FINAL FANTASY II

A very experimental RPG for its time but not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be. You never really need to grind, although grinding can definitely help (and if you want all the steam achievements, you'll need to grind). Realistically though, you can one-shot most regular enemies at the endgame with your weapons and spells around level 10-11 so long as you are properly equipped. If you do choose to grind though, then yes, the memes are true. Punching yourself in the face is the most effective form of grinding.

Outside of this though, there's nothing too crazy going on here. Just like with FF1 and FF3 we can see several of the series' recurring staples first appear here and the story is pretty basic although I appreciate the somewhat realistic approach to warfare in their world what with double agents, needing to gather supplies to fight back, sabotage their war machines and also lots of death. We lose several named characters and entire towns over the course of the game and that just seems ambitious for an NES/Famicom game to me.

Highly recommend this if you care about the roots of the FF franchise or just want to play an old RPG.

Final Fantasy 2 is a guilty pleasure of mine. Although its Experience system is much different from the other games, it is fairly satisfying to get the Toad spell at the start from a late-game enemy and nearly insta-winning every fight. The game is fairly grindy, but if you can get past that, you'll get a somewhat good story for an NES game.

Toad Spell my beloved.

As a long time FF fan this PR are great and so much fun. it brings back a ton of memories of when the games first came out. Would recommend to anyone that has play and FF game or just starting out there journey.

I love this game. One of the best Final Fantasy's in my opinion. The leveling system us odd, but reminds me of The Elder Scrolls. Story is great too for the age.

Honestly I am really enjoying the story and it's weird leveling system. I'm not 100% sure that I understand the leveling but it's been fun.

I recommend Final Fantasy II with the same caveats as FFI - it forms part of the foundation of my favorite gaming series of all time. But it is itself not that great of a game. The leveling system is wonky, the dungeon design in offensive, and the story is barebones. The music is good and it is a huge step up from FFI but that isn't saying much. Play it, beat it once, chase achievements if you want, then never play again.

The game is really fun, but I kinda hate the grinding system for weapon and magic skills, but you can just turn boost on if it gets too annoying. The main 3 party members, Firion, Guy, and Maria are kind of lackluster to me in terms of personality and everyone who substituted in for the 4th party member was better... The story was decent enough and the music was really good.

The dungeons were kind of annoying, there will be many rooms that are just empty and designed to trap the player in a random battle. Also the frequency of random battles was very high, thank god that you can turn off random encounters with the click of a button. Also magic feels really weak in this game but it's necessary for specific enemies that are weak to it and resist physical, other than that it's quite weak, though haste and berserk are quite nice, and white magic is always helpful.

Other than that it's pretty fun overall and a cool look back on an oldie, definitely recommend if you're interested though maybe get it on sale lol

This was not an enjoyable experience, to put it lightly.

While I acknowledge the game has a legacy, especially one where you can see it being the forefather of games like the Romancing SaGa series, it tried something different and ultimately fell flat, which the SaGa series apparently fleshes out more fulfillingly. Final Fantasy 2 brought so many iconic parts of the franchise, like the Chocobos, but even then I don't think it outweighs the massive mechanical flaws in the game's design.

Unless you're playing all of the Final Fantasy games in order to understand the legacy, like I'm doing, I would not recommend playing this game.

Admittedly blasted through this one from the help of a guide so I could move on to three but I can still say that this was more enjoyable than the first. I think that the individual leveling up of weapons and spells was weird at first but it quickly grows on you as you advance. I like that this game allows you to create some pretty wacky win conditions with the entire spell pool at each characters disposal.

massive improvements from the previous game in basically everything. not fun because of the bad leveling/password system.

It's another classic entry in the final fantasy series, doesn't have the iconic characters yet, but there was a huge improvement in the magic system. The use of mana points vs X amount of spells at Y level is, IMO, an improvement. However the characters seem like they're all the same on the battle field because they can all learn the same magic, maybe the couldn't all wear the same types of gear but there was nothing stopping me from training each character on each weapon type and each spell except for how long it would take. There are a couple chests that are easy to miss and require a replay through to get, which is a PITA but nothing compared to the patience needed for the bestiary achievements. Solid story with a nod to your fallen comrades, very enjoyable.

Perfecting the game feels so good, just wandering around waiting for the right mob to show up, wondering if you're in the right area until you finally see the mob you're missing, such a nice little hit of dopamine.

This is fun but sadly not as fun as the first Final Fantasy I tried to give it a chance but it's not my fav. With that said tho I do say it's worth playing cause the story has much more depth to it than the first!

Released one year after the original Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II was a bold attempt to innovate on the successful JRPG formula. Final Fantasy II features a greater emphasis on exploration and storytelling, but is most notable for its departure from traditional JRPG experience point-based character advancement. Unlike its predecessor, Final Fantasy II was not translated and released in North America during the NES era, leading to relative obscurity outside of Japan. As a result (and further confusing matters), Square would later release Final Fantasy IV under the title Final Fantasy II in the west.

In Final Fantasy II, the player controls a party of four characters, three of which are mainstays, with a fourth character usually assigned to the party based on story events. While these characters have default names, they have little personality - other than Guy, who strangely only communicates in monosyllabic grunts. Characters also have no character class or job, with all playable characters able to equip any gear and learn any spell. The fourth "story characters" are somewhat more fleshed out, with fixed names, backstories, and motivations.

Characters do not gain experience points or levels. Instead, they advance in skill with specific weapons and spells as they use them in a manner similar to games like Skyrim. A character's other stats, such as strength, intelligence, and HP, increase as they perform or endure related actions - HP goes up when a character gets hit, intelligence goes up when they cast spells, etc. All weapon skills and spells scale from rank 1 to rank 16. Final Fantasy II abandons the D&D inspired "spell slot" system used by its predecessor in favor of MP, where each spell costs exactly its rank in MP (e.g. Fire I costs 1 MP, Fire IV costs 4 MP, Fire X costs 10 MP, etc).

This advancement system has been the focus of much criticism over the years. In broad strokes, it is an intuitive system, but the details can be difficult to parse for a casual player. For example, simply using a sword in combat will not always raise the attacking character's sword skill level. Weapon skill only rises when attacking an enemy of similar or higher overall power level (a value which is not shared with the player), and then only when attacking with the sword repeatedly in the same combat encounter. This can lead to scenarios where a character's skill is not rising despite grinding with the desired weapon. Worse, the system is quite vulnerable to exploitation, with one common strategy being to have the characters in your party attack each other or themselves in order to raise their skill levels and stats. Each spell gains levels individually, and the highest ranks require many casts to reach. This creates the awkward scenario where frequently used spells like Cure reach max level far too early, but endgame spells like Ultima will be underleveled and weak without tedious grinding. Also, the constant assignment of new characters to the fourth playable character slot leads to that character being forever underleveled and generally acting as dead weight on the party.

The same combat quality of life improvements implemented in Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster make a return, with attacks "rolling over" to the next enemy when one is defeated. The variety of spells is slightly expanded, and there are more weapon types to choose from. Overall, combat feels largely unchanged from the previous game.

Final Fantasy II features over a dozen dungeons of varied size and difficulty. One dungeon may offer only two small levels to explore, while another might contain seven larger levels and take an hour to complete. The story will send the player to each of these in turn as the game progresses. While Final Fantasy II does not offer any optional dungeons, it does introduce secret areas for the first time in the series. With one notable exception, these are simply regions of a dungeon or town map that appear to be inaccessible but can be reached by finding a section of wall which does not block movement. Final Fantasy II also features the series' first appearance of "missable content", with entire towns, dungeons, and items disappearing from the game and becoming forever unobtainable without warning once the player reaches certain story triggers. While this will become a hallmark of JRPG design (and a source frustration) in later titles, it can be very frustrating for a completionist. Overall, a thorough playthrough will take around 15-20 hours.

While turn-based combat still makes up the majority of the game experience, Final Fantasy II places a much heavier focus on narrative. While not comparable to the epic tales of later Final Fantasy titles, the story of Final Fantasy II is surprisingly engaging. Victims of a devastating war, the protagonists join the resistance against a seemingly unstoppable evil empire. Along the way, they experience terrible loss before ultimately confronting the evil emperor. The tone of this game is surprisingly mature, with multiple key characters - and indeed, entire cities - sacrificed or lost along the way. These dramatic stakes are revisited in later Final Fantasy titles, but it is a notable departure from the heroic adventure of the first game. This game also marks the first appearance of series staples such as chocobos, the Ultima spell, and Cid the airship engineer.

As a remaster, Final Fantasy II Pixel Remaster is a glowing success. Originally released for the Japanese Famicom system in 1988, Final Fantasy II has been ported and translated a few times over the years. With each of these ports, changes were made to the gameplay, translation, and presentation of the game. The Pixel Remaster is an attempt to produce a version of the game which runs well on modern devices, is updated for modern controls and UI standards, and which is graphically updated while also remaining faithful to the original aesthetic. Wherever possible, the original pixel art has been used, although updated with an enhanced color palette and modern rendering tricks. Battle scene backgrounds have been added in the style of later 16-bit Final Fantasy titles, replacing the black combat background of the Famicom version, and similarly dungeon interiors have been fleshed out with floor tiles. The result is a game which looks something like a late 16-bit era JRPG with a few subtle embellishments, such as shimmering water and glowing spell effects. Like all other games in the Pixel Remaster series, Final Fantasy II offers options to increase or decrease the rate characters advance and gain gold, as well as options to disable random encounters and always run. These are small but significant quality of life improvements, and the ability to increase OR decrease values is a very nice touch. The game also provides the option to use the original 8-bit soundtrack or a beautiful high definition orchestral arrangement. Like Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster, this remaster evokes an authentic-feeling aesthetic while also being accessible to a modern audience.

While it is often derided as the weakest mainline entry in the franchise, Final Fantasy II still has a lot to offer. Admittedly, the shift from experience-based to usage-based leveling is something of a misstep, but the core gameplay loop remains intact, and the world of Final Fantasy II is bigger and more engaging than that of its predecessor. As I mentioned in my review of Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster, it is important to remember that the changes made to the graphics, UI, and gameplay make this a much more accessible game, but as a consequence also make it a poor way to engage with the history of the franchise. However, this is still without a doubt the best looking, most refined version of the game available today, and if you just want to experience Final Fantasy II, it is easy to recommend this remaster.

ive been loving the early FF games, they are a lot of fun. however, i highly recommend that you full save as frequently as possible. over long play sessions if your laptop/pc goes to sleep, the game consistently crashes. i lost 2 hours of playtime on my ff1 100% playthrough. and as of writing this review, i just lost 5 hours of heavy grinding cause i went for a snack and my device went to sleep. These games are awesome, but maybe save more than i do.

Recommend to- Those who want a plain RPG and can tolerate half-baked systems.
Don't Recommend to- Anyone else


Categories:
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Story- Bleh. On one hand, it's way less convoluted than FFI. However, it is also less campy, amusingly meta, and memorable than FFI, so it fell short for me. *SPOILER* (Also, the fourth party member always being the most interesting and dying 80% of the time sucks.)
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Combat- It's aight. Skill leveling is awesome for spells, iffy for melee due to separate levels for different weapon-types, and crappy for health stat building.
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UI- The "Learn and Ask" system is an absolute slog without a guide.
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Balance- Random enemy difficulty spikes make it easy to think you have to grind, use the Boost exp option, and never held my interest in the story department enough to ever make me turn off the boosts, which then unbalances the game further. Sounds self-inflicted, but feels like a symptom of balancing and pacing issues.


6/10 For those I'd recommend it to (WITH boosts)
3.5/10 For anyone else

This version of Final Fantasy II is not only missing the bonus content added in previous re-releases of the game (including additional story content and a repeatable dungeon allowing you to acquire ultimate weapons for every character in the game), but it also includes a host of gameplay changes that absolutely destroy the balancing of the game and lead to many unfair situations such as bomb-type enemies exploding on the first turn or your entire party getting ambushed and paralyzed for 10-20 turns. I highly recommend playing the PSP version instead of this if you are able, it is balanced way better and also has more content.

These new graphics are great, but you already knew that. How is the game, though? Well, I'm going to do something different from my regular reviews, for FINAL FANTASY II is not a regular game; in fact, it isn't a game at all. The people who have rated this game as a "negative" recommendation are factually incorrect, for they are reviewing this with the narrow mindset that it is a "video game" set in the "FINAL FANTASY" franchise, which is just plain wrong. This is an "experience" that happens to wear the "FINAL FANTASY" name as a sort of thin veneer to hide its true self, which anybody could easily decipher. Why else would a game called FINAL Fantasy have a sequel? Checkmate, feminisms.

As for the people who have rated this game as "recommended", they are factually right, but not in the way either you or they might first realize. You see, in the same way I would "recommend" a child eat their vegetables to grow up big and healthy, or would "recommend" one save some extra money by "mistakenly" forging their tax documents, so too is FINAL FANTASY II a game that is "recommended" by me, but not for playing. FINAL FANTASY II is a great "game" to torture somebody with, give to somebody you hate or otherwise just don't give a shit about, etc., but NOT to play. I say this because of the fact that people might see that I "recommended" FINAL FANTASY II and assume that I mean for playing, when in actuality I "recommend" FINAL FANTASY II in the same way that one would recommend getting warm in cold weather by lighting themselves on fire - which, too be fair, is a viable strategy. Until it isn't.

With these caveats established, I will now answer: Is FINAL FANTASY II a good game, or a bad one? Well, here you go. FINAL FANTASY II is not only a bad game, but is the worst; so much so the worst, in fact, that like a wheel it goes from being the absolute worst, to the absolute best - but not before being so good that it ends up cycling all the way back to being the absolute worst. How is this any different from it being just regularly the worst, you might ask? Because on your FINAL FANTASY II journey, you will get to "experience" the game in all states of its cycle, going from being the worst game you've ever played, to the best, to just being "alright", to being the worst again to start over. Sometimes, you might even "experience" all these states of the game all at once, like going 100x speed through a movie "by accident". Of course, some things in this remaster help to make the "experience" more palatable, such as a state-of-the-art "miniature map" and "encounter on/off button", but those are, to put it bluntly, not what a "true video game enjoyer" partakes in. A true video game player "plays" FINAL FANTASY II not knowing where the hell to go all 10 floors of a dungeon, only to discover that all choices in the topmost floor pick-a-path section lead to a dead-end - or, as I've taken to calling it, a "life-beginning", as with the exceedingly-highly random encounter rate you are sure to engage in a battle you've fought a hundred times before.

So - is FINAL FANTASY II any good? Well no, but that's only because it was made in a time when video games fundamentally weren't good. However, by being so unbelievably bad, FINAL FANTASY II manages to do something few games, even those made today, can truly do, and become so bad that it's good except for in the parts where the game is just bad. Objectively speaking, all nearly 2,200 reviews of this game on Steam (as the time of writing this) are factually incorrect, because they are "reviewing" this game based on "merits", "opinions", and "logic", whereas I'm reviewing a review of the "experience" as seen from an quasi-participant-observer's perspective with nothing except for facts on my side. Is this a positive recommendation? Tentatively, I say "yes", but my definition of "yes" is likely different from yours, which just means "yes" if I had to guess. When I say "yes", I really mean "no", but in a superposition-like state where it could also be "yes" - or any combination of percentages "no" and "yes" - depending on how close the number of cereal flakes in my breakfast are to being a prime number. In that way, when I say "yes", I really only sometimes mean "yes", but not really.

In conclusion, should you "play" FINAL FANTASY II? Yes. But also no. Please don't. But also do. Because it's the best - but also the worst. 10/10

If there was a "meh" button i would've chosen it. The Grinding is unbearable but somehow I haven't gotten bored yet and I'm the type that usually picks up a game for a minute and then drops it entirely so it's doing something right

Confession: I’m not proud of it, but I cheated. I cheated not only myself, but my integrity as well. You see I didn’t want to miss a chest or bestiary… so I pulled up a guide. That guide led to dungeon maps. Those dungeon maps led to in game boosts. Those in game boosts led to youtube guides, and those youtube guides led to spoilers. Those spoilers led to turning off encounters at strategic points and all of this eventually led to a quick 100%.

But I make this promise! Never again! My FF experience was completely ruined after so much fun in 15 and FF1 I had earlier this year. From now on I vow to blind playthrough and then 2nd playthrough 100% I promise 😉

The pixel remaster is well made, but I didn't much care for Final Fantasy 2. The levelling system is weird and it feels like at least half of the game is miss-able content, which makes the game impossible to complete without a walk-through if that's your kind of thing. I had to restart my play-through halfway through the game when I realised I missed one chest in the Dreadnought, rendering the chest achievement unobtainable.

Good stuff

If you're a fan of Final Fantasy I am sure you will like this remaster. I have never played 1 or 2 until this came out. Its not really that difficult either as long as you do some grinding early on and find treasures. Now I can say I have beaten FF 1 - 10 which is sweet.

great

Final Fantasy 2 is a funny game. Not in a humorous way, but more in that when you look at how it works, you will go "Huh."
Final Fantasy 2 was an experimental game, and YMMV on whether it was a success or failure. it stands out from other games in the series because of how the leveling process works, which will probably determine whether you actually like the game as a whole. stats are what level up depending on what you do in battle. while it works fine for the most part, getting those higher levels in both spells and weapons does require a bit of work on the player's part. fortunately once you learn how to do it, you can easly break the game with how powerful you would get. the mechanics of this game would not return in future FF games, but they were used to create the Saga series, another game series.
Story is rather simple. you are a bunch of rebels fighting against an empire that summoned demons from hell in a bit to conquer the world. there is no grey area or ambiguity about the situation. you are the good guys and the empire is evil. it is rather ambitious with what it did with guest party members who come and leaves the party as the story goes on. unfortunately, because of how early this game was, the characters are a bit flat, but they carry the story well enough.
Overall, i enjoyed this classic game that was around before my time. while i do miss the extra content from earlier remasters, i'll get over it. the game was kind of short, on the file i used to beat the game, the time was around 24 hours, which would have been shorter if i didn't go out of my way to grind the way i did.

Final Fantasy II is often criticized as one of the least successful entries in the series. I believe this reputation is undeserved.

For one, this version is much better balanced than the original release, meaning you can complete the game without resorting to repetitive monster farming. Additionally, this Final Fantasy was ahead of its time in terms of storytelling, introducing memorable characters within a rather dark narrative framework.

I preferred this installment in every way to the pixel remaster of Final Fantasy I (which I still recommend, as it lays the foundation of the series). I also enjoyed FFII more than FFIII, as FFIII is far less focused on its narrative and feels somewhat scattered in its approach.

The character progression system in this game works similarly to Skyrim: your characters’ stats and spells improve based on their usage during combat. This system is also well-balanced—harder battles increase the likelihood of stats improving.

My least favorite of the Final Fantasy games. Its not one thing its several.
First issue that people that play for the first time will almost certainly witness, you may go one of the three available directions or you will die because this game does not keep you from going into high leveled areas and until you get destroyed there is no indication this will happen.
The password progression and the back and forth between 6 villages over a world that is small and empty even by early FF standards gets old very fast. Its tedious and doesnt feel rewarding because for the whole first half of the game there isnt really a forward.
Losing your fourth party member every other hour and being given a new one that is under leveled is frustrating. Those plot deaths really dont hit at all either just feels like a way to set the player back.
Lastly and something that may be a spoiler if you do not speak to one npc before going into a dungeon that disappears you will miss the only, singular, finite weapon that can actually hurt the big boss. There is no indication you should do this, the weapon isnt some legendary item that is one of the passwords that could have been used once, and if you miss it and dont get told youll never know why the final boss seems unbeatable. The spell "ultima" that is supposed to be the gimmick to beat them doesnt even get past his defense just the individual missable insignificant never otherwise mentioned blood sword.

I'm playing through the whole series in order as i right this review, and prior to Final Fantasy 1 i've never played a Final Fantasy game before. also, to avoid bias and spoilers of each game, i've stayed far away from online discourse. I'm also 100% each game, bestiary and everything. Having said that, the gameplay of Final Fantasy 2 hurts me physically. I despise the leveling system, it makes zero sense to me and it genuinely feels random when a character levels up. I really want to stick through with the story but when a game has a good story but really, really annoying game mechanics it makes it very hard to continue. Will i finish this one? Eventually. Whereas FF1 took me 2 days to 100%, FF2 is going to take like 2 weeks because i'm going to keep quitting out of boredom

Eh...

It was ok.

The story was kind of there... but, they drug it on and on and on and on.

Definitely did not age very well.

This one is... a mixed bag.

From a factual standpoint, it's pretty basic for an RPG, but that's because it was first made in 1988. Even still, this is a pretty good modernization; as with all other games in this collection, it's possible to configure it quite a bit, including the ability to disable random encounters and increase Gil and EXP gain.

Really, this one is mixed. Personally, I despise the story here. There's a character dying every five minutes, it's like they realized the story in the last game was lackluster so they tried REALLY HARD to make everyone sad here. They tried too hard, though, and now it's just comical.
It's only made bearable by the fact that the levelup and weapon skill mechanics are quite interesting, unlike anything I've ever seen before.

I'd honestly only recommend this one to people who haven't experienced this particular game before and are morbidly curious. If you're looking for a good RPG that's still simple, play any other game in this collection.

wait i thought the last one was supposed to be the final one

This game is the freaky bish but you let her hit

Key words seem to be buggy in this version. Have to load previous saves a few times to get to work. FF1 was a better port, intended to play them all but might skip this one.

a very good entry level ff game. only thing to be wary of is the leveling system being use based like the elder scrolls games and that the last boss will require a LOT of grinding. i could get thru the dungeon with some patience but the boss was just survival tbh. a gauntlet of non stop healing to stay alive while also trying to do enough damage to kill it.
story isnt too complicated, but some deaths and destruction did make me audibly gasp cus i was not expecting some of the things that happened to happen lol. a solid 6-7/10 i'd say :) pickup when on sale

Oddball of the old series but once you get past that it's not too bad.

Fun but Steam Cloud Save messed up my game save. Halfway through the game and Steam didn't save it and now its back to my very first save outside the first town. Thanks Steam.

Easily the worst of the mainline FF game and possibly the worst J-RPG I've ever played.

The other 5 FF games in the pixel remaster range from not bad but forgettable (1,3,5) to fantastic (4,6) but FF 2 is in a league of its own with how bad it is. The devs tried to innovate and completely reinvent the wheel when it comes to levelling in a J-RPG and none of it works.

Liked it overall. Nice story, nice map, nice soundtrack.
The take on leveling in this one is unusual and takes a bit to get used to but once you get the hang of it it can be fun and grinding feels less monotonous.
Enemy design felt underwhelming, although I can't objectively judge the final boss as I arrived it very over-leveled and over-equipped.
PREPARE FOR TONS OF DUNGEONS. If you hate maze-like multi-floor dungeons then this game is probably not for you (especially if you're a completionist), but if you like them then I 100% recommend it.

good game

STORY: 7 (Satisfactory) - The gulf in depth and complexity of Final Fantasy II’s main story when compared to its predecessor is so vast that it's difficult to believe that the two games are part of the same series. Add in the fact that there was only a single short year between the releases of the two titles, and that level of improvement in such a short time begins to look almost miraculous. Unlike Final Fantasy I’s overly simple main story, Final Fantasy II introduces intricate narrative elements that would not only soon become the series’ signature but are also impressively detailed for the time period. From the very opening scene of the game, the player is thrown right into the fire to feel immersed in the hopelessness of a superior power invading one’s home. The tone for the rest of the game is set and the primary theme established: war is hell. The remainder of the game is all about combating the invading Palamecian empire as it seeks to bring all nations under its iron grip. From that point on, surprisingly complex subplots accompany and weave through the already convoluted nature of any politically driven tale. By modern standards, all of this is still quite basic, but still on par with many popular modern indie games. As an interesting side note, the crystals, a signature core of the very identity of the Final Fantasy series and main story arc of the first game, are entirely absent in Final Fantasy II.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: 7 (Satisfactory) - In my personal opinion, this is the category in which Final Fantasy II shows the most growth from its forebear. As with the main story, the difference in quality and scope is remarkable. Unlike Final Fantasy I’s vague prophecy serving as the only backstory for the Warriors of Light, the main characters in this tale have some realistic origins and individual identities within the overall narrative, making them much more relatable and easier to empathize with. Venturing out into the world at large also shows tremendous growth in the category. NPCs, important and inconsequential, also feel more individualized and unique than the primarily generic ones populating the first game’s world. With regard to major NPCs who are critical to the plot, they take on a far more active role and show personalities in the face of the struggles their world faces. This makes it much easier to become invested in them and their ultimate fates as you play through the story, a detail that was almost entirely absent in Final Fantasy I. As with the first game, NES hardware restrictions ensure that critical elements such as dialogue and the accompanying events are overly simplified, meaning even emotional events feel rushed and a bit wooden when compared to anything remotely modern. Despite such limitations, Final Fantasy II manages to fill its world with people who are far less lifeless than those of the previous title.

MUSIC: 8.5 (Outstanding) - With the first game, Nobuo Uematsu established himself as a legitimate musical genius and powerhouse. With a single game, Uematsu-san cemented his legacy in the annals of gaming history by writing a soundtrack full of pieces that have lived on to this day. After the success of Final Fantasy, Uematsu-san had a lot to live up to. In what would come to be an almost given in years to come, the master outdid himself and delivered a soundtrack that surpassed his first contribution. As with everything about Final Fantasy II, fans outside of Japan did not have the chance for the wonderful music written for it to become something steeped in nostalgia like the first game’s did. Not only is almost every piece extremely well-arranged to match the tone of their accompanying scenes, there are several genuinely gorgeous pieces in this OST. As is the case with all six of the games, the fully orchestrated Pixel Remaster arrangement of these legendary tracks is without question the best versions ever produced. Hearing the old 8-bit MIDI themes performed using real instruments and arranged for an actual video game environment is an emotional experience all by itself.

VISUAL PRESENTATION: 6 (Mediocre) - As I have alluded to several times now, the limitations of early gaming hardware is evident in every title produced at the time. It was just not possible to do much visually. Developers had to find workarounds and tricks to create so much of these games that it's amazing they managed it at all. As a result, titles like this are quite static and repetitive in many ways, mainly stuck to hard set background levels and maps. Despite this, developers have long since mastered the art of getting the most out of pixel-based 2D games. This version of Final Fantasy II shows off that skill set to give us faithful and updated recreations of the original NES designs down to the smallest details. Where the Pixel Remaster chose to be a faithful upscaled HD remaster with regard to the art style, the PSP/Android version completely reimagined everything to create a much more vivid and detailed incarnation. While I understand and respect the decision to stay faithful to the originals, I feel that Square Enix should have used the PSP/Android versions as the model and built upon them. Even better would have been an Octopath Traveler/Dragon Quest I-III Remake style HD-2D build that took full advantage of just how far 2D gaming has come.

GAMEPLAY: 5.5 (Acceptable) - This is without question the most controversial aspect of Final Fantasy II, and has been since its initial release. It is the main reason that many legacy fans consider it to be the “black sheep” of the mainline entries in the series. In my personal opinion, there is a good reason for this. Final Fantasy I established the series’ signature version of the turn-based system that became synonymous with the JRPG all the way into the mid-2000s. Final Fantasy II attempted to add levels of depth and realism to that system that were too far ahead of its time. In theory, using the Dungeons & Dragons model of dividing weapon types, armor types, and magic into individual sub-skills to be learned and upgraded independently seems like a fantastic way to add immersion and customization options. In practice, it fell short of the mark, instead turning it into a veritable confusing slog to reach max level 16 for each one of the skills and spells. On top of that, there are no character levels, meaning each character’s overall effectiveness is entirely dependent upon these skills. As gaming became more advanced, systems like this would essentially become the standard. Unfortunately, it was too ambitious for games so limited by the hardware of the time. I personally had to use the in-game boosts to make this system feel effective or bearable in any way.

CONTENT: 6.5 (Mediocre) - As with the original Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II is enormous when compared to most every other game in the NES library up to that time. Even by modern standards, II still boasts as much game to consume and experience as most indie games of the present era. I find it amazing that the developers were able to push NES hardware and storage to a point to even be able to hold so much game on an 8-bit cartridge. The Pixel Remaster is 100% faithful to the original in terms of playable game, recreating the NES experience incredibly well, which is a double-edged sword. For players who specifically want an experience that is closest to the original NES version, this is the ideal version to play. The PSP/Android version added a wealth of post-game extra content I dearly wish had been added to the Pixel Remaster. The addition of an independent music player for the soundtrack and a gallery of Yoshitaka Amano official art are very nice touches, though.

I was skeptical of playing this one at first. I'd heard the leveling system was vastly different than FF1, but I actually enjoyed the way this game plays. There's some sense in a character not really performing well with a weapon if it's their first time using it. The story itself was alright, though I would have gotten lost quite a few times if I hadn't had a guide.

6/10

Despite some differences between this game and the previous one, I could almost copy and paste my review of Final Fantasy I here because my recommendations would be essentially the same.

In short, if you're a Final Fantasy fan or a jRPG fan with plenty of time, give it a try, it's not a bad game. If not, just skip it. If you have limited time to play then there are simply better games out there.

To give my own experience, I found the story to be much better then Final Fantasy I, but it still feels weak compared to the later games. Character personalities are also a little better but still very minimal. That said, I did enjoy the nostalgic feeling of playing it again, and it’s nice to see some of the things introduced here that would later regularly appear in the series.

However there is one major annoyance I have with this game and that is the leveling system. Rather than using traditional levels and experience points, it uses a skill-based leveling system. This approach isn't necessarily bad, but here it feels very clunky in my opinion. I had the same issue with the original version for the NES and If I remember correctly it was even worse.

I’ll give it a thumbs up because as I said, it’s not a bad game despite the awful leveling system. However, I have to admit that it is mostly because of the nostalgic experience.

Stop hitting yourself.
Stop hitting yourself.
Stop hitting yourself.
Stop hitting yourself.
Stop hitting yourself.
Stop hitting yourself.

Much like the first one, great remaster and packs the nostalgia feels. It felt great to play through this again but I forgot about the leveling of classes! Follow a guide if you plan on 100%.

Steamdeck verified.

A clean update of the original, but considerably more playable than the NES version. Some of the achievements are a bit unnecessarily tedious, and the balance can get a bit wonky, but this is the first Final Fantasy with a real story to it. If you're a JRPG purist there's nostalgic fun to be had here, but we're still a few entries away from when Final Fantasy became FINAL FANTASY.

Fully playable on the Steam Deck. Fully playable 1-handed (right).

Maybe this would drift away from the spirit of the original too much but I think there is room for refinement of the leveling system a bit more. Feels like your best bet is to just not wear armor no matter what you are doing with your characters otherwise.
Other than this evasion% vs armor class kind of ... quirk? This was totally fun to experience.......
Oh wait.... ALWAYS TURN THE BOOST TO .5 FOR EVERYTHING. Yep, I'm that guy. FF1 and 2 are both basically an auto fest otherwise imo. NO point to even play otherwise. If you do 1/2 everything, absolutly fun, some tricky things will challenge you still.

ePIk
No Brad ward

I just love this game for the myriad ways in which you can vibe with it.

Want to get insanely overpowered with end game stats less than 5% through the main story? You got it, bro.

Fancy making wonky builds such as White Monks (ala Shining Force) or mad axe wielding Berserkers? Sure, go ahead.

This game is largely slated due to it's unorthodox mechanics, but I love them and wish they made more FFs with said mechanics (looks to the Romancing Saga series).

Rating: Eight Moogles out of Ten.

This game was not great when it first came out on the famicom, and while this remaster does a lot to help it in terms of gameplay, it is not enough for me to recommend as an actually good game. Its not terrible, but if you only want to play the good Final Fantasy games, maybe steer clear from this one.

I know it is not a majority of players favourite aspect to a game, but I am a game grinding fiend. I love grinding for item drops, materials, weapon drops, money, player and magic levels, and to find a game that lets me grind my stat levels for how I want my characters to be is just terrific.