first is free, while the others must be unlocked by inserting various gems into open spots on the Crown. Though any character can wear any Crown, even at the same time as another character, each has to upgrade Crowns individually.

Taking a cue from “Dragon Quest IX,” “4 Heroes” allows up to four players to play together over the DS’ local Wi-Fi connection.

—Justin Hoeger, The Sacramento Bee