I just completed playing the game all but the post game stuff, and decided it was time to create an account if for nothing more than to comment.
Okay, so up until recently via the Pixel Remaster, I never played FF IV. Even back when it was all over Nintendo Power and I was heavy into SNES adventures and jrpgs, something about IV drove me away.
So I recently played the PR version of IV and decided I didn't much care for it. I wasn't sure I'd want a retread with this version, but decided to bite while IV was still fresh in my mind.
Barring any hacks that can improve the SNES experience, I think I'm going to prefer this version if I ever get an inkling to replay FFIV. While the radar grid and story changes were well done, it was more to due with how you executed the story. Square / Squaresoft as they were weren't afraid to kill off characters in FFII, for all the faults that game has. But in IV, it was as if they were afraid to do anything negative with any of their characters. The amount of times somebody betrays the group only to find they were brainwashed, only to repeat it a couple of more times, or die and then return was absurd.
I quite liked that you weren't afraid to take the story and its characters down dark roads, with none of the macguffins, and still maintain that SNES pacing and tone of the original game.