This review contains spoilers
Story: 10/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Dungeons: 9/10
Music: 6/10
Final Fantasy II is Square’s follow up to the success that is Final Fantasy. In this entry we see new progression ideas, a fresh new story, and more characterization.
The story of Final Fantasy II begins with the invasion of the empire. The Emporer has decided to claim the world for himself. The heroes Firion, Maria, Guy, and Leon are tasked with assisting a rebellion in an effort to defeat the empire. Very quickly you get separated from Leon which opens up your team for a revolving cast of characters to accompany you throughout the game. The story plays out fantastically, the threat escalates as you continue to fight back, and the friends you make on the way are unique and memorable. Each character having strengths and weaknesses built in to assist you on your journey. The story takes multiple twists and turns leading to a satisfactory ending.
Gameplay is where things get the most interesting. Final Fantasy II has one of the most unique and interesting level up mechanics I’ve seen in an RPG. Your characters grow based on the actions they take. So if you want to have a powerful mage then you have to teach one of your characters the spells you want and have them cast them over and over in order to improve them. The same goes for melee class archetypes. There are numerical values assigned to your stats or spells but there’s no experience bar that dings and increases your character’s assigned level because there is no assigned level. As fun as this sounds and as great of an idea this is, it’s poorly implemented. What is presented as a great idea becomes extremely daunting because it takes several hours to increase the levels of your spells and/or weapons. Gil is a bit of a harder to obtain resource as well so grinding can be difficult if you don’t have the means to restore your health and MP. I absolutely adore this concept and would love to see it return with some refinement. What adds to my frustration is that some of the best spells in the game rely either on you grinding several other spell levels (see Ultima) or are obtained late in the game (Also Ultima). Not using magic is a poor choice because there are enemies that take little to no damage from melee and necessitates the use of magic. My rating for this game takes a big hit because of how much this took away from my experience of the game. I would love to see this concept revisited in later entries. The fourth member changes out several times throughout the narrative which gives for an interesting dynamic. It also allows you to focus on developing your main three characters and just playing to the fourth member’s strengths which is usually complimentary to the situation. The keyword system is a fun idea that allows you to elicit different dialogue from key characters based on what you are asking them about but I think it lacks refinement. A lot of keywords are used once or twice and then completely forgotten about.
The dungeons in this game are much more unique. I like most of them. Not counting the final dungeon of course they are all decent in depth. Something the developers introduce in this game is passages through walls where you can potentially take shortcuts or find your way to treasure you couldn’t otherwise reach. It adds an interesting depth to the dungeon experience. Each dungeon has a clear purpose (even if you stumble upon it before learning what that purpose is) and they’re good at expressing the environments they take place in. Two dungeons stuck out to me the most. One is the Tropical Island. This dungeon is full of monsters that either poison you like crazy or monsters that are only weak to magic. This was incredibly frustrating to deal with because it made the dungeon super resource heavy to get through unless you want to grind later to make up for fleeing from every encounter. Generally speaking all of the dungeons are pretty resource heavy but this was the one that was disproportionately heavy. The other dungeon that stood out for me is the Leviathan’s belly. Mostly because it’s a dungeon that takes place inside of a creature. I liked the idea and making a cool Dragoon friend named Ricard who joins your team for a while is cool too. The bosses featured in this game are odd. Often times you don’t really know you’re going into a boss fight until you hear a different audio track play. Of course some of the bosses are front and center. The encounters presented some decent challenges. The Lamia Queen gave me the most trouble. I ended up having to do some added preparation to deal with her mechanics. I’d like to note that the final boss isn’t nearly as jarring as Chaos. While still extremely challenging if you don’t cheese him with the Blood Sword, the fight felt much more appropriate given what I had to deal with getting to that point.
The music in this game doesn’t quite hit that well in this game. You have a solid battle theme that you better get used to hearing because you’ll be hearing it for 90% of your playtime. At least it’s a good theme. I think overall better than it’s predecessor. The few battle tracks that do play during special/boss battles are good and I wish we got to hear them more. The city and overworld themes are pretty mellow. They do a good job of setting the tone for the environment. Then you get to Pandaemonium and you’re met with this crazy epic that sets the tone for the trials to come. My only desire would be that it’s the only track that plays while in Pandaemonium. Having the regular battle theme interrupt this masterpiece was disappointing. At least we have YouTube. The Emperor’s revival theme deserves a shoutout here too. It accurately articulates the rising threat as you enter the 3rd act of the game. I’m giving music a 6/10 despite this because for most of the game you’re listening to the same 3-4 tracks. Those tracks aren’t bad by any means but the repetitiveness takes away from the enjoyment.
In conclusion I think this is a good follow up to Final Fantasy. The story is better, and some of the ideas are clear improvements on the original installment. I look forward to seeing what Final Fantasy III has to offer.
Gameplay: 7/10
Dungeons: 9/10
Music: 6/10
Final Fantasy II is Square’s follow up to the success that is Final Fantasy. In this entry we see new progression ideas, a fresh new story, and more characterization.
The story of Final Fantasy II begins with the invasion of the empire. The Emporer has decided to claim the world for himself. The heroes Firion, Maria, Guy, and Leon are tasked with assisting a rebellion in an effort to defeat the empire. Very quickly you get separated from Leon which opens up your team for a revolving cast of characters to accompany you throughout the game. The story plays out fantastically, the threat escalates as you continue to fight back, and the friends you make on the way are unique and memorable. Each character having strengths and weaknesses built in to assist you on your journey. The story takes multiple twists and turns leading to a satisfactory ending.
Gameplay is where things get the most interesting. Final Fantasy II has one of the most unique and interesting level up mechanics I’ve seen in an RPG. Your characters grow based on the actions they take. So if you want to have a powerful mage then you have to teach one of your characters the spells you want and have them cast them over and over in order to improve them. The same goes for melee class archetypes. There are numerical values assigned to your stats or spells but there’s no experience bar that dings and increases your character’s assigned level because there is no assigned level. As fun as this sounds and as great of an idea this is, it’s poorly implemented. What is presented as a great idea becomes extremely daunting because it takes several hours to increase the levels of your spells and/or weapons. Gil is a bit of a harder to obtain resource as well so grinding can be difficult if you don’t have the means to restore your health and MP. I absolutely adore this concept and would love to see it return with some refinement. What adds to my frustration is that some of the best spells in the game rely either on you grinding several other spell levels (see Ultima) or are obtained late in the game (Also Ultima). Not using magic is a poor choice because there are enemies that take little to no damage from melee and necessitates the use of magic. My rating for this game takes a big hit because of how much this took away from my experience of the game. I would love to see this concept revisited in later entries. The fourth member changes out several times throughout the narrative which gives for an interesting dynamic. It also allows you to focus on developing your main three characters and just playing to the fourth member’s strengths which is usually complimentary to the situation. The keyword system is a fun idea that allows you to elicit different dialogue from key characters based on what you are asking them about but I think it lacks refinement. A lot of keywords are used once or twice and then completely forgotten about.
The dungeons in this game are much more unique. I like most of them. Not counting the final dungeon of course they are all decent in depth. Something the developers introduce in this game is passages through walls where you can potentially take shortcuts or find your way to treasure you couldn’t otherwise reach. It adds an interesting depth to the dungeon experience. Each dungeon has a clear purpose (even if you stumble upon it before learning what that purpose is) and they’re good at expressing the environments they take place in. Two dungeons stuck out to me the most. One is the Tropical Island. This dungeon is full of monsters that either poison you like crazy or monsters that are only weak to magic. This was incredibly frustrating to deal with because it made the dungeon super resource heavy to get through unless you want to grind later to make up for fleeing from every encounter. Generally speaking all of the dungeons are pretty resource heavy but this was the one that was disproportionately heavy. The other dungeon that stood out for me is the Leviathan’s belly. Mostly because it’s a dungeon that takes place inside of a creature. I liked the idea and making a cool Dragoon friend named Ricard who joins your team for a while is cool too. The bosses featured in this game are odd. Often times you don’t really know you’re going into a boss fight until you hear a different audio track play. Of course some of the bosses are front and center. The encounters presented some decent challenges. The Lamia Queen gave me the most trouble. I ended up having to do some added preparation to deal with her mechanics. I’d like to note that the final boss isn’t nearly as jarring as Chaos. While still extremely challenging if you don’t cheese him with the Blood Sword, the fight felt much more appropriate given what I had to deal with getting to that point.
The music in this game doesn’t quite hit that well in this game. You have a solid battle theme that you better get used to hearing because you’ll be hearing it for 90% of your playtime. At least it’s a good theme. I think overall better than it’s predecessor. The few battle tracks that do play during special/boss battles are good and I wish we got to hear them more. The city and overworld themes are pretty mellow. They do a good job of setting the tone for the environment. Then you get to Pandaemonium and you’re met with this crazy epic that sets the tone for the trials to come. My only desire would be that it’s the only track that plays while in Pandaemonium. Having the regular battle theme interrupt this masterpiece was disappointing. At least we have YouTube. The Emperor’s revival theme deserves a shoutout here too. It accurately articulates the rising threat as you enter the 3rd act of the game. I’m giving music a 6/10 despite this because for most of the game you’re listening to the same 3-4 tracks. Those tracks aren’t bad by any means but the repetitiveness takes away from the enjoyment.
In conclusion I think this is a good follow up to Final Fantasy. The story is better, and some of the ideas are clear improvements on the original installment. I look forward to seeing what Final Fantasy III has to offer.