Final Fantasy IV: The Save File Maintenance Years

This week I’ve been doing some organization-related work for my upcoming book about Funky Fantasy IV. I’ve got an early chapter already mostly done but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything good/funny so I’ve been scouring through text files and jumping around in the game to get things I missed before.

It’s a bit of a hassle since FFIV/FFII don’t really have debug menus, so I’ve been relying on an old save file archive I put together for my FF4 comparison site. The problem is that I never really documented where each save file is so it’s always taken me 10+ minutes just to find a save file where I need it to be. So now I’m finally going through and documenting that stuff for future time savings.

Unfortunately it looks like one of my saves is missing entirely so I’ll have to play a good chunk of the game to re-create it. It’s also a bit of a hassle when using different save files on different versions of the game, as it means the characters’ names get messed up each time. But it’s a small hassle when I stop to realize I’m playing Final Fantasy IV for a career – kid me would be so shocked hear about this 😛