Final Fantasy 1? Fine. Very archaic dungeon design and story but a neat intro for the series with customizing a basic but (hopefully) effective party and building it out as the game progresses. Found it surprisingly easy and didn't die outside of not paying attention during minor grinding sections, admittedly. It's a solid 6 out of 10 imo, too mindless to pique my interest but nothing offensive, one of the better classic rpgs of that era.
Final Fantasy II? Played for about an hour or two. Didn't understand how strong I needed to be so I kept grinding in the starting area. Stumbled on an encounter at the very bottom peninsula of that area, apparently way higher leveled enemies spawn there so I got one shot, losing all my progress. Dropped it, so i guess this is half completed idk.
Edit 1: I now understand the concept of a "Peninsula of Power"
Edit 2: Actually went ahead and finished it so I'll give something a bit more in-depth.
The most obvious thing to talk about when discussing FF2 is the progression system and in this case I can see what they were going for and its neat considering this was though of during the NES era but man is is not as focused as normal exp. Compared to something like the elder scroll games (which Im not a fan of in these games either but i digress), at least in those games you have standard level ups after a given amount of skill level ups in which you can up your base stats like HP/MP. In FF2, those two and stats like evasion, stamina, intelligence are also gained through acts like getting hit, using spells, evading, using more than half of your MP in battle, will increase stats. This way of fighting might make for a more dynamic way of building your party by the end but firstly, stat ups in this feel so random and sporadic it doesn't really make me think "hmm yes i should use up all my magic in every battle so i can get a bunch of mp stat ups", I just want to get through the battles as i would normally and any stat ups i do get just happen. Secondly, this all feels undermined by the fact the game just gives you a bunch of 1-shot spells (thanks toad) and that pretty much every boss fight in this is a cakewalk (including the final boss, even Chaos in FF1 needed some form of team buffing, HP recovering, standard RPG faire). Also its incredibly weird to me why the skill max is 16 but by the end of the game you'll barely have skills over 10 or 11. There doesn't seem to be any reason or need to have any skills maxed out and the 'rank' of enemies doesn't go over 7, not even half of the skill cap. Also with how spells work there's so many specifics with how you get 'gains', like how using a bunch of mana on the field (like when casting cure or life), I don't know and I don't think you earn any points toward raising MP. Also because buffs and other white magics can miss and are very situational these just sit at fucking level 1 (or 2!!!) and that once in a blue moon moment you do use Berserk or Basuna it just misses because they're spells you don't use frequently like Cure or Life. Im glad this is a lot more refined than the original NES game was but man there's still a lot of ironing out that would need to be done here. At the very least with how easy this game is to cheese it's not a super hard game by any means (except those Death Knights in the final dungeon that do about as much damage as the final boss and regularly appear in multiples, with giants accompanying them). Also, at least in this version certain stats don't decrease when other stats increase like in the nes version. Any 'fourth' character gives you is just the biggest jobber, I felt no need to give any of them any attention whatsoever because there's no reason to give them anything- your main team of 3 is all you need to focus on. The dungeon crawling is almost a lot more obnoxious as FF1 but with deadend rooms with nothing in them and higher encounter rates. Don't feel bad if you want to use online maps, honestly. Lastly, man- money almost felt like a joke after the first few hours? After you buy you're starting equipment there's nearly no reason to buy anything else in the game and a lot of other equipment is either gifted or dropped by others. And any tomes you get more than 4 of (really 3, those fourth party members can be ignored for all i care) can just be sold off for even more money.
Overall it's a good port but man its not a good game and while the story has interesting bits to it, its not really neat enough to really grab my attention other than 'man this is darker than the first game'. At least chocobos and dragoons (kinda) were introduced in this game. It's a 2 out of 10, there's nothing really here I can say I liked and while its not painfully bad, it boggles my mind as to why they left this progression system (almost) as sloppy as it was on the NES.
Final Fantasy II? Played for about an hour or two. Didn't understand how strong I needed to be so I kept grinding in the starting area. Stumbled on an encounter at the very bottom peninsula of that area, apparently way higher leveled enemies spawn there so I got one shot, losing all my progress. Dropped it, so i guess this is half completed idk.
Edit 1: I now understand the concept of a "Peninsula of Power"
Edit 2: Actually went ahead and finished it so I'll give something a bit more in-depth.
The most obvious thing to talk about when discussing FF2 is the progression system and in this case I can see what they were going for and its neat considering this was though of during the NES era but man is is not as focused as normal exp. Compared to something like the elder scroll games (which Im not a fan of in these games either but i digress), at least in those games you have standard level ups after a given amount of skill level ups in which you can up your base stats like HP/MP. In FF2, those two and stats like evasion, stamina, intelligence are also gained through acts like getting hit, using spells, evading, using more than half of your MP in battle, will increase stats. This way of fighting might make for a more dynamic way of building your party by the end but firstly, stat ups in this feel so random and sporadic it doesn't really make me think "hmm yes i should use up all my magic in every battle so i can get a bunch of mp stat ups", I just want to get through the battles as i would normally and any stat ups i do get just happen. Secondly, this all feels undermined by the fact the game just gives you a bunch of 1-shot spells (thanks toad) and that pretty much every boss fight in this is a cakewalk (including the final boss, even Chaos in FF1 needed some form of team buffing, HP recovering, standard RPG faire). Also its incredibly weird to me why the skill max is 16 but by the end of the game you'll barely have skills over 10 or 11. There doesn't seem to be any reason or need to have any skills maxed out and the 'rank' of enemies doesn't go over 7, not even half of the skill cap. Also with how spells work there's so many specifics with how you get 'gains', like how using a bunch of mana on the field (like when casting cure or life), I don't know and I don't think you earn any points toward raising MP. Also because buffs and other white magics can miss and are very situational these just sit at fucking level 1 (or 2!!!) and that once in a blue moon moment you do use Berserk or Basuna it just misses because they're spells you don't use frequently like Cure or Life. Im glad this is a lot more refined than the original NES game was but man there's still a lot of ironing out that would need to be done here. At the very least with how easy this game is to cheese it's not a super hard game by any means (except those Death Knights in the final dungeon that do about as much damage as the final boss and regularly appear in multiples, with giants accompanying them). Also, at least in this version certain stats don't decrease when other stats increase like in the nes version. Any 'fourth' character gives you is just the biggest jobber, I felt no need to give any of them any attention whatsoever because there's no reason to give them anything- your main team of 3 is all you need to focus on. The dungeon crawling is almost a lot more obnoxious as FF1 but with deadend rooms with nothing in them and higher encounter rates. Don't feel bad if you want to use online maps, honestly. Lastly, man- money almost felt like a joke after the first few hours? After you buy you're starting equipment there's nearly no reason to buy anything else in the game and a lot of other equipment is either gifted or dropped by others. And any tomes you get more than 4 of (really 3, those fourth party members can be ignored for all i care) can just be sold off for even more money.
Overall it's a good port but man its not a good game and while the story has interesting bits to it, its not really neat enough to really grab my attention other than 'man this is darker than the first game'. At least chocobos and dragoons (kinda) were introduced in this game. It's a 2 out of 10, there's nothing really here I can say I liked and while its not painfully bad, it boggles my mind as to why they left this progression system (almost) as sloppy as it was on the NES.