Final Fantasy is what I would call a beta rpg. An rpg for testing to see how it plays out for the first time. Final Fantasy II is what I would consider the first real attempt of an rpg from the Final Fantasy series. It introduces us to a more in-depth story, a cast of characters, and even trademark characters such as the chocobo and the much used character name Cid. Let's review this game.
STORY
Oh no! We're surrounded.
Going on a quest.
The biggest improvement from Final Fantasy is the story. While Final Fantasy hardly had any story or plot, Final Fantasy II has at least a semi story and a plot to go with it. To make it blunt, at least you have story sequences in this story which you don't have in Final Fantasy. The fact you actually have a cast of characters also help.
The story begins with the fall of Castle Fynn under the invading army of Palamecia. Here you find four individuals both siblings and friends to each other fleeing for their lives. But unfortunately despite their best efforts, they ended up surrounded by the Palamecia Army. During the ensuing fight, the four individuals were knock unconscious. As the next day break, we find that three of the four individuals were rescue by the Rebel Forces. Maria, Firion, and Gus. Leon, the fourth member disappeared during the fight with the army. With their friend presumed dead and their homes destroyed by the army. Maria, Gus, and Firion joined the Rebel Forces to fight against Palamecia. Here the story starts to unfold with the main characters taking on missions to help the Rebel Forces and fight the Palamecia Army. Thus the central plot of the Final Fantasy II story. The overall story isn't an in-depth one. Nor is it an exciting story. To be truthful, it's quite an average story. Maybe even less than average. But it's still better than what was given to us from the first Final Fantasy game. In terms of who the Emperor of Palamecia was and why he decided to invade the countries after peace for so many years, the story really doesn't take as there. It's not an overly in-depth story but at least it's a story where I understood the main plot and direction. Not some mumble jumble about four light warriors that no one understand.
Score 5/10
CHARACTERS
Friends and Family
Characters wise, it's a big improvement from Final Fantasy. But then again nothing can
get worse than Final Fantasy characters. Although things are still lacking in the character developement, this time around you have actual characters with names that are somewhat integrated with a semi real story. You also have a supporting casts with the main characters. There are 3 main characters. Firion, Maria, and Gus. In total your party will consists of 4 members. The fourth member is done through a rotation between all of the supporting characters. So basically you have 3 people that are part of the story at all times while the fourth person is made up of a support character. But that's where the good part end. It's nice that you actually have main characters and supporting characters as oppose to what was presented in Final Fantasy. But there's still a lot of character developement that are missing in this game. The main characters hardly talk or interact with one another that much. You don't know really know anything about their background. And the supporting casts are introduce as an afterthought. There's really no background developement on any of these characters at all. The best place to get some sort of background on the main characters is from the profiles in the instruction book. That's not helpful at all in terms of story developement wise. Nice to see names and an actual cast of characters but in the end, little is known about them. I like to see the characters talk more and interact with one another more.
Prime example of this is Leon. He start off as a friend and family member from the main characters. Then he disappeared after the fight with the Empire Army and re-appeared as a member of the Empire Army. Then he rejoins your group again to fight the Empire after his sister talked him into coming back into the group. At the end of the game, he leaves the group again. But no explanation on his behavior at all. Why did he join the Empire when he was fighting them in the beginning with his sister and friends? Didn't the Empire destroy his town and killed his friends and families? He wasn't brainwash by the Empire. No
explanation at all. No background character developement here.
Score: 4/10
GRAPHICS
I Fear You Not!
Graphically speaking, this game graphics consists of a 2-D world with little sprite characters from the 16 bit era. Middle 16 bit era. Mind you that this is a major improvement of the original graphics. When the game first came out, it was on an 8 bit system called Nintendo Entertainment System. So you can see that for this re-release, Square Enix upgraded the graphics to 16 bit. Still a far cry from today's graphic. As for 16 bit graphics, it's okay. This isn't what you would call late 16 bit graphics like seen in Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI. But it's good enough as far as 16 bit graphics goes. Maybe it's the same graphics as Final Fantasy but in this game, there are more sceneries that show case the 16 bit graphics better as oppose to Final Fantasy where you don't see a lot of 16 bit scenery graphics. As such gets a better score than Final Fantasy. The Opening CG sequence is a lot better too and longer with more meaning to the actual story itself. Whereas the Opening CG for Final Fantasy has little to do with the actual story. But having said that, the quality of CG still isn't very good and suffers from blurry spots in them. I'll state it again, if you're going to put CG in then at least make it good quality.
Score: 7/10
MUSIC
Into the Castle We Go
The music is pretty average with different ranges of musical themes. You have tunes from towns, dungeons, battles, world maps, bosses, characters and even some small sad themes. So the different varieties are there. The only drawback is that none of the themes are really stand out ones that gamers can grasp as their favorites. You can even say that all are pretty forgettable once you finish playing the game. If there was a quiz on name that musical tune from this game. I wouldn't be able to recognize any of the tunes from this game in such a quiz. Not bad just average.
Score: 5/10
GAMEPLAY
You're as strong as a boss!
Feel My Blood Sword!
Game Information
Genre: Traditional Rpg
Publisher: Square Enix
Disc:1 CD Disc
Memory:1 Memory Block
Players: 1 Player
Mode
Vibration:Yes
Dual Analog:No
Digital Control:No
Rating: Teen
Release:April 2003
Surprisingly Final Fantasy II gameplay is a unique system that I've never seen before. On the other hand, I can understand why I've never seen another gameplay similar to Final Fantasy II. Unique but very flawed. For the most part, the game is pretty much your basic stuff with the exception of two key features. The Mastery System (Level Up) and the Word Memory System. Before we get into the key features, let's take a look at the overall gameplay. As stated before, the gameplay is your basic traditional stuff. You progress into the story a little, talk to some of the local townspeople to get clues as to where your next destination is. Trek your way there by foot, boot, or airship. Explore the dungeon and defeat the boss. The battle system is your basic Attack, Magic, Flee, and Equip action icons. Simple basic stuff right? Wrong. The random encounter rate isn't as bad as Final Fantasy. You'll probably get into an encounter every 10 step. But some of those encounters can be down right scary. The gameplay battle is very unbalance and uneven. The thing that hurt this game the most is that some of the random enemies are way too hard and too tough to defeat. And all the bosses are hard beyond belief. This causes an uneven flow to the game when you are treking through the world map and dungeons. "Random enemies too hard to defeat? That's because you didn't level up enough." Wrong. I wish that were the case. You can try and level up all you want to but it still won't help. Some of these random enemies that show up are so strong that they can kill a single character with one hit. Some of these random enemies are even stronger than bosses. Heck some of these random enemies themselves are bosses. Let's look at it this way, you are exploring a dungeon and you have what is known as regular dungeon random enemies that show up and fight you. They are suppose to be there. They're not too hard to defeat but not to easy. You're at the right level to be facing them at that point of time in the game. The even flow of the game. Then all of a sudden you have another set of random enemies that show up and are strong as bosses. Some of them are even bosses themselves. These enemies can kill any one of your character with one hit. Their stats and strength are at a point where you really shouldn't be fighting them until maybe 5 dungeons later. This causes the uneven flow to the game. Every step you take, if you fight a normal random enemy it's fine. But if an abnormal enemy shows up, you have to do a soft reset immediately as you're going to get kill. Every step forward equals every step backward. The gameplay flow is very unbalance and frustrating. I don't mind random battles or dungeon exploring but this game makes me afraid to even explore a dungeon due to the fact that I may encounter an abnormal enemy. Here's an example of why I say this game is hard and frustrating. Let's say you make it to the very end of the dungeon. And here's this big bad boss. You get into a boss fight and finally manage to edge out a victory. Your party was nearly wiped out because of it but you manage a victory still. So you leave the dungeon and regroup and rest for your next dungeon. Well guess what, in your next dungeon, you meet the same boss again already. But this time the boss is back as a regular encounter enemy and that boss comes in packs of the same bosses. It's like, "What the hell?" You barely survive fighting one of them as the boss in the last dungeon and now you have to fight them in a group as a regular encounter enemy on your next dungeon. See what I mean when I say uneven flow to the game. You will be spending so many times resetting the game because of this. It's just not fun at all. I don't have a problem with fighting bosses as regular random enemies but it you should be done 5 dungeons later when you are strong enough to treat them as regular random encounters. You shouldn't have to have boss encounters as regular random encounters so soon. The gameplay would be a lot more fun if it weren't for this uneven flow to the game. It takes away all the fun and makes the game very hard. That's my gripe with the gameplay. But to be fair, while this is a problem for two third of the game, things get a little bit more normal near the end of the game. When you are about one third into finishing the game, enemies and even the hard enemies are more manageable. This is due to the fact that by then, your weapon level up stats is good, you have more stronger weapons available, and most importantly the Blood Swords which is known as the boss killers. Making things a little bit more easier. So let's move along to the two key features of the game. Word Memory System. Basically this system is a way for you to try and get more information on things and activate certain key events by using an event item. When you talk to certain characters on where to go next or looking for certain information on something particular, the character that is answering your question would use a key word in his/her response. You would then memorize that keyword into the Word Memory System. Now to get more information, you would then ask that same person using the key word that you just memorize. Example: A character would say, "The Airship is piloted by Cid."
You memorize the keyword Airship and ask the same character about Airship. The character would then say, "The Airship is heading north to the base up there." This in turn will give you an idea on where to go next. That's the primary use of the Word System. Memorize a keyword and then use the keyword to find out more information. In theory this looks nice but really it's not necessary to have these keywords. Better to just tell the character exactly where to go next instead of having to force the gamers to memorize a keyword first before asking about it. You will also use this System to use key items. Mastery System. This is also known as leveling up. Interestingly enough, the game doesn't use a level up system like regular rpgs. In fact you don't even gain experience. So how do you boost your character's stats? It's base on each action that your character takes and received. This is a big unique system but has some major flaws in it. I'm going to break it down to different section of developing your character. Character Stats: Your character's individual stats like HP and MP are base on you raising your character's attributes (Strength, Endurance, Intelligence, ect). Raising your character's attributes is base on the number of action taken from the character since there's no experience points awarded. For examples, everytime a fighter attack, she/he is developing their Strength. Once you've attacked for a certain number of times, their Attack Accuracy will increase. Everytime a character get's hit and loses HP in battle, they are developing their Endurance. Once they are attacked for a certain number of times, their HP will increase. Everytime a character lose MP in battle due to usage, they are developing their Magic. Once they lose MP for a certain number of times, their MP stat will increase. You get the picture?
It looks unique and fun but unfortunately here's the flaw in the system. If you increase a stat then there will be a decrease in another stat. For example, if you increase your strength, your intelligence will decrease. And vice versa. Each character's attribute stats are connected to one another in some way. You increase something then it's more than likely you will decrease something. It's like having a dog try to catch it's tail. It's going around in circle cause if you are trying to built up one stat, you are losing another stat. This in turn means that you need to build up the stat that you are losing on but then it will in turn start to decrease the stat you have built up. That's the flaw of the system. Weapon Stats: Your fighters can equip all kinds of weapon. Just because they can equip any type of weapon doesn't mean they will immediately be effective and accurate with that weapon. This is where you need to build up your weapon for a character. Each type of weapon start at Level 1. Each time you use a weapon in battle, you gain 1 point for that weapon. Once you gain 100 point for a weapon, that weapon will Level up. I don't have any problems with this except that it takes a really long time to Level your weapon up to a decent level where it's effective. I consider a level 8 weapon to be effective and it takes a very long time to get there. Magic: Like with weapons, your fighters can equip any type of magic. Just like with weapons, each type of particular magic starts at Level 1. Once you gain 100 point, your magic will level up. Here's the flaw. No matter what kind of magic it is, whether it's Flare, Holy, or Ultima, it's useless at Level 1. Which means you need to built it up to a high level. Problem with that is that you need to be casting magic constantly to get 100 point for each Level up. That's all good and dandy but unlike weapons, your magic is limited to the amount of MPs you have. Unless you have an unlimited amount of MP, you won't be able to level up any type of magic sufficiently. You could barely spare enough MP for your Cure spell as it is, much less be wasting away your MP on trying to level up an attack magic or any other magic for that matter. In the end, magic is totally useless in this game unless it's the Cure spell. Near the end of the game, you be doing more damage with your weapons then any magic spell.
This Character Developement system is unique but it has flaws that doesn't make it too practical. I can understand why you will never see this kind of system again. Overall the gameplay isn't bad. Just very unbalance. For at least two third of the game, I find it very hard to play. And my enjoyment was that of agony. But about one third of the game left, by this time, my characters weapon developement has improve and the weapons I have equipped are the best in the game where they can do enough damage to any random monsters where I don't have to worry about getting killed in one shot by a random monster that I started to enjoy the game. Hence the term unbalance gameplay. Hard at the beginning and easy at the end. Heck thanks to the Blood Sword, I could kill the last boss within one round of attack. Gameplay difficulty is quite reverse in this game. Instead of being easy in the beginning and hard at the end, it's hard at the beginning and easy at the end. Weird.
Score: 6/10
EXTRAS/REPLAY
Are you a chicken?
It's pretty much a repeat of the extras in Final Fantasy. There aren't any in game sidequests or extras at all. For the remake, Square Enix added in an Extra feature in the Menu Option called Collections. Here you can uncover various Final Fantasy II artworks. To uncover these, you need to find and open all the treasure chests in the game as well as fight at least all the monsters in the game once. When you finish the game the first time, you can make a New Game+ save file and load your last save point to view all of the artwork collection or start a new game. This time you have the option of choosing Easy or Normal Mode. The only difference between the two different mode is some configuration changes. More importantly in Normal Mode you can't dash and must walk. Which will result in more random encounters. I'm not into replaying this game again and the artwork is nice to look at for maybe 5 minutes but that's about it.
Score: 5/10
Final Fantasy II is definetly a big improvement from Final Fantasy. But yet the game itself still suffer from some major flaws that makes playing the game not too enjoyable. To play this game would only be for the sole purpose of seeing how early Final Fantasy games are made and how they evolve through the years. That's the only basis I would recommend in getting this game. There are much more enjoyable rpg games these days to play on the Playstation or Playstation 2. But of course if you enjoy agony then get this game. Who am I to stop you.
