FFII: Love it or hate it?

[Nigel St. Nigel]

If you had to pick, would you say you love the game, or hate the game? Explain the reasons why you feel this strongly about the game in this thread and share your opinions.

Please try and elaborate on your posts, as short spammy posts may be deleted without warning.

[BrianUrinal]

I went for love it! The original NES version is pretty inaccessible and I'm not crazy about the levelling system, but the PSP remake made for an epic play through with gorgeous graphics. The plot is a lot stronger than the original Final Fantasy with the party death count being higher than perhaps any other Final Fantasy to date, usually one character dies but in FFII the shit hits the fan and your characters are dying left, right and centre which for me was very exciting.

[Fleur]

FFII? I hate it. Out of the main FF games, I resent FFII the most mostly because the changes they made to the battle system from the first game may have sounded like genius on paper, but is an awful idea in practice.

To actually get my characters' stats up - I may have to attack my own party members just to raise things like stamina. To raise MP, I'll need to use up a lot of MP in a battle etc. It's a ridiculous system that isn't helped because the innkeeper seems to charge you Gil based on the difference between your current stats and your maximum stats. So inn trips can get expensive if you're desperately low on HP and MP. If you persevere by grinding, you can actually make the next 20 hours of the story too easy.

Plus - spells work similarly. If I want to improve "Raise", I'll need to wait for party members to die left right and centre to use it more and more. Without doing that, such spells aren't very effective. There was nothing worse than seeing "Raise" fail on one desperate occasion because it was only level 2.

As for the story - I didn't think much about it. It is better than the first game's story, but also primitive compared to similar stories such as FFVI's and FFXII's. The Emperor of Palamecia - generic with

Spoiler!

no motives other than raising an army of monsters from hell to conquer the world.

[Cecil Strife]

It was hard to decide becuase this game is pretty average to me.
I personally loved the leveling system, I felt like I could make my characters the way I wanted them from their weapons (Any charachter can equip anything) to their spells. The story line advanced a lot from FF1 were you ran aroud aimlessly to kill the 4 feinds to doing everything from blowing up airships to freeing slaves to rescuing a princess. Even though it was way to obvious who the dark night is, it had some villians that are the most feared in the series. For these reasons, I love the game.

[PhoenyxAngel]

I didn't exactly love the game, though that's the option I chose in the poll, but I didn't hate it either.

I rather liked the characters and the story was okay. I wasn't too fond of the remembering phrases and then having to repeat them to other people in order to progress the story. That would get on my nerves a few times.

But other than that the game is pretty good. It's not the best in the series but it doesn't deserve a lot of the hate it gets from some fans. Or at least in my opinion it doesn't deserve it.

[.Ted]

I understand why the game is hated (namely for the battle system). But seriously. What did you expect from a game created in the 90's? Perhaps the latest remake was barely different, but it's not like they were going to shoot for a XII battle system.

Anyway, it's one of my favorite FFs because it has one of the greatest villains: Emperor. I know that not much background was given on the Emperor other than being an evil tyrant, but at least you knew that he was the main bad guy from the beginning. Most people want a hero/villain relationship seen in FFVII, but I liked the very fact that the Emperor and Firion didn't have a relationship of ANY kind in the game.

Perhaps other villains resurrected in some way after being killed, but

Spoiler!

Emperor Mateus' is most impressive simply because he had the power of hell in his second incarnation.

[Oerba Yun Fang]

I don't think its awful, but I think it's the poorest in the series, including most spinoffs.
The leving system was godawful >.<

[PhoenyxAngel]

The leveling system took time for me to get used to. But it wasn't really that bad once you got the hang of it and understood how to level up strengths, magic, etc.

[Altair]

I cant really say either way. Good storyline. Good villian(for the time). Better storyline than the first. At least you knew that you needed to destroy the emperor. I played the DS version and the leveling still sucked.

[Shadow_3D]

Wow, only 10 votes?

I honestly didn't want to say I love or hate it ~ because I felt more like "I appreciate it".

First of all, the reason why I got the UMD for my PSP - was because of Final Fantasy Dissidia. I enjoyed playing a lot of the villains, and Emperor Mateus was one of my favorites.

He was power hungry, deceitful, sleazy, proud, vain etc... etc...
I love villains that can make me hate them. The Emperor had a lot of the traits of the classic evil power monger. And the desire to research, and find out what he did, to see him in action, is what prompted me to purchase the game.

I knew that the graphics, despite the improvements, and the gameplay formula was old. But I wanted to experience the game anyway just so I could appreciate the franchise even more.

I was very disappointed with a lot things, and I wouldn't actually recommend buying it. But if you're a die hard fan of the franchise, it wouldn't be so bad, and i think its worth a one time experience at least.