The gameplay is changed significantly in this one from the first, and unfortunately it doesn't really work for me. They attempted a more realistic leveling system where performing actions levels up the corresponding stat. In theory this would lead to your characters specializing in whatever they use most, but in practice it's tedious and you have to exploit it in unintended ways to level anything to high levels.

The story is far darker than the first, to the point where you can just assume everyone you meet is going to die shortly after they stop being useful. I do commend them for attempting a more serious plot and characters, and it does work for the most part.

Overall this is one of the weakest FF games, and I'd recommend skipping it if you're only interested in playing the good ones. It has a few good ideas, but the tedious gameplay really holds it back.

edit: killing the final boss and then going to hell and kicking his ass AGAIN was so funny I added .5 stars to my final score

Played this as part of the pixel remaster collection. I've played the games before, but it's been a while and I wanted to replay them and see how they held up.

I decided to do a challenge run of four white mages this time, which ended up being grindy and not very fun for reasons entirely under my control. Other than that the gameplay is fine, there's not too many options for combat and it's more about resource management as you traverse dungeons.

The graphics and remastered soundtrack feel great, and there's options to switch to the original OST and between the modern and classic fonts. The QoL changes added also make a huge difference and let you fine-tune your experience. You can choose to increase or lower the exp gained from battles, or turn off random encounters altogether if you'd rather explore in peace.

I'm not too familiar with the version differences, but I believe this one is missing some extra dungeons that were added to previous releases. That's the only thing holding back from saying this is the complete definitive edition, but it's a faithful remaster of the classic so I'd say this is a great place to start if you're interested in the series.