As contrasted against Final Fantasy 1....
Battle system for 1 and 2 is pretty much the same but with party formation changed slightly. In FF1 you line up your squad in a 1 - 4 order and the further they are from position 1 the less attacks they get hit by. To the best of my knowledge, FF2 doesn't retain this, using its front line and backline system instead to let the player control "aggro". Players on the backline will take half damage from melee but also deal half damage with melee. Ranged and spells ignore this. I slightly prefer FF2's method as I think it allows just a tad more agency since you can theoretically go all frontline, all backline or whatever combination you like in between whereas youre always going to have that 1 2 3 4 priority in 1. It's a pretty negligible advantage though and in general I found them pretty similar.
FF2 largely retains FF1's dungeon design- simplistic multifloor gauntlets with little to nothing in the way of exploration/puzzle mechanics but plenty of dead ends to exhaust the partys resources, exacerbated by "trap" tiles with particularly difficult sets of enemies and high encounter rate rooms (though the pixel remasters seem to have dropped the latter?)- while changing up its overworld design a bit. FF1 strongly regulates the players progression across the map with you largely proceeding to cities in a linear affair dictated by the items/power ups youve obtained. FF2 allows you to stumble into higher difficulty enemies almost right off the bat and rather than encountering its cities in a 1 by 1 manner, youll be exposed to most of them very early and go back and forth. Positives and negatives here- namely the world feels much more connected and theres more of a sense of a military campaign affecting the state of things but also more backtracking as a result. The one change FF2 does make to FF1's dungeon design- adding dead end rooms you have to load into rather than just having paths ending in the same map- is also a negative one. particularly since theyve dropped the high encounter rate aspect of them basically rendering them entirely useless lol.
speaking of the war campaign, the biggest difference between the two besides the level up system is probably how much more priority the story gets? not in terms of cutscene time or whatever (although that is increased) as you might worry about today, but theres an actual story here rather than the basic template ff1 offered. You can see a lot of the plot points that would come to define the series first show up here whether its rebels vs an oppressive empire with darker supernatural forces behind the scenes, ambiguous dark knight/judge/armored dudes, party members coming and going, heroic sacrifices, and even the series love of star wars here.
i guess the level up system, the other big deviation here, is the biggest point of controversy for the title. i played the game (and specifically the pixel remaster version) entirely straightforward, never once turning my own abilities on my party members or repeatedly entering/cancelling commands to game the system and level up quicker, and never grinding. the game is definitely more of a challenge than 1 but given that i was able to clear it playing like that and didn't find it too much trouble, id say you dont need to resort to any of the things ive always heard had to be done, at least in this specific version. i also think the added difficulty is in general a good thing, as FF1 kind of drops into autopilot after Marsh Cave's poison heavy assault all the way until its final boss who jolts players awake by actually demanding something of them after the preceding 10 - 20 hours have not.
i even felt like i had something to think about with character customization in this one thanks to the system, whereas ff1's very early form job system is a pretty linear affair. i decided early one what weapons each of my teammates would specialize in and made sure to tailor their gear to getting those skill levels, unlike ff1 and plenty of other rpgs where id throw the highest stat sheet value equipment on any teammate capable of wearing it with no regard for if they preferred swinging an axe or sword for example. white magic and black magic were similarly planned out early although I will say i think spells having levels on top of the magic stats is probably worse than just having characters level black magic/white magic comprehensively? (Case in point being that i received the "ultimate magic in existence" Ultima and proceeded to use it non stop till the end of the game but still didnt have it high leveled enough by the final boss to have it compete with the other things that character could do) Another perk was the system pushing me out of the "just have characters auto attack until a difficult encounter" loop you tend to get into in these games. youd try and figure out instead how many casts you could fit in before the next rest/resupply and cast all the way through clearing a dungeon as casting is how you level your characters magic abilities so you can't just sit on spells till a boss then use them. Similarly, it also kind of addresses the "healing magic only gets used out of battle" dilemma where making use of your limited actions in battle means not leveraging healing magic if possible and instead deferring them to post battle where you have effectively "infinite" actions via menu heals by tying your progression of your Spirit/healing stat to the use of healing magic in battles.
The one problem I will say i have with it is that i think its a mismatch with the rotating party members approach the series is trying for the first time here. You can plan out your focus for each of your permanent members but he changing party member slot can't be planned in advance. I like both these ideas separately but together its a poor fit.
The other big complaint I have about the game is that its encounter rate is just way too high, especially compared to 1, and that can bog things down. It's somewhat alleviated, however, by getting access to warp/teleport early for quicker dungeon exits, river encounters getting dropped, and more intercity/fast travel options being made available through Cid's air taxi, the boat rides, and the chocobo forest
Lastly, its obviously pure preference absent any kind of argument i can make, but, when comparing the pixel remaster versions at least, I found the FF2 OST a big step up. Really loved its battle track, preferred the overworld and just in general thought it had the stronger suite of tracks
Pleasantly surprised to end up preferring this one ever so slightly overall
Battle system for 1 and 2 is pretty much the same but with party formation changed slightly. In FF1 you line up your squad in a 1 - 4 order and the further they are from position 1 the less attacks they get hit by. To the best of my knowledge, FF2 doesn't retain this, using its front line and backline system instead to let the player control "aggro". Players on the backline will take half damage from melee but also deal half damage with melee. Ranged and spells ignore this. I slightly prefer FF2's method as I think it allows just a tad more agency since you can theoretically go all frontline, all backline or whatever combination you like in between whereas youre always going to have that 1 2 3 4 priority in 1. It's a pretty negligible advantage though and in general I found them pretty similar.
FF2 largely retains FF1's dungeon design- simplistic multifloor gauntlets with little to nothing in the way of exploration/puzzle mechanics but plenty of dead ends to exhaust the partys resources, exacerbated by "trap" tiles with particularly difficult sets of enemies and high encounter rate rooms (though the pixel remasters seem to have dropped the latter?)- while changing up its overworld design a bit. FF1 strongly regulates the players progression across the map with you largely proceeding to cities in a linear affair dictated by the items/power ups youve obtained. FF2 allows you to stumble into higher difficulty enemies almost right off the bat and rather than encountering its cities in a 1 by 1 manner, youll be exposed to most of them very early and go back and forth. Positives and negatives here- namely the world feels much more connected and theres more of a sense of a military campaign affecting the state of things but also more backtracking as a result. The one change FF2 does make to FF1's dungeon design- adding dead end rooms you have to load into rather than just having paths ending in the same map- is also a negative one. particularly since theyve dropped the high encounter rate aspect of them basically rendering them entirely useless lol.
speaking of the war campaign, the biggest difference between the two besides the level up system is probably how much more priority the story gets? not in terms of cutscene time or whatever (although that is increased) as you might worry about today, but theres an actual story here rather than the basic template ff1 offered. You can see a lot of the plot points that would come to define the series first show up here whether its rebels vs an oppressive empire with darker supernatural forces behind the scenes, ambiguous dark knight/judge/armored dudes, party members coming and going, heroic sacrifices, and even the series love of star wars here.
i guess the level up system, the other big deviation here, is the biggest point of controversy for the title. i played the game (and specifically the pixel remaster version) entirely straightforward, never once turning my own abilities on my party members or repeatedly entering/cancelling commands to game the system and level up quicker, and never grinding. the game is definitely more of a challenge than 1 but given that i was able to clear it playing like that and didn't find it too much trouble, id say you dont need to resort to any of the things ive always heard had to be done, at least in this specific version. i also think the added difficulty is in general a good thing, as FF1 kind of drops into autopilot after Marsh Cave's poison heavy assault all the way until its final boss who jolts players awake by actually demanding something of them after the preceding 10 - 20 hours have not.
i even felt like i had something to think about with character customization in this one thanks to the system, whereas ff1's very early form job system is a pretty linear affair. i decided early one what weapons each of my teammates would specialize in and made sure to tailor their gear to getting those skill levels, unlike ff1 and plenty of other rpgs where id throw the highest stat sheet value equipment on any teammate capable of wearing it with no regard for if they preferred swinging an axe or sword for example. white magic and black magic were similarly planned out early although I will say i think spells having levels on top of the magic stats is probably worse than just having characters level black magic/white magic comprehensively? (Case in point being that i received the "ultimate magic in existence" Ultima and proceeded to use it non stop till the end of the game but still didnt have it high leveled enough by the final boss to have it compete with the other things that character could do) Another perk was the system pushing me out of the "just have characters auto attack until a difficult encounter" loop you tend to get into in these games. youd try and figure out instead how many casts you could fit in before the next rest/resupply and cast all the way through clearing a dungeon as casting is how you level your characters magic abilities so you can't just sit on spells till a boss then use them. Similarly, it also kind of addresses the "healing magic only gets used out of battle" dilemma where making use of your limited actions in battle means not leveraging healing magic if possible and instead deferring them to post battle where you have effectively "infinite" actions via menu heals by tying your progression of your Spirit/healing stat to the use of healing magic in battles.
The one problem I will say i have with it is that i think its a mismatch with the rotating party members approach the series is trying for the first time here. You can plan out your focus for each of your permanent members but he changing party member slot can't be planned in advance. I like both these ideas separately but together its a poor fit.
The other big complaint I have about the game is that its encounter rate is just way too high, especially compared to 1, and that can bog things down. It's somewhat alleviated, however, by getting access to warp/teleport early for quicker dungeon exits, river encounters getting dropped, and more intercity/fast travel options being made available through Cid's air taxi, the boat rides, and the chocobo forest
Lastly, its obviously pure preference absent any kind of argument i can make, but, when comparing the pixel remaster versions at least, I found the FF2 OST a big step up. Really loved its battle track, preferred the overworld and just in general thought it had the stronger suite of tracks
Pleasantly surprised to end up preferring this one ever so slightly overall