FINAL FANTASY II

Great game, a little different from the first game but it truly does feel like a better RPG, more of a time sink but still fun nonetheless, highly recommend it!

It gets some hate but I enjoyed it. The encounter frequency is ridiculous.

I can't believe I actually managed to clear Final Fantasy II.

I've been a Final Fantasy fan since Final Fantasy IV—which was the first game I played with my own hands. But as for Final Fantasy I, I could only watch my friend play it on his Famicom. (Yes, I’m Asian.)
And don’t even mention Final Fantasy II—because I never even got the chance to touch it or watch my childhood friend play it.
My first real experience with it was on the GBA version, but I never finished it. I didn’t like its system at all.

That’s right—back then, I really didn’t like how the game worked.
It didn’t have the standard level-up system. Instead, it had fragmented leveling depending on what you used: sword level, bow level, fire magic level, ice magic level, and so on.

Still, I ended up buying FF2 Pixel Remaster (along with the other games in a bundle) and told myself: “This time, I’m going to finish it!”
And I did it—I actually finished the game!

Even though the skill-based leveling system was frustrating at times, once I got used to it, I started to find it kinda fun.
I get to decide who uses what, in your own way. For example, Guy was a tank character—but I gave him healing and defensive magic too, just for fun.
Maria was naturally suited for spell caster, so with the two of them, I basically had two white mages—one of whom was tough enough to survive longer in battle.
Stuff like that was surprisingly enjoyable, even though the system could be annoying at times.
That said, I don’t think the game really has the same "party experiment" appeal as FF1 or FF3.
Which means... if I were to replay it, I’d probably do it the same way again.
From this playthrough, I’ve learned something very important:
Berserk + Haste = Boss Killer!
I beat the last boss in two minutes with Berserk + Haste + Blood Sword!

But above all, I only just realized how dark the story actually is.
FF2 borrows many things from Star Wars, but some part is really dark, so many sacrifice. When I consider that this is an old game story from 1988, it’s actually really impressive how grim it is.

I think I’m genuinely happy to have experienced Final Fantasy II Pixel Remaster in the year 2025.

This is a blanket review for the whole collection. Everything you remember about each individual game, good or bad, still stands. If you're a returning fan, rest easy: these games remain mostly unmolested. They're still the classics you fell in love with. If you're new, yeah, some of the design might feel outdated (some of these are over 30 years old, after all), but they absolutely still hold up and are worth playing today.

The quality-of-life features are a welcome addition, auto-retargeting, XP/gil boosters? Lots of very welcome time-saving functions here.

But the real reason I’m writing this review? The remastered OST. Good god! These orchestrations SLAP harder than Will Smith! The team turned already great chip tunes into full-blown symphonic masterpieces. Final Fantasy II was a huge surprise, the new arrangement for Pandemonium castle blew my friggin' socks off! And when it comes to FFIV’s already iconic SNES soundtrack, the new arrangements take it to another level. They preserve the spirit of the originals while elevating them to new heights.

Buy it for the music alone. Everything else is just bonus material.

It's not bad. Characters seem more interesting than the first, As with the 1st game, again, soundtrack is the best part...lol. Revivification...that song is dope. Other things have been improved such as combat. And as with the first, some annoyances but you'll live.

This game is understandably viewed as something of a black sheep in the early FF roster. It's a bit grim and miserable in its tone, and the systems behind everything are kind of obtuse, but if you can get into it, it's a pretty fun release. This is easily my favorite release of this title.

Very interesting game in the series. Most notable the leveling system consisting of using certain weapons and spells to level individually. Although interesting and unique this put me in a panic at the start of the game because I was unsure what builds i wanted to go with so i grind'ed all weapons and local spells to five before starting progress with all 3 characters. This put me so far ahead the rest of the game i was OP and the base 3 characters were never killed my entire journey i killed everything with such ease because the way i started this game creating a big imbalance making every boss 2-4 regular hit kills. I would recommend not grinding at all in this game and having builds thought out before starting the journey. overall great story and fun game don't overthink there leveling system.

Different from the rest of the series but once you get your head around the skill system you have a solid RPG here.

This is the best final fantasy only beaten by 12 and 8 please go buy and play final fantasy 8

Not a bad game at all, people just don't know how to play these games anymore, still, not the strongest entry in the series due to trying to reinvent a box which hadn't even realized it was a box. Still goated, 8/10

pretty good game but, it wouldn't be half as fun without the ability to turn off encounters in the boost menu.

If you played FF2 when it came out, or any of it's re-releases, this is the one you want to get. They fixed pretty much everything. This version has given you complete control. You can increase your exp gain, gil gain, etc.
There are so many cool new features that just add to the game instead of make it worse like most remakes.
These Pixel Remasters are actually worth the money, especially when they are on sale lol.

FF2's been one of the games I haven't really tried out till now. It's a really fun game I think. It's neat seeing how ambitious it was and thinking about how concepts it tried pulling off would be done in more elaborate fashions further on in the series. And said concepts are handled pretty decently for a famicom game I think. Some aren't handled as well. But it's a very engaging experience.

I think the most pleasant surprise for me though is the leveling system. It's rather divisive and having tried out I can see why. You do have to take time to plan out what you want to be training on each character and you do need to stick to those plans but that's rather fun I think. And the changes that the various remasters, including this one, have made to the growth rates has ironed out the biggest issues the system has. I haven't really had to stop to make a dedicated grind once, save for a time when I needed some gil for an airship ride. Outside of that I've simply been planning out what I want to train and I get to training that as I go about my exploration. The encounter rate helps sort everything out in terms of xp gains.

On the note of encounters, the encounter rate is fairly high which can be a bit annoying in some of the dungeons. It's not surprising given the era it's from and it is important to ensuring you have a properly leveled party. But it is fairly high and that might annoy some.

I think my biggest problem with the game though is the screen flash effect on critical hits. Especially when you have the autobattle on this makes me dizzy at times. There is apparently a mod that removes it, so if you're photosensitive to any degree perhaps go and seek that out.

But yeah those things aside, FF2's a fun game and the pixel remaster's a really good way of playing it.

A Step Forward in Story, A Mixed Bag in Gameplay

Just like Final Fantasy I, I’ve played multiple remakes of this game over the years, and while it’s still a pretty basic JRPG by today’s standards, it somewhat holds up and remains enjoyable.

One area where Final Fantasy II improves over its predecessor is the story. There’s more character development, a stronger narrative, and some truly memorable moments that set the stage for later Final Fantasy games. The addition of named party members with actual personalities makes the journey feel more engaging compared to the blank slate characters of Final Fantasy I.

However, the gameplay systems are where it stumbles for me. The stat growth system, which replaces traditional leveling, is an interesting idea but ends up feeling clunky and inconsistent. Sometimes it works well, other times it just feels like you're fighting against the mechanics. It’s certainly unique, but I can see why later games abandoned this approach.

That said, the Pixel Remaster does a great job of updating the visuals and music, just like with Final Fantasy I. The soundtrack is fantastic, and the quality-of-life improvements such as auto-battle, makes the experience smoother than older versions.

Overall, while Final Fantasy II’s gameplay isn’t as solid as some later entries, it’s still worth playing for the story and historical value. If you can get past the odd leveling system, there’s still a fun and engaging RPG underneath.

I missed a missable chest and had to play this twice because I wasn't expecting missable content, but it was absolutely worth it to see the princess seduction scene twice. I laughed my head off at that with the swan lake reference and I found the rest of the game to be equally enjoyable, despite getting the worst rng. But if you want to 100%, you should check a walkthrough for the missable stuff.

it's like ff1, story is confusing as hell so you have to use a guide to know what to do but the fighting has improved a lot

I enjoyed FFII, although I'm not sure which I prefer between this and FFI.

The Good:
- It had more depth than FFI, and had good upgrades/improvements from FFI.
- Main characters are more developed.
- Even the side characters had good (albeit sad) stories.
- Pixel Graphics looks clean
- Did not experience any major bugs
- Easy 100%

The Bad: (bit of a SPOILER)
- I didn't like that the 4th party member kept changing. (didn't feel worth investing any EXP or equipment into them, and I generally just spammed through their turns)
- Leon was...okay?
- The spell system changes weren't needed, in my opinion (never felt worth investing in max level for any spells, besides the achievement)
- The ending was a bit anti climatic.

Overall, though, still a good FF title. Excited to try FFIII next :)

Absolutely amazing follow-up to the first game and easily one of the best of the mainline entries in my opinion. There were genuinely moments that had me shocked or feeling sorrowful despite having been through quite a sizable bit of the game before outside of steam. The soundtrack, both classic and the rearranged, are nothing short of perfect for each scene and area. The combat, which is what many harp on the game for, can definitely come off as annoying for some. I, however, am not one of those people and, hot take here, the combat is peak. I see often people saying you need to grind weird ways to get through it, with things like attacking oneself. I never have had to do such in any version of this game, especially not with this one. You can easily beat it at level 10 equipment with a bit of strategy. If anything I'd say don't over-level unless that's really your thing lol. I also adore Firion's look and feel the setting and sprites do Amano's gorgeous artworks justice. We even get the introduction to Dragoons, one of my favorite classes in the series. The way this depicts war in such a grotesque and brutal way, without having to show a drop of blood or anything overly horrofic or edgy. Even the moral ambiguity of certain characters, and the resolution to it all took me quite off guard. It's absolutely stunning and I can't believe it's not higher on other people's lists. For me tho? Easily top tier

I would recommend this game! More of what nr. 1 did good, plus some great development in the RPG sides of things.

Don't.
Simply don't.
I've 100% this one and it hurt my enjoyment beyond comprehension. Unexplained gameplay mechanics that are vital to gameplay, horrible quest placements and unenjoyable gameplay. I probably will never play this game again.
Two good things came out of this game and it's the soundtrack and the Learn/Ask Dialogue Options.

If you want to play NES Final Fantasy Games, go with 1 or 3, this one is not it.

A game that was among the first to sport per-weapon skill systems and having to use particular skill types to boost stats. Unfortunately being one of the first also means it's one of the worst..

I liked this game a lot, I was playing the GBA version but I am not able to play it anymore so I bought this version. For me, the game is an improvement over FFI in a lot of ways: First, there is a story (unless the first game, which just told you you were the chosen one to defeat evil and that was it), the prescence of an actual story made the game a lot more enjoyable for me even though it's a very simple one.

I really liked the new leveling system where you level up different skills by using them instead of leveling up all of your stats at once. I do think you need to grind at the start (If you want a recommendation, at the start of the game you will be prompted to take a boat to a city, but you can go by foot and level up with the encounters on the way, which makes it seem like you are just traveling instead of grinding) to get decent MP for the first dungeons but apart from that, the game doesn't really require too much grinding if you are well equiped and manage your resources correctly.

One problem I do have with this leveling system is the spells: You can get basic elemental spells at the start and those are likely the ones you will level up the most. By the time you get the "powerful" spells, they will be level 1 unlike your other spells which makes them kind of useless unless you take the time to grind them to level 6-8, which I didn't do. I didn't need to to this either, your basic elemental spells stay powerful bur it is a shame that the powerful spells don¿'t have higher damage for level 1 or dont start at a higher level already.

On the difficulty side, I did grind at the start to get decent MP, which made me a bit overpowered for the early game, but by the time I reached the wyvern cave, the difficulty catches up and it never really gets too hard. The encounter rate is high so you will be constantly getting higher stats which makes you strong for the next difficulty spike, so for me the game stayed not too easy but not too hard for most of the experience.

You can get really overpowered in this game if you get the attack buff spells and the secret weapons, which i did get since I was following a guide, so the end game bosses were quite easy, but the game stil was really fun all along. The encounter rate does get annoying after a while but you can turn off encounters at any point when fou feel like it so the game never annoyed me too much.

From what I've seen the fanbase doesn't really like this game, the leveling system allows you to customize your characters to make any build you like but people don't like it because it's too grindy. I think the system has some flaws, but it is still enjoyable and I wish they would have expanded on it instead of scrapping it and going back to the FFI job system for FFIII. I think the SaGa games are spiritual successors to FFII, using its leveling system and such, so I will be looking forward to playing them too.

Overall, you have to take into account that this is an old game, so you will have to deal wich high encounter rates and a lackluster story, but I would reccomend it if you like RPGs since this one doesn't take that long to beat (took me about 15 hours, so short for an rpg). The battles aren't anything groundbreaking, but it's still good old fun turn based combat if you're craving that.

I know this is considered one of the worst FF games but I think the story is fantastic and don't mind the weirder level system.

not much interesting and enemies appear too much often which is just annoying

Love Final Fantasy of every type. But I can't recommend this game to anyone but the most dedicated FF fans.
The levelling system was trying something new, but just creates a horrific grind. I found it challenging to know where to go next or how to get there. Actually needed walk through help a lot to complete.

Story is pretty decent, combat scales very aggressively,
Cool feature that you can basically use every weapon and every spell with every character. Dual wield is a fun feature as well.

But overall my least favourite FF ever made (even worse than Type 0)

Update after 100% completion.
Missable enemies, areas, and key terms make the game super frustrating for completionists. However the quality of life things like auto run - turning encounters off - and 4x boost made my second play through super fast and really just a labour of frustration Because I missed 1 monster, 1 area, and one key term.
I can recommend this game with a grain of salt and the understanding of what you're getting yourself into. I still rate the game very low on my list of FF titles. But the remaster did such a good job creating better QoL things, That I've changed my opinion.

This was a really fun entry to the old-school Final Fantasy series! I enjoyed it for a lot of reasons:

-The story lays a lot of foundations for the one found later in FFIV ... a LOT of foundations! There are a lot of story-beats and set-pieces that will feel incredibly familiar to those who played the first SNES entry in the series. And I don't mean that in a bad way! It's fun to see where those sorts of things come from.

-The combat and magic system can be a bit grindy, especially when you get into the upper levels of advancement. But the Pixel Remaster has ways to help alleviate that. I spent maybe 4-5 hours just wandering around in the early parts of the game building up my weapon and magic skills, and for the rest of the game my party was very overpowered.

-The world feels a bit small, but it is fun to explore how the continents and oceans wrap around to the other side of the map to allow you to reach places you wouldn't otherwise be able to.

-The party consists of three main characters who never really leave the party, along with a 4th party member that changes throughout the story. That combines well with the way weapon and magic skills progress to allow for some interesting customization especially later in the game.

If you're into the Final Fantasy series and want to experience an enjoyable and easy JRPG, give this one a shot!

A Great Remaster of a Disappointing Game

I dislike FF2 for the same reasons many reviewers have identified. That said, I commend Square Enix for their commitment to making this a faithful remaster, and what a remaster it is! The new pixel art is beautiful, the orchestration is tear-jerking, and the QoL features help mitigate the original game's frustration without ruining its gameplay vision.

However, I would have appreciated the ability to reorganize my inventory and spell menus. Also, there are permanently missable chests, bestiary entries, and passwords that could have been fixed if the developers had thought to include a means of revisiting destroyed dungeons or previous npc conversations.

My review of the FF1 soundtrack is equally applicable to FF2, so I won't repeat it. Instead, I will end by saying:
"Imperial Army", "Dungeon", and "Battle Theme B" are the only tracks in the series so far that I disliked, but they were enhanced the best they could, given the source material...which is a prefect metaphor for how I feel about this game as a whole.

Pure nostalgia, the boosts help a lot!! Not the best story, but managable!

It was fun to play through, although probably the weakest Final Fantasy

Soothing game with some good wonder/lost travels.

Gay and boring, the first one was better and didn't have a bunch of missable cheevos. BTW all of the cheevos are a slog fest and require you to use a guide, therefore negating them entirely. I say don't bother with this one unless you absolutely must complete all FF games.

Disappointing

The classic Final Fantasy titles are always fascinating to check out. Do keep in mind that even remastered Final Fantasy II is an old and weird game and this is the original Japanese Final Fantasy II, not the title originally released internationally as Final Fantasy II (for that, check out Final Fantasy IV). The game's plot is more like the outline of a daring adventure, and the gameplay is quirky as heck.

If you appreciate older RPGs though, I can't recommend it enough. Because of some interesting design decisions the game us unlike the rest of the franchise and each play through can be wildly different. Aesthetically the Pixel Remaster might be the definitive version of the game as well. Unlike some of the other remasters there's no strange sequences that look worse than the original hardware versions, and the artistry of the original pixel art is respected in almost every corner of the game. In terms of play and mechanics, it's more of a toss up depending on your preferences but I feel the Pixel Remaster is a quality edition of this title.

This game doesn't deserve the hate it gets. This is the best version, so try it for yourself. This game is more than what it's cracked up to be, yet still has some age to it. It's game play and story are still very simple but more engaging than the first final fantasy. Please try it out and make your own opinions about it if you like this series.

The black sheep of the Final Fantasy franchise isn't a black sheep at all.

Sure, it is one of the weaker games in the series, if not THE weakest, but that doesn't make Final Fantasy II bad. The weird leveling system is extremely random and unsatisfying and the constant rotation of your fourth party member sucks. But apart from that, Final Fantasy II isn't much different from any other classic Final Fantasy game and I still enjoyed it quite a lot. On top, it is one of the very few (if not the only if i remember correctly) Final Fantasy game where I didn't have to look at a walkthrough at least once or twice in order to find out how to progress.

So yeah, my only advice is to not use this as an entry point into the Final Fantasy series (or JRPGS in general) because of the obnoxious leveling system. Apart from that it's a perfectly fine JRPG that is almost just as good as any other classic Final Fantasy game.
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FINAL FANTASY II
Genre: RPG
Release: Q3 2021

( ) 0/8 Simply one of the worst games ever made. Don't waste any money on this.
( ) 1/8 Bad. Seriously flawed with barely any redeeming qualities. Worth a couple of Cents at best, if at all.
( ) 2/8 Sub-par. Only for hardcore-fans of respective genre / series. Don't pay more than 5 bucks.
( ) 3/8 Meh-diocre. It‘s okay. Don't pay more than 10 bucks.
( ) 4/8 Decent, but not for everybody. Don't pay more than 15 bucks.
(X) 5/8 Good game, Must-play for genre- / series-fans. Worth 20 to 25 bucks max, if you are not a fan.
( ) 6/8 Great game, universal recommendation. 30 bucks would be a steal for this.
( ) 7/8 Outstanding game, a milestone of it‘s respective genre. Definitely worth its full prize.
( ) 8/8 Simply one of the best games ever made. Get this, the prize doesn't matter.

This game is awful. The story is meh even compared to things that came out around the same time. The progression is confusing with so much random miss-able side content. There're whole areas that are entirely pointless that you can miss. Weapons are pointless except for swords because unarmed damage is just that strong and swords are only saved because the 3 strongest weapons are swords. Magic while great when you can take advantage of enemy weaknesses, but because every single spell has its own level they wont keep up with enemies as you progress through the game. The fact most armor and weapons harm the magic makes magic feel worse. Further harming magic is the fact the when you target every enemy that the damage is extremely low, so low it would be faster to use the single target level 1 version of the spell to take out every enemy. Status spell don't work on most bosses so there's little to reason to level them up. Magic that buffs players has 2 spells that are great, but i couldn't tell you if there was any other buffing spells. The cure and life spell are very useful as healing spells almost always are, but the status cure spells never seemed to work for me no matter how I used them. I can see why this wasn't originally released out side of Japan.

Your 6th favorite achievement hunter,
Puffy

After 100% the game, I can say this is a nice little experience. The story is fun and the leveling is good, allowing you to chose your own path on how you want to build your team.

Fun game. Clear improvement over FF1. Good level mechanics, story and characters. Had a good time with it though without quest markers sometimes you can still be lost. But i guess adventuring around is part of the experience. Would recommend.

IDK if this version is massively rebalanced, but this game is much better than its reputation would indicate. It also has some amazingly ahead of it's time ideas.

This is a great game, one of my favorites of the series. I remember playing this game on Gameboy, and was a blast. Unfortunately though, there's no soul rebirth storyline added to this game, for those who've played the Gameboy version.

I think this game over all is pretty good. The story is a step up from the first final fantasy game, and i was actually interested in completing the game. It is hard to remember where you are going if you stop playing for a while so I recommend if you are going to play this game then just focus on this. Every main character has a starting bias, but stats level up based on events taken in battle. I am not a fan of the magic system in this game. It is cool that anyone can learn any spell, but to level up spells you have to repeatedly use them and they also become more expensive to use. The MP scaling on magic is linear and every spell costs MP equal to its level, which makes some spells way over powered and some not worth using at all. Music is really good too!!!

Good Game, Better than the first.
This one felt edgier, Characters were dying; in a good way.

Best FF game if you want to level a spell to godly strengths
Worst FF game for Empty "trap rooms"

Firion and Guy are good characters aswell

Just as my FF1 review this version is bare bones and has too many issues for me to recommend it.

First off, these games are over priced. Do not pay more than $10 for any of them. This will likely be the last PR I play for a while until they drop the prices to match console's ($10 base price each), or go on a big enough sale

The 80px movement speed stutter is still prominent and will likely never be fixed bcuz Squenix is being Squenix. It's unfortunate I had to put up with it since the PRModTool doesn't work in FF2

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All achievements!

Final Fantasy 2 was a massive improvement over Final Fantasy 1. Immediately had better pixel art, better story, better world, better OST (IMO), more overall content, etc

It was actually more story driven and immersive than the first. More cutscenes and dialogue. Actual characters that don't feel (as much) like they're just pixels with 2-4 preset dialogue boxes with poor writing

It was very annoying having 3 permanent party members the entire game. Having to reload a save just to take gear off the temporary party members, and lose a lot of progress. Or all the new members being significantly weaker than my main 3

The leveling system was very.. Unique.. I've never played a JRPG with a system like this before. This is hopefully the only time I have to deal with something like that. The leveling process got a bit confusing in end game, but I managed to figure it out with help. I'll stick with just basic lv99 caps, tyvm

There were no classes, either.. But it was nice. White mage wasn't present. Anybody could use any weapon and spell. While that's neat, it felt too overwhelming. I just stuck with basic and breezed thru this game. It was also a very easy game, much easier than FF1. Final Boss wasn't challenging in the slightest. TBF, most of my characters were at 9,999HP

The enemies felt lack-luster, despite having the name amount in the first game. I just kept killing the same ones errywhere until post-Mysidian Tower

Just like FF1, there was no objective list. I needed a guide to find out where I needed to go next. NPCs also got in the way, but it wasn't as bad as in the first game, where they literally block your path

It was nice making more use of my SN30 Pro SE in this game. No better way to play this game than on a SNES con!

6/10 - It's different... somewhat.

Final Fantasy 2 continues with a lot of the first game has established, with some things missing, and other changes that make for a very different, yet very samey experience. Although a lot of the times playing this game seems very similar to the first game, some changes such as the removal of jobs/classes and the addition of leveling up weapon and magic skills have a very big impact, very divisive. The bigger effort in storytelling was very appreciated.

This game has some major differences from the original formula, but at this point, with all the iterations, it's not the most different Final Fantasy game out there.

Jumped right into this one after my first FF1 play through, and there are definitely some differences that have me feeling a bit mixed. The most obvious has to be the leveling of skills instead of leveling your character overall, which was weird in the beginning but I found it easy to get used to (even though I don't completely understand how is works yet lol). And while I like the inclusion of more doors in dungeons, its super annoying that they lead to empty rooms a lot.

Other than that the story seems entertaining enough, and overall I find it a bit underrated.

👍

LOL, this game is unplayable without a walkthrough. It's wildly outdated, even compared to FF1 in Pixel Remaster form. The dungeon design, the design of the narrative in general, is so full of contempt for anyone who decides to play this game that you're going to wonder if "fun" is what's taking place, or mere catharsis after completing tasks that feel miserable...once you actually figure out what to do. This game is exceptionally user unfriendly.

TOO MANY BUGS!!
As much as i enjoy this game, the GBA or PSP ports actually seem better. This is a remaster of the original NES game and it still does very well at being that. The characters other than the main 4 had portraits in their text boxes in the GBA/PSP port and the enemies design was a lot better.
As old as this remaster is I still run into glitches, some of which will crash the game. after flying the airship its shadow will follow you until you reset the game. Auto save is nice due to the glitches crashing the game. Sometimes I have to reset my PC when trying to open the game because it crashes on open. These glitches should be fixed since its been out for so long but the devs are lazy and wont fix it.
To conclude. Just get the GBA/PSP roms of the 1st through 6th game. They worked a little harder on those.

4/10 overall
this game felt like a slog to play i did not like how half the enemies had so much defense the majority of the time was hitting for 0 dmg.
- Gameplay and the weapon system kinda sucked and was not fun to get through at all
- The story was really good and a great step up from one in almost every way and i really enjoyed the characters in it!
-trying to 100% made me dread the game but atleast it was super pretty to look at!

The leveling for weapon skills and magics can be confusing. it is somewhat grindy too.. but it is fun to some people once you get used too.

It is refreshing to try another leveling system aside level systems sometime.