I just beat FFII! Here is my review.

[Scarlet]

There were a few threads that were made recently beating a Final Fantasy game. I've created a thread where you can post about your review on the game.

If you have beaten Final Fantasy II for the first time...Please post your Final Fantasy I reviews here.

If you beat Final Fantasy II already and still want to write a review, then go ahead.

[liamvtaylor]

love the storyline with the emperer taking over your home town and it takes like the whole game to get it back and with leon ending up bein bad kinda then join ya agen yeh great game!!!

[Bambi]

Please put more effort in your posts, this is for REVIEWS

[Dark Paladin Danny]

I like it, I messed up with my training the first time (Making everyone more or less rd mages and useless <_>), but the second time I have more focused training training taking heed of natural stat growth (Knight for Firion, Maria a Black Mage and Guy, interestingly, a White Mage, whodathunk?)
I must complain though, the last boss isn;t so much hard as LOOOOONG, it takes for him to die and he can barely damage you

-Mod edit-

Please put more effort in your post as this thread is for reviews which generally go into quite alot more detail, thank you

[Superman]

Well I literally just beat FFII so here is MY review

Story wise I found this game to be lacking, although I didn't expect too much of it seen as this is a very old game. Unlike FFI, FFII actually had characters with a slight back story, and I guess that fact caused me to expect more than what I got. Basically FFII's characters were as bland as FFI's except they had proper names and the party had a brother and sister in it.
As for the antagonist, he was pretty boring and quite forgettable to be quite honest. The player only got a chance to see him about three times in the game which made it quite hard to develop a genuine attachment to him.

The Leveling system took a little bit of getting used to initially. But was solid, the fact that you only leveled up what you used was interesting and I must say personally that I grew quite fond of it. One downside to this system was that leveling up magic became quite tedious after a while, I found myself entering random battles to kill all the monsters individually with Ultima and than cast Ultima on myself a few times before proceeding to kill the final enemy. In short leveling magic got boring!!

The Battle system was quite annoying as well, it was one of those systems where you would select the actions of all your characters and they would then perform these actions in an order which you didn't predict. This was quite annoying because at times I would end up wasting MP by curing someone who the enemy didn't decide to hit or I would end up casting a fire spell on an enemy who is resistent to fire. I would have much rather seen the ATB system in this game.

Although the story-line is quite boring in comparison to some of the later Final Fantasies it was enough to keep me interested and the Game play was fairly entertaining despite it's flaws so I'd give FFII a:

8/10

It was by no means the best FF I've played but it wasn't the worst thats for sure.

[1EnjoiPanda7]

Yeah i love final fantasy II and the fact that it came with final fantasy I in dawn of souls was a great idea. I liked final fantasy II better because the fact that if you say used fire spells you would increase your fire damage. I liked the experience by using method

[Dirges for Damcyan]

It was 1987, and the unthinkable had happened. Square had done it. Their last effort, hail mary had worked, and spawned a dynasty (although they could not know it at the time). Most within the company had probably not planned for this contingency -- so sure were they that their last game would spell the end of their company, that they had even entitled it: "Final Fantasy." But, beyond all odds the plan had worked: The game was successful; the company saved. And now, Sakaguchi and his friends were given new life, and began work on their next game, the ironically titled...

FINAL FANTASY II
Ego Laniatus

Story: People who play FFII directly after FFI always seem to comment on how much of an improvement the "story" is. What the hell people? FFI had a simple, understated story. (For more, see my FFI review). Sure it did not approach the epic level that later installments did, it worked. FFII falls into the trap that Square occasionally falls into: trying to do a lot when there is not much there to begin with. Sure, FFII starts off with some feeling: You are chased by hell knights from your burning hometown and knocked unconscious and left for dead. When you come to, one of your party members is mysteriously missing. Things just get better when the Queen sends you to recover a wounded partisan, and then later to get Mythril to make weapons for the rebellion. You actually feel like you have a stake in the story...like you are waging an epic war against a tyrannical emperor. However, the story soon grows trite...you realize that you are, in effect, an over-glorified errand boy, waiting on Princess Hilda's every whim: Firion go find Scott, Firion go get Mytrhil, Firion go get the Ice boat, Go get the Godess Bell, Go get the Sun Flame, Go blow up the Dreadnought, Go get me some Ice Cream, ad infinitum. Nothing is really different about any of these quests. Sure you get to go to a different part of the map, and there are some different enemies, but ultimately you crawl through a dungeoun, open doors leading to a million empty rooms, finally find the right one, fight a token miniboss, get the message saying that you got what you need, wash, rinse and repeat until the end. At some point, most gamers lose their stake in this game -- they no longer are pushed to finish, and those who do only do so as a point of pride. Yes, there is more in this game story-wise than there was in FFI, but it is not more of anything useful. D4D says: D

Character Development: Well, characters are a bit more developed in this game than they were in the first. The playable characters pretty much can be characterized as follows: Firion is a badass, Maria gets hit on, and Guy can talk to Beavers. However, many of the NPC's or partial PC's have very significant backgrounds that give the game flavor: Leila's spunk, Hilda's will, Gordon's transformation, and Paul's guile and skill just to name a few. Moreover, there are character moments in this game that can't help but touch you:

Spoiler!

Scott's death, Josef's Sacrifice, Minh Wu's sacrifice, the carpet bombing of the major cities, Cid's death, Ricard's death. And lets not forget that II did with Leon what IV did with Kain, only II had the courage to let Leon be motivated by ambition, rather than IV's more cautious brain-washing approach.

Ultimately, the game still is never really about character, but it is a start, and the small steps taken in II lay the foundation for the character driven epics later in the series. D4D says: B+

Bad Guys: Not bad, actually. I disliked the emperor in a way that I never disliked Garland. And the game gives you an opportunity to build up some pretty strong animosity to

Spoiler!

Leon

as well. There are some other alright bad guys: Borghen has the traitor thing going on and Lamia Queen almost gets the jump on you (a monster impersonating as royalty...another prelude to IV?) Like the characters of the game, there is not a LOT here, but it does break some new ground, and is a solid effort. D4D says: A-

Location, Location, Location: Good and bad. The bad: The cities are all virtually the same (save for maybe Salamando,) and you have access to virtually all the map very early on. Your eventual acquisition of the airship does not open up anything new to you, it merely hastens your travel. Additionally, many of the dungeouns are repetitive and bland. THe good: There are some rather innovative locations. I remember being very taken aback when I was sucked into Leviathan -- it was the first time since beginning the game that I had actually been excited by it. Additionally, the whirlwind was a cool idea, as was the mammoth dreadnought that you have to destroy from the inside (the Star Wars references in the game are considerable.) And the final dungeon IS a fortress taken straight from hell. However, marching up through all nine split levels of the Mysidian towers obliterates any feelings of the game that were TOO rosy. D4D says: B

Music: Stunning. It seems that virtually everything that Uematsu touches is gold. Particularly, the overworld music is a radical departure from that of FFI -- the former is hopeful and triumphant; the latter is morose, hopeless, and fitting for a world on the brink of total despotism. The Empire's theme too is autocratic and harsh, while the Rebel camp theme is defiant, and resilient. And the Pandemonium music is just eerie. Overall, this ranks slightly lower than FFI, as I did not enjoy the battle music as much. That is really the only fault that I can find with the music though. At least that much is consistent throughout the series: Great music. D4D says: A

Graphics: An improvement. The battle screen is no longer bifurcated. The dungeons now have colored floors and some texture. Firion is still the warrior sprite, but that is ok. The game has some innovative locations, as described above, and the graphics always respond with some pleasing aesthetics. The dreadnought is impressive, and it is fun to see Cid's airship zipping too and fro in the early game (I wish later games did more of this) and it is ominous to see it chased by the dreadnought later. The graphics are thusly much improved from the first game (probably due to increased capital) and would henceforth remain on the cutting edge. Plus, seeing everyone spontaneously break into dance is always welcome -- I thought that it only happened in Grease. D4D says: A

Gameplay: Terrible. The problems with this game have been documented ad naseum, so I will just touch on a few of the numerous failings. The leveling system is solid conceptually: You get stronger at the things that you do often, and weaker at the things that it logically opposes. Makes sense right? However, its poor implementation leaves you to attack yourself to raise your HP, waste MP to raise that, and attack and cancel so many times in battle that a random fight against four goblins takes you half an hour so you can level up. And then there are rooms, FFII loves rooms, four rooms right in a row...three of them empty with random battles inside. Funny how by just opening a door you are magially teleported 3 steps inside the room. It is nice being able to equip whatever weapon that you want, and to train in whatever magic that you want. However, it takes SOOO long to level things up, that you will end up sticking to whatever you happened to pick first, and magic in this game is all but useless (especially the magic for

Spoiler!

which Minh died

Ultima.) The keyword system is ok I suppose, but does not really do much. And the inability to remove key items, and the plethora of them that you get, (especially the worthless ring from the beginning) means that by games end half your inventory space is accounted for with items that do you no good. On paper, this game looks good, but SOMEBODY needed to realize that video games are not played on paper. D4D says: F

Ending:

Spoiler!

Forgettable. Good wins, evil loses, there is dancing to be had, and the ghosts of your dead friends smile at you from the great beyond (again, STAR WARS). Some credit is due to it though for laying some ground work. All of you FFIV fan boys who think that Kain's ending was EPIC need to pay some homage: Leon did it first. Still, after being tortured for two months with this tedious game, I expected something more: Maybe my own hell castle or lapdances from Hilda and Leila. ANYTHING. So, in the end, it was not a bad ending, but gamers deserve much more after what the game put them through.

D4D says: B-

Difficulty: Not so much difficult as it is mind-numbing. The proper amount and type of grinding in early game can set you up for an easy rest of the game. Even the final boss can be a pushover.

Spoiler!

Hint: USE THE BLOOD SWORD.

Unanswered Questions: None really. The game asks very few meaningful questions to begin with. You generally know exactly why you are going on your particular errand. This makes it all the more boring.

Lasting Impressions: Painful. The game makes serious improvements over its predecessor in terms of both graphics and character development, and the music is, as always, very strong. However, the game fails epically in terms of gameplay, and it is after all, a video game. This, and the fact that the story leaves much to be desired, hurts the games overall score. In my opinion, I think that FFI was a concerted, last ditch effort: It had purpose, and direction. FFII just comes off as a "now what..." effort, that was doomed to not live up to the standard set by its predecessor. It is still worth a play, just to say you did, as a sort gamers draconian right of passage. Thank God mine is over -- I shudder even thinking about having to play the GBA version in the near future. D4D says: C- (Could a FF game really score any lower?)

[ShadoeBlyson2]

The growth system was really well thought out. And the story....wasn't bad. Kinda unorginal. But overall a good game.