it's about time i finally played the REAL Final Fantasy II. you know, i don't think i knew anything about FFII going into it. i knew the basic story beats of FFI, i had seen some of the bosses and recognized some of the names from FFIV, i knew about the Phantom Train in FFVI, but i didn't even recognize the main characters of FFII. then i remembered, oh yeah, Final Fantasy had that whole localization fiasco where half of the early games weren't released in America for some arcane reason. when i was watching videos about Final Fantasy before truly delving into the series, i had heard that II was often considered the worst Final Fantasy, and i was somewhat curious as to why people might say that. after playing it i can sort of understand where people are coming from, but i also think that those people aren't giving this game enough credit. hell, even i was inclined to agree with them when doing my first attempt, i felt that the game was too hard and i ran into a stone wall at a certain point because the enemies were just too difficult. however, after giving the game a second chance and fully completing it this time, i can confidently say that Final Fantasy II deserves way more credit than what it gets, and that more people need to give it a chance. also, to be clear, i did my original attempt on the PSP version of the game, while my most recent complete playthrough was done on the GBA version. i believe these versions are mostly the same, however they do differ from the original Famicom version in a lot of ways.

at a glance, you may be inclined to believe that FFI and FFII are pretty similar. in the Famicom version of FFII, they reuse a lot of the sprites and character graphics from the first game, and it looks to play almost exactly the same. however, FFII shakes things up in so many ways that aren't immediately apparent, and that can even be traced back to the main protagonists. unlike Final Fantasy I, FFII's main heroes are well defined, named characters with personalities, speaking roles, and even face portraits to give them more of an identity. while FFI had you come up with your own little group of heroes, deciding on which classes they would have, what names you'd give them, maybe come up with little stories about them in your head, FFII has a more robust and substantial story to tell. our four heroes are Firion, a young swordsman with a desire to make things right and save those he cares about, Maria, a woman who acts as a mediator between her party and anyone who starts a conflict with them, Guy, a total meathead who is dumb as rocks and very phyiscally capable, and Leon, a bad-boy lone-wolf type of guy who tries to keep his emotions locked away to everyone but those he trusts. sure, they're not the most original personalities, but this was a huge step up from the completely silent and disconnected protagonists of FFI. now, i did like that about FFI, don't get me wrong, but i think this is also a nice change of pace coming right off of that game. in fact, i would say the writing is a huge step up from the first game. i don't think i could tell you a single named character from FFI besides like, my main party and Garland, while FFII is introducing new faces left and right, each with their own personalities, motives, ideals, relationships... not to mention, the actual story at play here is absolutely an upgrade over the first game. before, you were pretty much just told "go find the crystals" and that was that, but FFII tells the story of an evil emperor who rises to power, taking control of many cities and people, killing anyone who stands in his way, and overall just being one evil motherfucker. sure, there was something evil afoot in FFI, but the consequences of their actions was rarely noticable. FFII's Emperor has more of an impact on the world around you, maybe he'll station troops somewhere, casting fear and danger over a town, or maybe he'll come by and attack a village, destroying it right before your eyes. a lot of characters die in FFII, people you meet, get to know, have as party members, fight alongside in battle, all taken by the hands of the Emperor. he has a real presence in the story and impact on the world you explore, and i find that so impressive for a game of this time. not to mention, FFII has a LOT of cutscenes, which feels so unheard of coming off of the first game. they especially went ham with these in the GBA version, where they did more cinematic stuff with things like the entrance to the Cyclone dungeon and the launch of the Dreadnought. it's some really killer stuff, i love it.

it's not just in writing where this game diverges from its predacessor, it's also the gameplay. this is the most divisive part about the game, and it's certainly different from your typical RPG setup. here's the kicker: no EXP, no levelling up. instead, the way your characters get stronger is by gaining, well, REAL experience. lemme try to explain that better... so, let's say Firion has a sword equipped, and he attacks with that sword. once the battle is over, he'll get a couple of points towards his sword proficiency. or let's say Maria casts the Fire spell, that means she'll get points towards upgrading Fire. simple enough, right? well what about for your other stats, like defense or HP? that's where things get a little more complex. so, let's say you're in a battle, and Firion takes damage. then, at the end of the fight, if Firion took enough damage, his max HP and defense will increase, since that's what was affected in battle. this works the same for spells, the more spells you cast, the more max MP you get, as well as getting points towards that spell levelling up. in simpler terms, your characters don't have one overarching number for their level, instead having individual levels for each of their skills that need to be utilized in order for them to grow. on one hand, this is a really creative and immersive way to let you shape your characters. if Firion has only been using swords up to this point and you give him a really powerful bow, of course he's not gonna do more damage with it, he doesn't know how to shoot it. it also allows you to customize your characters more than the first game did, since any character can technically use any weapon. on the other hand, however, it DEFINITELY has some flaws and is easily exploited if you know what you're doing. i didn't say an enemy has to damage you to level up your defense, i just said you need to take damage. factor in the fact that you're allowed to attack your own party members in this game, and you can see where i'm going with this. amusingly, the most efficient way to grind in FFII is to have your party encounter a low level, menial enemy, then have them hit each other over and over again to upgrade their stats. or, so i'm told, at least... i never got this, i tried it a couple times but it never felt like it was changing anything, so i just quit. this also causes a lot of issues when it comes to the matter of spells. you see, it's all well and good to have your spells be weak in the beginning of the game, and this ends up working mostly fine. as you use your spells more they eventually get stronger, that makes sense. however, what if you get a new spell really late in the game, such as, oh, i don't know, Ultima, a spell you gain access to extremely late into the story and is a large part of the plot. it's supposedly the ultimate spell, being sealed away for centuries due to its awesome power. however, when you teach it to a party member, you'll find that it's pathetically weak, because it's still just level 1. you need to grind to get it to be strong, and this makes learning new spells feel like such a waste of time. i recommend getting some good attacking spells really early on and just leaning on those throughout the whole game. magic gets heavily outclassed in the late game by physical attacks, so it doesn't even feel worth it to learn Ultima, you might as well just use the tome as an item in combat instead of using it to teach to a party member permanently, since at least using the tome uses a higher level version of the spell it casts. at the very least, MP cost directly correlates to spell level, so it's not like you're using a lot of resources when you're getting a spell up to snuff, but they're usually so pathetically weak that it barely matters. the only level 1 spells that feel worth using other than to level them up are buffing spells, such as Hate and Berserk, and Life, whose level only affects the amount of HP someone is revived with, making it a cheap revival tool outside of combat.

because of this whole "investing time in levelling up certain attributes" mechanic, if you aren't aware of how it works and what you should be doing to level up your stats, the game can very quickly spike in difficulty. if you've been using mostly physical attacks and only pulling out magic when necessary, your spells won't be strong enough to effectively deal with monsters that resist phyiscal attacks. if you've been dumping a lot of effort into one weapon type, only to find that it's ineffective against a certain enemy, it's not gonna be easy to pivot to another weapon type, since your weapon level for that type is going to be lacking. you very much have to be aware of what's going on for things to go your way, and that's exactly why i struggled so much in my first playthrough. if you want my recommendation, have Firion use swords and a handful of attack and buffing spells, have Maria use bows and give her most of your support magic, and have Guy run barehanded and with little to no spells at all. the game starts Guy off with an Axe equipped, but this is a DIRTY TRICK, do not fall for its lies. going barehanded may seem weak at first, but it very quickly becomes more powerful than most other weapons in the game, and as an added bonus you don't need to spend money on weapons for Guy. as for Leon, well... let's talk about party members, shall we?

just because you get to name Leon at the beginning of the game doesn't mean he's gonna be your fourth party member the whole time. very early on he gets taken away from you, and over the course of the story that fourth party slot is going to get shuffled around a lot. you'll have allies like Minwu, a very powerful white mage who can carry you through most of the early game with his healing spells, Josef, a monk-type who fights barehanded, Gordon, a pathetic loser who deals no damage and does jack shit basically every time he's in your party, and Leila, a badass pirate lady with a mean Thunder spell and a pension for brandishing knives. here's the issue with a lot of these temporary party members, though: they're temporary. we just got done talking about how making characters good in this game requires a lot of commitment, and here's the game saddling us up with people for only one or two dungeons before they dip. not to mention, a lot of them don't come armed with any spells, so unless they're already physically capable (which they usually are not) they're gonna have a hard time contributing anything to the team. the only temporary party members i felt were any good were Minwu, since he's intentionally made to be a lot stronger than you so you have someone to fall back on in the early game, and Leila, who is the only party member besides Minwu to come with a spell that already has a few levels on it. not to mention, she also has a few levels in her knife weapon level, and not long after getting her do you find the Orichalcum knife, an extremely strong weapon that she can dish damage out with very well. you might also be wondering, well hey, what about Leon, when does he join the party? and to that i say, great question! he joins you for the final two dungeons and that's basically it. i will give Leon credit, he dishes out a FUCK ton of physical damage. he uses Axes, which are already the weapon type with the most base damage, and on top of that he also dual wields them, giving him two attacks per turn instead of just one. however, he still comes with no spells, and he keels over if someone looks at him funny. you just have to hope enemies don't target him, else you'll be using a chunk of MP to bring him back to life. and good lord, speaking of those last two dungeons, they sure were something. not nearly as bad as something like the Void from FFV, but it was enough to get me feeling impatient and annoyed. enemies come in huuuuge packs in these early FF games, and it can make battle feel like such a slog when they drag on and on. AOE magic is usually so pathetic that it's just better to use your physical attacks, meaning that you have to pick off every enemy one by one, and these guys can be really spongey sometimes. not only that, but they can really dish out some mean amounts of damage, and some of them even have a drain effect on their normal attack, meaning they get passive healing just by hitting you. you know what else has that property? THE FINAL FUCKING BOSS OF THE GAME. he also resists every attack type in the game with the exception of the Ultima, Flare, and Holy spells, all three of which are extremely lategame spells that you will have had no time to naturally level up before getting to this fight. when i tried this fight for the first time i was dealing maybe 200 damage max per attack, and then he would occasionally hit me with his normal attack, healing back all of the damage i'd done while also taking out a party member. it felt like a truly sisyphean task, i wanted to tear my eyes out. luckily, there's a way to cheese him using Leon and the Blood Sword, a very unassuming weapon that you probably would never think about outside of this battle. i don't exactly know how it works, but due to the way the Blood Sword uniquely calculates damage, it deals upwards of 5000 damage when equipped to Leon, so all you gotta do is smack the Emperor with it three times and bam, the fight's over. now, is this cheap? no, hell no, did you just read how i described this boss?? i'll take whatever i can get man, that's bullshit.

i know this review got kind of negative near the end, but don't let that sour your view of FFII. despite its shortcomings, i still loved my time with it, and enjoyed so much of what it had to offer. it feels super fresh coming hot off the first game, and if you're willing to put up with some of its problems, i think it is absolutely worth your time.