Hello everyone, I'm new to this forum. I was a big fan of Final Fantasy games when I was younger, although for the most part I have lost interest in them as I have grown older. However, the reverse of this is true for Final Fantasy II.
I was first introduced to Final Fantasy II in the Final Fantasy Origins Package for PSX back in 2003. I was 11 years old at the time and found the games difficult, to say the least. Final Fantasy I was interesting but I found it somewhat boring because there wasn't a whole lot to it. You have 6 classes, all of which are extremely poorly balanced (2 fighter, red mage, white mage or 3x fighter and white mage are the strongest parties). A ton of the items are useless or never worth using, etc. Some of that is understandable, I can assume they had very limited resources with which to do testing. I could go on but I don't want to be off-topic, so I'll get to why I like Final Fantasy II so much.
What makes Final Fantasy II so excellent? Well the first time I played the game I thought it was really hard, almost too hard. I had the strategy guide for Final Fantasy Origins so I knew where to go and what to do, and a general idea of how to do it, but I found that my spells seemed to level too slowly and once I got to Deist I was never able to complete the dungeon because the double Hill Gigas encounters would just kill my party every time.
When I saw they had re-released it for GBA, I was ecstatic, as I had not beaten either game and was thrilled it would now let you save inside dungeons (my parents didn't let me play for more than about 90 minutes at a time and that just wasn't enough to get through some of the dungeons). I steamrolled through Final Fantasy II Dawn of Souls thanks to the reduced difficulty, but after I finished the game I continued playing just to level up my characters more. I can't say enough how much I love the leveling system in Final Fantasy II. I think it stomps every other system in any Final Fantasy I've played with the possible exceptions of VII (materia was so cool) and X (the sphere grid was pretty neat, but I haven't played it in so long I might be having the rose-tinted glasses effect).
Having now beaten the game once on NES, ~8 times on PSX (origins), twice on GBA (Dawn of Souls), and once on PSP, here are my thoughts on the different versions.
The NES version is hard. Magic progresses about the same as it does in Origins, but in Origins weapons progressed much faster than magic. In the NES version weapons progress at the same pace as magic. Accuracy is reduced from Origins as well, so even if a character has the same weapon skill, he will hit fewer attacks and just do all-around less damage. However, I find with this reduced rate of progression that the difficulty of the game remains satisfying throughout the entire experience. In Origins and especially the GBA and PSP versions, the characters progress so fast the difficulty quickly becomes trivial; the game becomes an exercise in holding down the x button and waiting for your party to beat everything to death.
There are a few bugs, I found a pretty cool one with the Black Robe (and presumably any other item that raises stats). If you have a character with over 90 Int, and equip the +10 int chest, it caps at 99. However, if you have exactly 90 and equip the item, your Int becomes A0, A being the hexadecimal placeholder for 10, so it becomes 100!! Kinda cool if you are a super nerd like me.
The PSX version, Origins, is my favorite, although I do wish the melee attacks hadn't been buffed. Magic feels weak and sluggish most of the time in comparison, because Magic received no changes. I love the graphics and sound, the music is excellent, everything about it feels terrific. My only complaint is the difficulty... It's too easy!!!! None of the bosses ever felt like a challenge, with or without the blood swords.
The GBA and PSP versions I didn't play much once I got the PSX version again, even with the incredibly improved graphics the PSP version has to offer, the trivial (if I can even call it that) difficulty causes me to lose interest sometime between the ice cave and the Dreadnaught.
Ultimately, this game does have its flaws, but once you put this game into context they are much less irksome. The amount of memory an NES cartridge could hold was miniscule. The largest cartridges ever manufactured had a capacity of 1 MB. FFII's ROM file is...257 KB. I'm frankly amazed at what they were able to do with it. I have always wished there was more content that could justify actually maxing out your stats (I've always wanted to get a character with 16 in all weapons, all magic slots and see what level 16 Ultima can do.... =) ).
Also, a last word:
None of the reviews I've read on this forum have mentioned it, so I can only assume people didn't realize or something (its not a big secret, its mentioned in all the guides). Final Fantasy II was the first Final Fantasy with CHOCOBOS!!!! And the Chocobo theme too!!
I'll edit this post later to add pictures of my game complete saves so you know I'm for real.
I was first introduced to Final Fantasy II in the Final Fantasy Origins Package for PSX back in 2003. I was 11 years old at the time and found the games difficult, to say the least. Final Fantasy I was interesting but I found it somewhat boring because there wasn't a whole lot to it. You have 6 classes, all of which are extremely poorly balanced (2 fighter, red mage, white mage or 3x fighter and white mage are the strongest parties). A ton of the items are useless or never worth using, etc. Some of that is understandable, I can assume they had very limited resources with which to do testing. I could go on but I don't want to be off-topic, so I'll get to why I like Final Fantasy II so much.
What makes Final Fantasy II so excellent? Well the first time I played the game I thought it was really hard, almost too hard. I had the strategy guide for Final Fantasy Origins so I knew where to go and what to do, and a general idea of how to do it, but I found that my spells seemed to level too slowly and once I got to Deist I was never able to complete the dungeon because the double Hill Gigas encounters would just kill my party every time.
When I saw they had re-released it for GBA, I was ecstatic, as I had not beaten either game and was thrilled it would now let you save inside dungeons (my parents didn't let me play for more than about 90 minutes at a time and that just wasn't enough to get through some of the dungeons). I steamrolled through Final Fantasy II Dawn of Souls thanks to the reduced difficulty, but after I finished the game I continued playing just to level up my characters more. I can't say enough how much I love the leveling system in Final Fantasy II. I think it stomps every other system in any Final Fantasy I've played with the possible exceptions of VII (materia was so cool) and X (the sphere grid was pretty neat, but I haven't played it in so long I might be having the rose-tinted glasses effect).
Having now beaten the game once on NES, ~8 times on PSX (origins), twice on GBA (Dawn of Souls), and once on PSP, here are my thoughts on the different versions.
The NES version is hard. Magic progresses about the same as it does in Origins, but in Origins weapons progressed much faster than magic. In the NES version weapons progress at the same pace as magic. Accuracy is reduced from Origins as well, so even if a character has the same weapon skill, he will hit fewer attacks and just do all-around less damage. However, I find with this reduced rate of progression that the difficulty of the game remains satisfying throughout the entire experience. In Origins and especially the GBA and PSP versions, the characters progress so fast the difficulty quickly becomes trivial; the game becomes an exercise in holding down the x button and waiting for your party to beat everything to death.
There are a few bugs, I found a pretty cool one with the Black Robe (and presumably any other item that raises stats). If you have a character with over 90 Int, and equip the +10 int chest, it caps at 99. However, if you have exactly 90 and equip the item, your Int becomes A0, A being the hexadecimal placeholder for 10, so it becomes 100!! Kinda cool if you are a super nerd like me.
The PSX version, Origins, is my favorite, although I do wish the melee attacks hadn't been buffed. Magic feels weak and sluggish most of the time in comparison, because Magic received no changes. I love the graphics and sound, the music is excellent, everything about it feels terrific. My only complaint is the difficulty... It's too easy!!!! None of the bosses ever felt like a challenge, with or without the blood swords.
The GBA and PSP versions I didn't play much once I got the PSX version again, even with the incredibly improved graphics the PSP version has to offer, the trivial (if I can even call it that) difficulty causes me to lose interest sometime between the ice cave and the Dreadnaught.
Ultimately, this game does have its flaws, but once you put this game into context they are much less irksome. The amount of memory an NES cartridge could hold was miniscule. The largest cartridges ever manufactured had a capacity of 1 MB. FFII's ROM file is...257 KB. I'm frankly amazed at what they were able to do with it. I have always wished there was more content that could justify actually maxing out your stats (I've always wanted to get a character with 16 in all weapons, all magic slots and see what level 16 Ultima can do.... =) ).
Also, a last word:
None of the reviews I've read on this forum have mentioned it, so I can only assume people didn't realize or something (its not a big secret, its mentioned in all the guides). Final Fantasy II was the first Final Fantasy with CHOCOBOS!!!! And the Chocobo theme too!!
I'll edit this post later to add pictures of my game complete saves so you know I'm for real.
