It's great story progression and Gameplay is tamped by it's tedious Leveling system.
Game Title: Final Fantasy II
Platform: Famicom (NES)
Developer: Square
Publisher: Square
Genre: Fantasy Role Playing Game
Age Rating: Suitable for Ages 13 and Over
Release Date: December 17th 1987
Fan-Translation: Neo Demiforce August 17th 1998
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Game Score: 6.0/10
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Summery:
It's great story progression and Gameplay is tamped by it's tedious Leveling system.
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Back in the SNES days people in North America remember Final Fantasy II when that game was chronically it was the 4th game in the series. The real second game when it was released on the Famicom in Japan never made it outside. Neo Demiforce was kindly enough to show us what the real Final Fantasy II installment looked like for people to play on their Emulators. Should you enjoy the plot that's well delivered and captivating but the Leveling system will take all the fun out of it.
At the beginning 4 Heroes flee from their Hometown when an Evil Empire takes over and later become Left for Dead until 3 are revived but one of the heroes remains missing. It's up to the 3 Heroes to join together with an alliance, reunite with their missing ally and stop the Empire before they conquer the world. The storyline may mirror some sources from Star Wars Episode 4 A New Hope but what the plot delivers mostly is by plot progression. As you progress through the story you be able to advance the storyline through memorizing Keywords or by using a Key-item. You can try every Keyword or Key-item which leads to amounts of trial and error.
Final Fantasy II's Gameplay design is similar to the first game on the NES if you remember playing it, there's a massive over-world with friendly Towns to visit, Dungeons where you'll fight monsters and take down a big guy at the end and getting a Key Item that's needed to advance the plot. Towns serve as resting points where you heal up your party, Equipment stores to buy better gear, Magic stores to buy spells and Item stores for supplies. For an 80s RPG it's difficult to sort out Equipment because there's no telling which Equipment is stronger and also Shields don't boost up your Defense power but instead help Block against some attacks. Each Town has their own set of Magic Spells for your party to use and each Character can hold up to 16 Spells making you decide which spells are the most useful. When traveling you'll start out on foot for the most part but eventually you'll get methods of transportation including one way Airship by a man named Cid and Boat Rides. Later on you'll be able to catch yourself a Chocobo which helps get traveling easier with no Random encounters, a Canoe to cross the river and your own Boat. While traveling you'll be expected to run into encounters at an extreme frequency since sometimes it takes about nearly 5 and up to 10 steps before you enter a battle and when traveling through long Dungeons this becomes tedious but at least it helps for the amount of grinding that is required in order to advance. Dungeons are straight forward but pathways lead to Treasure Chests or to doors leading to dead ends with Random Encounters which can by annoying. The game will mostly take around 60+ hours to complete the game with the amount of grinding that maybe required if the enemies get more tougher but are you going to have fun even grinding.
The battle system in Final Fantasy II is the same as the first one if you've played the original Title on the NES. It's turn based allowing your party members and monsters to have turns to attack each other. What hasn't been addressed in this game is the annoying "Ineffective attack" message where if one of your allies kills an enemy before the other can take a shot at him then his attacks or his Magic Spell or Item he's using will be wasted on a blank space. The battles remain engaging but your main problem besides how frequent they can be is the Leveling system which is different compared to other RPG's. Instead of EXP Levels you got individual Leveling stats that you'll be Leveling separately. These stats range from HP, MP, Strength, Endurance, Evasion Weapon and Magic skills and so on. The problem with the system is that to boost these attributes up you'll need to get damaged often to raise HP, keep using melee to raise what ever weapon skill or their physical strength, using Magic spells to raise your MP, Intelligence and Soul. This consumes alot of time and effort to even get anywhere in boosting much of these stats and you'll be doing plenty of grinding in battles just so you can make any advancement. Using Items in the game is a chore unlike in the 1st game, in your pack you can only carry a certain amount of Items and Items cannot stack up and buying extra recovery items for example can fill up your pack really quickly and this becomes a problem later on if enemies drop items that perhaps might be useful or not. Overall the battles can be entertaining but however tedious Leveling System ultimately takes all the fun and enjoyment away from the Game-play.
Final Fantasy II looks indeed similar to the first game with some recycled sprites but they still look great and the scenery looks impressive for 8-Bit, but the battlefield has improved by removing the boarders from the first game to provide a well open combat window with characters still standing on a black field with a background on top. Monster design including palette-swapped enemies are well drawn and look quite nice. The soundtrack is very well done with solid tunes during each situation that's happening making the production values quite well done.
Final Fantasy II's Storyline and production values does very well in-which it's game-play could not deliver most importantly. It's Leveling system will only impress some hardcore players who are wiling to put up with it by finding ways to cheat the system but it's a Fantasy game that story-time is what makes the game shine. Download the English patch for the game on Google somewhere if challenge and patience are one of your things, but otherwise your time is spent elsewhere since It's great story progression and Gameplay is tamped by it's tedious Leveling system.
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The Pros:
1. A well delivered and captivating storyline with Keywords to memorize and Keywords to get
2. Graphics and scenery improved from the first game Soundtrack is well done
The Bads:
1. The stat Leveling system is tedious and ultimately becomes boring after a while
2. Item sorting and usage is a chore
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (BlaZer91)
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