Final Fantasy II (Nintendo, 1988)

RELEASE DATE (Japan-only): 12/17/1988

Basic Story (from Wikipedia): "The story concerns the adventures of four youngsters from the kingdom of Fynn named Firion, Maria, Guy and Leon. Their parents are killed during an invasion by the army of the emperor of Palamecia, who has summoned forth demons in his quest to dominate the world.

Fleeing the emperor's monsters, the four are attacked and left to die. Firion, Maria, and Guy are rescued by Princess Hilda of Fynn, who has established a rebel base in the nearby town of Altair. Eager to prove their value to the resistance movement, the three remaining youths undertake a variety of missions against Palamecia and join forces with a variety of allies not only to defeat the Emperor, but to locate Maria's missing brother Leon as well. Eventually, the quest is finished by the four reuniting and walking into the very pits of Hell itself to save the world."

On a basic level, "Final Fantasy II," the real sequel to the original 1987 "Final Fantasy," is somewhat of a let-down. While it uses a very similar graphics engine as the first game, some improvements have been made (mainly to character sprites, enemy sprites, and in towns/castles/dungeons to make its overall appearance better (but not much to the overworld). However, some of the bugs that made the original game somewhat "unplayable" have been passed down. For example, if more than one character target the same monster and one of them kills it, when the other characters attack, they will essentially attack the empty space, returning a message that their attack was "Ineffective" (wasting their turn and any magic they may have used).

Moreover, the game does not have a leveling system like the other games in the series. Rather, HP and MP is based on a "need" system and skill points are based on a usage system. This creates a new sort of bug. Players can attack themselves, greatly reducing HP, to make the game "think" they "need" more HP. Likewise, if they attack/cancel over and over again a certain number of times (which increases per skill level gained) the game will increase their weapon skill. Also, this works for casting/cancelling specific spells, which will increase from Fire to Fire 2, 3, 4, etc.

This makes the game far easier than it should be if players take advantage of this bug.

While the story is far more detailed than "Final Fantasy" (dialogue is no longer limited to simply one text box per person and players can "learn" key words from people and repeat them to others to learn more information), there seems to have been much more that could have been put into the game before its release.

In the end, I enjoyed the game, but not as much as I could have (the re-releases were better, having fixed the "Ineffective" attack bug).

Thus, I give this game a 3/5, or "average" score.