I tried the GBA version a number of years back and quickly dropped it when I found the progression system to be too obtuse. Now that I'm older and better able to wrap my head around why it's as odd as it is, I was able to work through it, but I still think it's a very dumb game. I understand the strengths of a system with such complete control over how your characters will grow, but implementation of a system with this much freedom needs to be tight, and Final Fantasy II is the exact opposite of that. The way in which you level up each individual stat based on singular battle performances is easily manipulated, but due to the game's overall poor difficulty scaling, making a team that can actually take on some of the game's challenges becomes a slog. I then, of course, made the mistake of spending about an hour grinding various stats, only to find out I had overpowered myself to such a high degree that I was finishing off bosses in two or three turns. The end result of my experience was one of utter befuddlement over the ideas presented in this game. I guess it makes sense when viewed from the lens of a 1988 video game where this sort of experimentation was commonplace. However, this was the 20th anniversary release. The game was given 20 years to marinate before they shat it out in an upgraded fashion, yet this unbalanced and poorly thought-out system was not addressed. Perhaps it was improved in some fashion when compared to it's roots, and I suppose there is some value in allowing this game's flaws to remain intact for a modern audience, but that doesn't really change the fact that this game could have been retooled and rebalanced to provide an experience that may actually feel engaging. The fact that Square-Enix decided to preserve this instead of Dragon Quest III, which required a fan translation and emulator to play the optimal version, is a bit frustrating, since the latter actually did have creative ideas which have stood the test of time. Final Fantasy II isn't the type of game which should be celebrated as it was, since what it was was a mess and a mistake. My computer actually froze in the final portion of the game, so I did not actually complete it, but since I lost about 2 hours of progress, that was enough to make me give up. Fuck Final Fantasy II, this game deserves all the flack it gets. 1/6