tfw this is one of the lowest games on the site cuz people dont realize this is ff4
I've just realized, I don't even like having fun. Like not really, fun is sorta overrated when you get down and dirty and you really stop thinking about it. Who even honestly likes having fun certainly not I, certainly not the people who have designed this game.
I see what their mentality was here, they thought giving you encounters with enemies that could inflict lethal status ailments with no way to resist it on top of esuna being able to miss a good way to piss you off. You know what, they were dead on and honestly that is the BEST thing about this game.
Normally when I play a game. I intend to have fun. And in a way that is kinda boring right? Like you EXPECT games to be fun. And I REALLY see what they were doing here, you know what they said? Lets put an encounter with SIX enemies that are able to confuse you and kill your whole party and you are gonna LIKE IT!
You really have to respect that, because they had the fucking balls to go against the wave. They said FUCK all of that fun bullshit. And the geniuses behind this masterpiece game design, I say thank you.
I see what their mentality was here, they thought giving you encounters with enemies that could inflict lethal status ailments with no way to resist it on top of esuna being able to miss a good way to piss you off. You know what, they were dead on and honestly that is the BEST thing about this game.
Normally when I play a game. I intend to have fun. And in a way that is kinda boring right? Like you EXPECT games to be fun. And I REALLY see what they were doing here, you know what they said? Lets put an encounter with SIX enemies that are able to confuse you and kill your whole party and you are gonna LIKE IT!
You really have to respect that, because they had the fucking balls to go against the wave. They said FUCK all of that fun bullshit. And the geniuses behind this masterpiece game design, I say thank you.
once again. i played this from start to finish.
if you put a gun to my head and asked me to summarize the plot of Final Fantasy II (IV), just fucking pull the trigger, man. I don't remember shit, and i literally beat this just last week.
shit man, how the FUCK is final fantasy such a massive worldwide franchise??
that final boss theme was kick ass though.
if you put a gun to my head and asked me to summarize the plot of Final Fantasy II (IV), just fucking pull the trigger, man. I don't remember shit, and i literally beat this just last week.
shit man, how the FUCK is final fantasy such a massive worldwide franchise??
that final boss theme was kick ass though.
garbage
My first Final Fantasy game, I played it when I was like 4.
It is a game that captures the attention in the very first minutes. Even when compared to games I consider masterpieces in the genre such as Dragon Quest III and Phantasy Star, at the time of release, FF II brought something else to the table. It's a shame that the interesting premise does not develop into something more interesting. It ends up being a very run of the mill early 90s JRPG, but it still showed what to expect from the series.
just a psa: igdb regards this as the entry for the north american snes version of FFIV, not the famicom original FFII.
My favorite game in the series, Active Time Battle was a game changer. Story is fantastic. This game got me hooked on Final Fantasy. A must play.
Pixel remaster
A masterpiece, incredible step up from the NES games in the series. Love the characters and story, love the setting with multiple overworld maps, simple but satisfying character progression in combat. Challenging but way more forgiving than original FF3, thank god for the introduction of save points. Maybe my most replayed FF across the SNES, PS1, GBA, 3DS, and Pixel Remaster version. Probably the most beginner-friendly of the classics
I like to imagine the people of that time saying "What you mean Final Fantasy TWO?? Wasn't it FINAL?"
i hate how grindy it is. maybe back in the day would be a cool idea.
1/4 SMTDR
you can steamroll the entire game if you hard farm for the first 2 hours of the game (using emulator speedup), also the bosses don't have protection against instant death spells, moral of the story, why all the trap rooms?
once and never again
It must have been crazy for people in the western world to see Final Fantasy go directly from FF1 to this. Much more emphasis is given to the story over the typical JRPG progression of: starting as a regular guy in a town at level 1, going out and fighting animals, getting lost in the overworld and starting to curse the existence of random battles. This one is far more linear, which sounds like it might go against the idea of a big adventure, but really it just cuts out a ton of bullshit and gives the game more focus. Despite JRPGs being one of the only genres of the time to have big maps to explore, I think those of this era work best with a certain amount of linearity - see Super Mario RPG, Earthbound, probably a bunch more examples when I get round to playing them.
Speaking of Earthbound, my favourite thing about the combat in that game (although it takes ages to get there) is the rolling HP. It's still turn-based, but having your HP gradually decrease after being attacked adds much needed urgency to your heals and finishing off battles as quickly as possible to presumably staunch the bleeding these children are experiencing. Well, thanks to the patented Active Time Battle system, every fight in this game has urgency. Everyone has their own speed stat that determines when they're gonna attack next. Those goblins aren't gonna wait for you to decide to slash them. They're on a schedule. They've got an appointment for gobbling at 2pm and need this fight to be over as soon as possible. Don't think too hard about that last sentence.
A cool intersection of gameplay and story is the sheer number of times your party changes. People move in and out of your party at the whim of the game's story, which I really like because other games would be like "nooooo!!! you can't just add a character 10 levels above everyone else to the party!!!" but FF4 is like, don't worry bro, it'll work out. And it does. I appreciate the willingness to give you fairly overpowered characters when it makes sense to, and then just balance the enemies accordingly. Another advantage to having a revolving door party is that your playstyle and strategies change up every hour or so. You might lose a tank melee character and gain two sorcerers. Better put the remaining tank up front, and use the sorcerers in the back to heal everyone and start focusing more on the elemental weaknesses of enemies. Not to mention all these characters have things to say and things to do in the story, which is normal now but pretty cool for 1991 on a 16-bit console. I wouldn't say the story is particularly high art or technically proficient, but it had Themes, a pinch of meaning, and at least a few characters I did end up caring about. At a bare minimum, it made me want to keep playing to see what it was gonna pull next. That's a low bar, but I've played Breath of Fire so believe me when I say these games can miss that bar.
Now to talk some mad shit about the game since I've been very positive so far. I don't think I'll ever like random battles. Very controversial opinion I know. I just don't vibe with each footstep feeling like playing Russian roulette with the bullet being about a minute of enemies that are the equivalent of Desert Bus - easy enough to coast through but you can't stop paying attention juuuust in case you total the whole thing. Even if you get rewarded for winning, sometimes I just wanna explore and look for chests please. It's a system that I haven't found a satisfying iteration of yet.
Also, the translation in the original NTSC release is a bit sketchy. I usually felt like I at least got the gist of what they wanted to convey, but what hurts it most is the severe text box limitations from differences in how much you can convey in Japanese vs. English within a certain number of characters. It does lead to some lines being slightly baffling. That's what I get for forgetting to do two minutes of research before playing a 20 hour JRPG. A quick look at available translations seems to conclude that the 3D remake has a considerably better script, as well as there being numerous fan translations, so look into it!
I'm not entirely sure why I chose this as the start of my old JRPG expedition over FF6, which was originally the plan, but I'm glad I did. I think this game has less baggage in terms of being an all-timer you have to experience, and to be honest I just wanted something chill to play before TotK comes out. Having looked into how pioneering this game was, I think it was the start of most things I value in this genre. It might be half a star higher with a better translation, but I really enjoyed my time here; it's truly a big hunk of lovely JRPG beef. The story comes at you fast, it's surprisingly investing, and there's plenty of meat and potatoes JohnRingoPaulGeorge mechanics to sink your teeth into. What I'm trying to say is that you should eat The Beatles. And play this game.
Speaking of Earthbound, my favourite thing about the combat in that game (although it takes ages to get there) is the rolling HP. It's still turn-based, but having your HP gradually decrease after being attacked adds much needed urgency to your heals and finishing off battles as quickly as possible to presumably staunch the bleeding these children are experiencing. Well, thanks to the patented Active Time Battle system, every fight in this game has urgency. Everyone has their own speed stat that determines when they're gonna attack next. Those goblins aren't gonna wait for you to decide to slash them. They're on a schedule. They've got an appointment for gobbling at 2pm and need this fight to be over as soon as possible. Don't think too hard about that last sentence.
A cool intersection of gameplay and story is the sheer number of times your party changes. People move in and out of your party at the whim of the game's story, which I really like because other games would be like "nooooo!!! you can't just add a character 10 levels above everyone else to the party!!!" but FF4 is like, don't worry bro, it'll work out. And it does. I appreciate the willingness to give you fairly overpowered characters when it makes sense to, and then just balance the enemies accordingly. Another advantage to having a revolving door party is that your playstyle and strategies change up every hour or so. You might lose a tank melee character and gain two sorcerers. Better put the remaining tank up front, and use the sorcerers in the back to heal everyone and start focusing more on the elemental weaknesses of enemies. Not to mention all these characters have things to say and things to do in the story, which is normal now but pretty cool for 1991 on a 16-bit console. I wouldn't say the story is particularly high art or technically proficient, but it had Themes, a pinch of meaning, and at least a few characters I did end up caring about. At a bare minimum, it made me want to keep playing to see what it was gonna pull next. That's a low bar, but I've played Breath of Fire so believe me when I say these games can miss that bar.
Now to talk some mad shit about the game since I've been very positive so far. I don't think I'll ever like random battles. Very controversial opinion I know. I just don't vibe with each footstep feeling like playing Russian roulette with the bullet being about a minute of enemies that are the equivalent of Desert Bus - easy enough to coast through but you can't stop paying attention juuuust in case you total the whole thing. Even if you get rewarded for winning, sometimes I just wanna explore and look for chests please. It's a system that I haven't found a satisfying iteration of yet.
Also, the translation in the original NTSC release is a bit sketchy. I usually felt like I at least got the gist of what they wanted to convey, but what hurts it most is the severe text box limitations from differences in how much you can convey in Japanese vs. English within a certain number of characters. It does lead to some lines being slightly baffling. That's what I get for forgetting to do two minutes of research before playing a 20 hour JRPG. A quick look at available translations seems to conclude that the 3D remake has a considerably better script, as well as there being numerous fan translations, so look into it!
I'm not entirely sure why I chose this as the start of my old JRPG expedition over FF6, which was originally the plan, but I'm glad I did. I think this game has less baggage in terms of being an all-timer you have to experience, and to be honest I just wanted something chill to play before TotK comes out. Having looked into how pioneering this game was, I think it was the start of most things I value in this genre. It might be half a star higher with a better translation, but I really enjoyed my time here; it's truly a big hunk of lovely JRPG beef. The story comes at you fast, it's surprisingly investing, and there's plenty of meat and potatoes JohnRingoPaulGeorge mechanics to sink your teeth into. What I'm trying to say is that you should eat The Beatles. And play this game.
I hate videogames.
This review contains spoilers
Final Fantasy II or Final Fantasy IV everywhere else is a really good game. The only flaws with the game were the porting job, where it hurts some of the character moments like when Tellah died, most of the characters didn't really show emotion about it, which I'm assuming is only in this port, another thing I didn't really enjoy about the game was that there's a lot of random encounters, which I personally do not like, and the final problem I had with the game is that you cannot save anywhere you want, which makes fighting some bosses a pain, like zeromus for example. This game has many more good aspects than bad flaws, for example, most of the time characters actually feel like characters and the story is really good, some of the twists in it like Yang and Cid not actually dying or Golbez, who is the major villain for most of the game being Cecil's brother was insane. The Final Boss was incredible to fight, its theme is a jam and the sprite work was fantastic! I love how there are vehicles in this game, which show off the SNES, and going to the moon was INSANE!
just straight up not fun
I played this game because Professional Video Game Expert Tim Rogers will review it for his Action Button Reviews Series. I'm treating his reviews like a little book club: if he announces he will do a review and I'm interested in the game, I want to play it to form my own opinion.
The hook of this game is incredible. Cecil decides that he no longer wants to participate in the evildoings of his country. With one final task from the king, Cecil unwittingly becomes a terrorist, and must atone for his sins and fight his former country.
If anyone would have told me this was the plot of the game instead of the generally accepted idea that "This is a generic fantasy setting and game" I would have played it years ago! If you would have told me that the main character regularly has sex and it's handled in a mature and not creepy way I would have downloaded the ROM immediately.
This game is also easy, but in a good way. I nearly 100%ed the game in 24 hours without a guide. I do not say this to brag. I say this to show that this game is designed so incredibly well that a doofus like me can beat it, and beat nearly everything! There are some esoteric things in the last few rooms of the last dungeon that I did not do and did not know existed, but, on my own and because of the good writing and game design, I was able to obtain everything in this game, including all the optional bosses and summons.
Very early in the game the party obtains a hovercraft. From that point on, there is almost no overworld traversal that requires walking or random encounters. More games should do this! It made exploration breezy and fun.
This game is not 5 stars to me because it's my rating and that's how I feel! I also thought that the game was going to end, it felt like a climax, and then there was like 3-4 more hours of game and everything that happened in what I thought was the climax happened again? So not my favorite pacing in the last few hours.
Don't let anyone dissuade you from playing this version because they say the localization is bad. It's good and fun and charming.
The hook of this game is incredible. Cecil decides that he no longer wants to participate in the evildoings of his country. With one final task from the king, Cecil unwittingly becomes a terrorist, and must atone for his sins and fight his former country.
If anyone would have told me this was the plot of the game instead of the generally accepted idea that "This is a generic fantasy setting and game" I would have played it years ago! If you would have told me that the main character regularly has sex and it's handled in a mature and not creepy way I would have downloaded the ROM immediately.
This game is also easy, but in a good way. I nearly 100%ed the game in 24 hours without a guide. I do not say this to brag. I say this to show that this game is designed so incredibly well that a doofus like me can beat it, and beat nearly everything! There are some esoteric things in the last few rooms of the last dungeon that I did not do and did not know existed, but, on my own and because of the good writing and game design, I was able to obtain everything in this game, including all the optional bosses and summons.
Very early in the game the party obtains a hovercraft. From that point on, there is almost no overworld traversal that requires walking or random encounters. More games should do this! It made exploration breezy and fun.
This game is not 5 stars to me because it's my rating and that's how I feel! I also thought that the game was going to end, it felt like a climax, and then there was like 3-4 more hours of game and everything that happened in what I thought was the climax happened again? So not my favorite pacing in the last few hours.
Don't let anyone dissuade you from playing this version because they say the localization is bad. It's good and fun and charming.
People like talking about the borked growth system, but my problems are geared more towards the awful dungeons and pacing.
NES(is this FF_USA in japan?)
It was fun for what it was but a definite step up from the first one.
PS5- Pixel Remaster
Unfortunately way worse that the first one, the leveling system was awful, rushed through the game with a guide, the story line was better than the first though
Unfortunately way worse that the first one, the leveling system was awful, rushed through the game with a guide, the story line was better than the first though
firion is cool
This isn't FF2 on Famicom, but FF2 on Famicom is also good
When the twins gave their life to save the rest of the party, i actually shed a tear. So much fun memories.
Spoony bard
My first Final Fantasy, and my favorite. I haven't played it recently enough to know how well it's aging, but Final Fantasy 2/4 is still a must play for jrpg fans. I love the ATB combat, I find it significantly superior to most fully turn based battle systems.
I never saw the appeal to this game. Ugly graphics, bad music, basic save the world story and pretty uninteresting characters.