Double Jump Gaming News

Epic Battle Fantasy 4

Article by: Zody

Hey guys! Zody here. Today I am going to review my favorite flash game called Epic Battle Fantasy 4. Unlike most flash games, an average playthrough of EBF4 lasts around 25 hours.

Released in early March of 2013 by Kupo Games (also known as Matt Roszak), Epic Battle Fantasy 4 is a turn-based RPG Adventure Flash game. The main characters of the third game, Matt, Natalie, and Lance, make a return, but now a new character named Anna joins the group. Taking place after the events of Epic Battle Fantasy 3 but before the start of EBF4, the world-saving trio have taken a liking to plundering various villages, and get away with it since they believe they have the right to do so after saving the world. Skipping ahead to present day, a sacred jewel has been stolen from the village known as Greenwood Village. A resident and ranger of the village, known as Anna, is worried about this because she knows if the jewel falls into the wrong hands, the world could be in danger! She sets off for her adventure, and eventually runs into Matt (a warrior who specializes in physical attacks and a hunger for the meat of any monster he slays), Natalie (a mage who specializes in various spells as well as some fan-service), and Lance (a gun nut who specializes in artillery-based attacks and militaristic electronics). The group joins together to save the world again from...cats?

Epic Battle Fantasy 4’s battle system plays out like a turn-based RPG, where all of the player characters take their turns first, then the enemies take their turns. The four playable characters are Matt, Natalie, Lance, and Anna. Matt specializes in sword-based attacks, Natalie specializes in magic spells and magic attacks, Lance specializes in artillery-based attacks, and Anna specializes in nature and arrow-based attacks. Each battle will have a number of waves, and each wave of one battle will contain different enemies, different numbers of enemies in the wave, different formations, or stat changes. You control three of four characters, with the fourth character being the “backup” character.

Each character has several options available to them when taking their turn. These options include Attack, Tactics, Skill, Special, Summon, Equip, and Item. The Attack option includes both a character’s normal attacks and their limit breaks, which can be used when the red bar under their health and MP (white and green bars respectively) is maxed out from taking enough damage. These limit breaks often give the option of using extremely powerful attacks or extremely beneficial spells that can buff the whole party. The Tactics option allows you to defend which reduces all damage by 50%; switch turn order so you can choose who you want to go first, second and third that turn; run away from any battle (including boss battles) 100% of the time; skip your turn, or move to backup which swaps out the backup character with the character using this action. The Skill option lets you use magic spells that are unique to that character, and this can include attack spells, magic attack spells, buff & debuff spells, and healing spells. The Special option lets you use magic spells that only specific characters can learn, but only one can keep. You can upgrade Skill spells, Special spells, Limit Breaks and Normal Attacks by using AP which are obtained from defeating enemies, and can also make a character forget a Special spell if you want a different character to learn a different spell. The Summon option lets you summon a powerful monster that will provide a special effect upon summoning. Some of these effects include inflicting high damage, buffing/healing your party, debuffing enemies, or a mix of the three effects. Summoning monsters requires SP which is obtained from defeating enemies, but the amount of SP obtained differs between each enemy species. Stronger species reward more SP, and weaker species reward less SP. The Equip option allows characters to switch out what armor, accessories, and weapons they have equipped mid-battle at the cost of their turn. Lastly, the Item option allows characters to use health & MP recovery items, throwing weapons, and stat-buffing items.

The music is truly phenomenal for a flash game. Each of the 23 different tracks are original and very memorable. The theme of each song fits the setting it plays in very well. All of the music was composed by HalcyonicFalconX. Tracks vary from slow and soothing melodies to fast and heavy rock’n’roll.

The art is extremely well-done and the designs of each character and monsters manage to be both easy to remember and complex enough to have personality to how they look in battle, even when compared to other variants of that enemy. The fact that each piece of armor can drastically change the appearance of each character is great attention to detail. Each piece of equipment is visible on a character’s body at all-times during a battle, and whoever is at the front of the party will be the character you use to walk around with in the overworld. Changing armor and weapons will even change the sprites used for the characters in the overworld. All of the art was created by Kupo, but many other artists contributed to some of the designs of the monsters in the game.

The story makes nods to the plots of various legend of Zelda games, where your journey involves you fighting various monsters across various regions of the world to obtain precious jewels before the villain gets ahold of them and destroys the world. However, there are many elements that separate it from the Legend of Zelda series, as the game continuously parodies other forms of pop culture and video game culture while remaining in its own realm.

If you have the time, definitely. If you can’t play for too long, I would suggest checking out the first two entries in the series, as they are more of an endless wave style design.

Thanks for sticking to end. I hope you enjoyed reading my review of Epic Battle Fantasy 4! If you did, make sure to check it out, and stay on the lookout for the sequel - Epic Battle Fantasy 5! It is almost done according to the creator and I personally can’t wait to play it! See ya!