Oh noes! According to a press release I found on IGN, Final Fantasy IV: The After Years is split into nine episodes. Does this mean we can look forward to paying $45 to play the entire game? (Supposing each episode is $5)

EDIT: Whoops! I posted this in Wii instead of WiiWare. Any nice mods care to move it?

If that's the case I'll pass and just wait for the original SNES game. Chances are this new one isn't nearly as good anyway.

You have got to be kidding me! How much memory will all these episodes use!?

If they do that then they might as well make it a retail game. At least retail eventually goes down in price AND you actually own it. Also,if you have to wait for each episode that's going to suck too.
Being that this is Square, I doubt any of the episodes will be free. Can only hope that they're cheaper than $5 each.

Like that matters anyway, its the price that should be in question.

This doesn't surprise me. I expected it ever since it came to my attention that the cell phone original was episodic, and it was pretty much confirmed on the game's website, where it gives small breakdowns of each episode. I can't help but worry they'll charge MORE than $5 each, though...

This sucks big time. If this is indeed the case, I will not be buying it - I'll just get the SNES version.

I think they should make it 1500 Points per each episode. That is only 13500 Points for the whole game. Too cheap, you say? No, because you can still buy a few merchandise articles from their fan shop with which you can support poor Square Enix.

OK you guys are misinterpreting the article. The original cell phone version was 9 eps, but the whole thing is being ported to wiiware. and there is no SNES version of TAY.

This would definitely put me off getting this game, if not for the price then for the fact these releases will be most likely be staggered so you will complete one part then have to wait for the next part, and i am too impatient for that bullpoo.

Hopefully the episodes will be bundled in packs of three or something rather than just one freaking episode at a time. That would be total BS! We won't have to wait too long to find out how they will handle this. This is one of my most wanted games on WiiWare but if SquareEnix screws this up then I will simply not buy it! For those of you who haven't played Final Fantasy IV yet; it is one of the greatest games of all time! You simply must play it! I recommend the GBA version but the DS version is great as well and probably easier to find.

I hope that is the case. And I meant the original FF4 for the SNES.

I would imagine the first episode / main game would probably sell for 800 (compared with a Snes game) but hopefully any additional episodes would be bought cheap, no more than 200 points. Afterall 200 points is the same as a Guitar Hero download.
Where I live wii points sell at £14 - £15 for 2000 points so £1.50 per episode doesnt sound that bad. But as wiiware is larger than a mobile phone it would make sense for them to combine 2 or 3 episodes per download.

No there were 13 episodes for the Phone, and we are getting 9 episodes.

Yes, unfortunatly the article is pretty clear about it. 9 episodes. So far, nothing indicates that "The After years" will be a collection of all 9 episodes. My guess is 800 points each. I think I´ll buy the forst 2 and see if it´s worth the money. I´m a big FF fan, so I must have my fix...

I'm expecting 3 packs of 3 episodes each, with each pack being 600-900 points.

They can't release 9 episodes separately, over a span of several months, that'd just be silly. If they go that route, or the "way too expensive" route, they can count me out.

Well, now that I've seen the trailer, it seems pretty clear that it will indeed be released in 9 eps, which really sucks btw. I really thought this would be a one shot collection. I stand corrected. Knowing Nin and SE, they will space out the eps so that it seems more affordable, like they did with strongbad, which i did not buy into btw. I will have a hard time not getting this game even if it's pricey. Especially now that I have lots of available memory due to the SD card update. Damn. they're good at this.............

After watching the trailer it does indeed state that it is coming out in 9 episodes. Sure I know Strongbad came out in Episodes, but each title was a stand alone game and Telltale games had always sold their games like that on the PC anyway so It wasnt surprising that each episode was the same price...
however Square-Enix have sold additional content/level packs etc. within the main game themselves and additional content was cheaper than the original product. Bubble Bobble plus for example cost 800 points for the main game, then a further 200 points for each additional level pack (which seemed pretty fair), Space Invaders Get Even was 500 points and you could by additional content packs for the same price but they came in packs of two. Soooooo, either Square will probably release it at a high price with much cheaper content pack (eg 800 points and 200 point extra episodes) or release it slightly cheaper and have episodes in packs of two but for the same price as the first one. Both sound kinda reasonable I s'pose.
Strongbad episodes you could just buy the one you wanted as a standalone episoded, I cant see that happening here. After all one of the big parts of Final Fantasy games are the character development so I would imagine that you would have to buy the packs in a particular order.

...Before any of you mention Crystal Defenders, I know both episodes are the same price 1000 in Japan 800 everywhere else, but they are both standalone games (like strongbad) and dont require you to have previous set of episodes, but for the reason above I cant see the After Years following this trend.