A remaster of Final Fantasy II
The original Final Fantasy II comes to life with completely new graphics and audio! A remodeled 2D take on the second game in the world-renowned Final Fantasy series! Enjoy the timeless story told through charming retro graphics.
Also in series
Reviews View More
Even the enhancements made by the pixel remaster couldn’t save this game from being incredibly boring to sit through. I appreciate the attempt at telling a deeper story than its predecessor but even that aged horribly due to all of its limitations and still pretty basic storytelling. The general structure is also pretty annoying since it devolves into “go there, do this, return here” over and over again, making me realise once again how timeless the mostly intuitive progression of its predecessor is.
Essa é a prova de que ser ousado tem um preço alto. Esse jogo tinha muito potencial mas acabou sendo um dos piores se não o pior de toda a franquia principal
[heavy sigh] somehow Palpatine the Emperor has return
When I was playing this game, one of my friends put it best. FFII is a game of “in theory...”. The devs of FFII swung hard and built a system based around levelling up your stats and skills based on what you do and use in battles. In one sentence, that doesn’t sound terrible, but in practice it’s a bit all over the place. Your characters level fast, becoming quickly powerful with high stats, as your fourth party member rotates in and out and nearly always plays a very distant fourth fiddle to your three main party members. The later characters you get join with okay stats in theory, but their weak HP, MP, and spell lists mean they have a hell of a lot of catching up to do to the point where it’s not really practical to consider them. All spells you get also start at level 1, so spells you get later in the game take effort to bring up to speed.
And that’s fine, I don’t mind an easy game, but it’s just a bit too overtuned. The encounter rate is cranked up very high and the dungeon design is rough, with many maze-like designs and dead-end rooms in practically every dungeon designed only to waste your time. The enemy encounters and bestiary are also quite odd, with tons of repeated monsters everywhere with lots of midgame enemies far overstaying their welcome. I do quite like the Key Terms system, at the very least.
Overall, it’s fine. I didn’t really hate it, but I found it very grindy (which I suppose is kind of the point) and was far too easy to really have great payoff for what I had to put into it.
And that’s fine, I don’t mind an easy game, but it’s just a bit too overtuned. The encounter rate is cranked up very high and the dungeon design is rough, with many maze-like designs and dead-end rooms in practically every dungeon designed only to waste your time. The enemy encounters and bestiary are also quite odd, with tons of repeated monsters everywhere with lots of midgame enemies far overstaying their welcome. I do quite like the Key Terms system, at the very least.
Overall, it’s fine. I didn’t really hate it, but I found it very grindy (which I suppose is kind of the point) and was far too easy to really have great payoff for what I had to put into it.
The story gets a little less basic than the first game but is still pretty mediocre.
The system of leveling up by using different weapons is lousy.
The system of leveling up by using different weapons is lousy.
This review contains spoilers
Story -
100% step up from 1 but still pretty lacking none of the characters have a clearly defined motive no backstory for anyone. but there is still something there which is alot more than what ff1 had
Art/Graphics-
Amazing looking sprite work as ff1 had but it I did notice it did more with effects helping sell those grand changes on the map like the castle Changing into pandemonium or the cyclone were really cool
Gameplay-
Sadly a step down from ff1 I found the magic system extremely unintuitive making it more of a chore to level up your spells and finding i didn't even need them except for the odd enemy that resisted psychical attacks, it disappointed me considering how much i enjoyed the magic system of the first game. The dungeons were also a huge downgrade none of the charm the first game had all blending together inside my brain even while i was playing same goes for the bosses maybe minus the emperor who I think was way better than garland. all of the bosses in this have no personality or uniqueness which I feel also stems from the fact they are the easiest fights in this game I found myself having more trouble with the fights i got from random chests than from the story bosses of this game. if I were to give one compliment to the gameplay aspect of FF2 it has to be the weapons system which I thoroughly enjoyed having more freedom to build your character as you choose.
World-
So so so so good definitely the highlight of this game seeing the world changing as story events happened was so cool it really gave it a better sense of scope like there really is a war going on and how these attacks were effecting people and leaving there mark of the terrain and peoples. also chocobo forest
100% step up from 1 but still pretty lacking none of the characters have a clearly defined motive no backstory for anyone. but there is still something there which is alot more than what ff1 had
Art/Graphics-
Amazing looking sprite work as ff1 had but it I did notice it did more with effects helping sell those grand changes on the map like the castle Changing into pandemonium or the cyclone were really cool
Gameplay-
Sadly a step down from ff1 I found the magic system extremely unintuitive making it more of a chore to level up your spells and finding i didn't even need them except for the odd enemy that resisted psychical attacks, it disappointed me considering how much i enjoyed the magic system of the first game. The dungeons were also a huge downgrade none of the charm the first game had all blending together inside my brain even while i was playing same goes for the bosses maybe minus the emperor who I think was way better than garland. all of the bosses in this have no personality or uniqueness which I feel also stems from the fact they are the easiest fights in this game I found myself having more trouble with the fights i got from random chests than from the story bosses of this game. if I were to give one compliment to the gameplay aspect of FF2 it has to be the weapons system which I thoroughly enjoyed having more freedom to build your character as you choose.
World-
So so so so good definitely the highlight of this game seeing the world changing as story events happened was so cool it really gave it a better sense of scope like there really is a war going on and how these attacks were effecting people and leaving there mark of the terrain and peoples. also chocobo forest