To begin with the good stuff, FF4: The After Years is a technically competent JRPG. It's playable. The combat works. Itemization is kind of clever, sometimes. As faint of praise as that is, I feel like a lot of JRPGs fail to clear this very low hurdle, even ones that people seem to swear by (I'm still mad at how little I enjoyed any of my time with Trails in the Sky). Somehow, I've played this game on Wii, PSP, and PC.
That's about it. Beyond just barely clearing the lowest bar in history, this game just has so many things working against it:
[h3]Final Fantasy IV did not need a sequel[/h3]
The first problem (and really the source of all the others) is that The After Years really has no justifiable reason to exist. FF4 has one of the most self-contained stories in the series; there's not really enough to go off of to extend the story as either a sequel OR prequel. FF4 is also by far the least mechanically unique game in the series (ATB was, at the time, groundbreaking, but it being used for all five of the games that followed it really diminishes that as a unique trait), and so the systems don't really set themselves up to be built on in a way that's unique and adds something to the proceedings. From the word 'go', everything about this game sets itself up to be a confusing cash grab that, at best, just kinda plays the hits.
[h3]The sequel we got is a confusing cash grab that, at best, just kinda plays the hits[/h3]
Final Fantasy is a series that's no stranger to making spinoffs and sequels to its mainline games. Some of them are pretty good! But what all of them have that The After Years lacks is some desire to do [i]something[/i] new.
A bunch of time has passed since the first game, but none of the characters seem to have meaningfully moved on from where they were at the end of that game. Every character from the original (except the one who Dies For Real) returns and plays pretty much exactly how you expect them to. The game introduces new characters but never seems to want to truly give them room to breathe. The central plot still seems to revolve around the same five characters as the original, even though they have very little story left to tell. The supporting cast is still there, and even though most of them have their own chapters in the game, they still somehow fail to justify their existence and end up with ultimately forgettable, meandering plots that mostly amount to "Uh-oh, the moon's back :( Also, here's my kid/subordinate/friend. They won't do much, either."
Ceodore is the only new character who really has a story that [i]actually[/i] justifies him existing as a playable character in a sequel that would make sense to exist, and most of his story amounts to him getting styled on by the other characters in his party, who are often literally nameless, generic dudes.
Of the returning characters, only two ([spoiler]Palom and Kain[/spoiler]) even HAVE character development that isn't just retreading old ground in a "Hey remember Final Fantasy IV? You liked that game, right?" way.
[h3]The 3D remake feels like a soulless remake of a soulless sequel[/h3]
I don't actually know if I prefer the 2D or 3D version of FF4, but I can say that the 3D remake did try to do something new and justify its existence as something more than just a different coat of paint over the same game.
The After Years' 3D remake is mostly a straight asset-flip of the 3D FF4, changing almost nothing from The After Years in a positive or even lateral way. Bands, the game's team-up moves, operate slightly differently. Every other change is strictly worse, mainly, the removal of challenge dungeons and a bunch of endgame bosses from the 2D versions. Challenge dungeons in the 2D versions were hit-or-miss, but when they hit, they were probably the only part of the game that actually felt worthwhile. So, removing those entirely without a clear replacement really leaves the game with nothing to make it worth your time.
