Summary
The first true incarnation of Final Fantasy spirit
The Good
"Final Fantasy II" is hated by many players because of its controversial character-upgrading system. It amazes me once again how conservative an average gamer is. He instinctively rejects everything innovative, groundbreaking, and unusual. I can't hear this whining: "There are no classes!", "You have to upgrade your character yourself!" Duh! Didn't you think for a moment it was
fun to be able to upgrade your character yourselves, for a change? Or do you prefer games that take you by the hand nd safely guide you to the end?
I really don't understand those complaints. "FFII" has one of the coolest character-upgrading systems ever to grace a RPG. You see, it completely eliminates the trusty RPG concept of getting better stats without training them. In an ordinary RPG, a white mage gets physically stronger without attacking at all, and a fighter gets his magic endurance increased no matter how many times he was hit by a spell. You gain better stats simply by participating in battles, regardless to your actions. A character can just stand there and do nothing, and still get all his stats boosted. Well, "FFII" corrects that. Want more HP? Then your character has to lose some. Better defence is acquired when a character gets physically hit; extra spirit points come when you cast a lot of spells. If you never used a spear, you'll miss or do 0 damage with the best spear of the game; if you trained your sword skill to the maximum, even a modest weapon of this category will serve you well. If this is the first time you cast Ultima spell, you'll do ridiculous damage; but if you already cast it many times, it might as well harm enemies. Got the picture? This is what RPGs are about - do with your characters what you like! Leave them with low HP, but boost their magic, make them walking tanks who can't hit a thing with a spell, create healers who hit enemies from the back row with bows, or versatile fighters with an axe in one hand and a knife in another. This is called
training. You actually
feel your characters growing stronger, because you are the one who trains them, and not the game. This system makes "Final Fantasy II" one of the most addictive games ever made - way more addictive than monster-hacking "diabloids". In few other games is leveling up such a fun - because here,
you decide what to level up and what not. This is realistic, this is interesting, this is addictive as hell, and this is downright cool. And this was made in 1988! Once again, creativity and innovation courtesy of Squaresoft.
As most other RPGs of the time, "Final Fantasy II" offers something that is rare to find in our days - challenge. Instead of saying you what to do, it lets you discover what to do. From the very beginning o the game (after you get the canoe), you have access to almost every city and every location on the world map (except the fortress Paramekia and the islands)! You can explore the world and visit the towns in any order. Of course, you should complete certain quests in a certain order to make the story progress, but it is for you to decide whether you want to visit a town only as an obligatory part of a quest, or just because you'd like to go there. During the game, you get cool vehicles such as canoe, ship, and airship. There is a very interesting "password" system implemented in the game: you have to choose a subject to talk about, otherwise you might miss an important clue. The game rarely tells you precisely what you have to do; most of the time, you must talk to town people, hear the latest gossips, gather rumors, in order to realize where you must go next. This is something modern games sorely lack. Another thing is the general tension felt in the game. The dungeons are long, dangerous, and challenging; items are not cheap, especially in the beginning of the game. You have to plan every move strategically, instead of lazily tapping the X button, like in modern games. You have to discover yourself tricks which will make the game easier. You literally feel relieved when exiting a dungeon - unlike in today's RPGs, where dungeons are more like holiday trips. And of course, there is nothing like the feeling of growing strength, when you upgrade your characters and see them easily whack the same monsters that were tearing you apart just a couple of hours ago.
Then there's the story and the characters. Alone the introduction to "Final Fantasy II" contains more story than the entire original
Final Fantasy. A huge improvement over the first game is the fact you play actual
characters here, instead of four nameless 2D sprites of "Final Fantasy". Although their personalities is very rudimentary, they are nicely portrayed, and you can get attached to them. The hand-drawn picture of the main characters on the menu screen are wonderful. A particularly interesting character is Leonheart, a typical Final Fantasy figure, and the first in the long row of "self-conflicting" RPG heroes. The story of "Final Fantasy II" is also way better than the one of the previous game - it deals with war, rebellion, greed, and will for power, instead of just presenting a fairy tale about a dark force. There are many dramatic situations in the game, and many death scenes - another trademark of the series.
Any review of "Final Fantasy II" would be incomplete without mentioning its great music. I have only two words to say about this music - Nobuo Uematsu. The world map tune is wonderfully melancholic, and the dark dungeon melodies form a sharp contrast to the lovely town music.
The Bad
Although the system implemented in "FFII" is brilliant, it was not executed flawlessly. One of the biggest problems of this game is its lack of balance. Most regular enemies seem to like Guy, since he is the one who gets hit most. As a result, Guy gains HP regularly, while Frioniel and especially Maria get stuck with ridiculously low HP for ages. The upgrading system is not as perfect as it looks on paper: it is extremely difficult to gain such stats as more MP, since the player instinctively tries to save magic points, and as a result they don't increase. Agility upgrading seems to be out of control, spirit and intelligence upgrading are also anything but evident. Because of all this, the player has to resort to cheap tricks, such as hitting his own characters in order to upgrade their stats, or assigning actions and then cancelling them to gain better weapon or magic skills, which are absolutely indispensable. In the same dungeons, there are enemies who are ridiculously easy, and enemies who are almost impossible to hit. Sometimes you do 1000 damage to one enemy and 10 damage to another one in the same dungeon. Most bosses are very easy, yet the final one requires either an insane amount of upgrading, or another cheap trick: using a certain weak weapon surprisingly hits him for 5000 damage. Magic is generally very weak, even Ultima, the most powerful spell, is like a poor man's Fire1 in "Final Fantasy II". In short - bad balance.
Another problem is the longevity of dungeon crawling. There are lots of dungeons in "FFII", and most of the time, you go out of the dungeon only to buy supplies and to get the next assignment from the rebel group. Particularly tedious is the hunting for White and Black masks and the following Ultima magic quest in the middle of the game. What's worse - there are no save points. Not at all. Either you save on the world map, or you don't save. And since the dungeons are so long... you get the picture. If you are low on health and don't have enough healing potions, or run out of mana and don't have enough ethers (which are not that cheap), you might as well warp out of the dungeon, rest, save, and start over. Imagine going through
two huge dungeons, Jade and Pandemonium, only to lose to the final boss and start
all over again... Luckily, I finished the game as part of the wonderful remake
Final Fantasy Origins, where this problem was solved. Then there is the annoying targeting system - next character "hits the air" if the previous one has already killed a monster.
Although the game is easier than the first
Final Fantasy, it is almost as slow. Sometimes you have a feeling you are literally crawling through the game. Despite the decreased difficulty compared to the previous game, make no mistake about it: "Final Fantasy II" is hard. It is hard to upgrade your characters properly, the dungeons are long, there are no save points, and the final boss is a nightmare. The difficulty level is high above that of modern RPGs.
The Bottom Line
"Final Fantasy II" is a huge improvement over the first game. It has a lovely story, a cast of appealing characters, an interesting and innovative system, a lot of tension in gameplay, and great music. Although the game pales in comparison to later Final Fantasies, I still like it very much. I believe I would have liked it even more if I had played it when it was released. However, I wouldn't recommend you getting it, for two reasons. First, it was never released outside of Japan, and second, the beautiful remake
Final Fantasy Origins presents a much more attractive version of the game and corrects some annoying gameplay issues.
