An extremely misunderstood game, way ahead of it's time. I love the leveling system in this game, it makes you prioritize what you have and decide how to build your characters by making them capable at everything but grow to master specific weapons and spells, so it feels like the classes are naturally evolved into. My firion was a fierce dual-wielding rogue, a stalwart sword and shield knight, and a capable white mage with fire magic. Maria a bow and staff black mage, and Guy a two-handed axe berserker white mage.
It tells a lot of story with just stats of guest characters, short but memorable scenes, and a keyword system.
The dungeons are a bit lengthy, but the real issue is a lack of variety in both music tracks and enemy design. Too many designs get repeated over the encounters, and they're spread rather thin. There's also not enough downtime between dungeons. Towns are small (although a huge step-up in dialogue and flavor from the previous game), and as a result the gameplay is a little bit too tense too long with few breaks.
This is still my favorite of the original trilogy
It tells a lot of story with just stats of guest characters, short but memorable scenes, and a keyword system.
The dungeons are a bit lengthy, but the real issue is a lack of variety in both music tracks and enemy design. Too many designs get repeated over the encounters, and they're spread rather thin. There's also not enough downtime between dungeons. Towns are small (although a huge step-up in dialogue and flavor from the previous game), and as a result the gameplay is a little bit too tense too long with few breaks.
This is still my favorite of the original trilogy
4 Comments
thanks for your question! as a general heads up, the NES FF's are interesting beasts. They play more like tabletop rpgs with bits of story and lore and hints at larger movements in the world interlaced everywhere. They might come off very jarring to someone on first contact because those kinds of rpgs aren't too prevalent now, and if they are, they are usually western rpgs with tons more mechanics and open-ended approaches (not to say that NES FF's aren't open ended, they have a surprising amount of it)
Next, the NES FF games are completely different depending on which version you play, and I personally recommend sticking with the NES versions for the three as my personal favorites, but some of the other ones have more quality of life, usually at the cost of the original vision/experience. I know you didn't ask about this but I figured I'd just point it out below. Trust me, it will make sense later.
FF3: everything else that isn't NES doesn't feel like the original at all anymore, basically a whole new game
FF1: All versions after NES were bundled with ff2 on the same new engine and have a different battle calculation formula that makes the game kinda slow and makes everyone miss a lot more for some reason. All versions after PS1 (gba/psp) are greatly reduced in difficulty and bastardized magic system, to the point of making the game pointless and annoying. Keep in mind the original game is meant to be played in such a way that the dungeons are meant to be explored in multiple runs where you choose specific rooms you enter to get loot and get out before you die. Rinse and repeat until you've found the key item. The reduced difficulty kinda makes it a slog cause theres no danger forcing you to prioritize and make choices in the gameplay and in your builds so its just long treks with no respite.
FF2: The ps1 version and the psp version I believe are identical and differ from the NES in a lot of really interesting ways. They all share the same stat leveling system, but in the NES version stats can level down depending on actions you take. For example, using physical weapons has a percent chance of making magic (intellect) go down, although the percent chance is less than the chance of your strength going up. I believe this is further modified by the type of weapon you use, with daggers, staffs, and bows having a much smaller chance of magic going down. The ps1/psp version eliminated the stat decrease chances. This kind of takes away from the concept of characters naturally becoming their roles but also makes it more freeform.
Second, the original version had hidden modifiers on each weapon--
Before we understand this concept, a unique thing about FF1 was that armor would either increase your evasion or your defense. Heavy armor would make your defense increase at the cost of evasion, while light armor would do vice versa. The game would make you choose different armor builds depending on what you wanted, mages usually benefited more from evasion, but sometimes enemies would hit so hard a little defense wouldn't hurt. So you could go for a heavier chest piece, but get lightweight gloves. The lightest armor was no armor, if you want to gamble! FF2 took this concept and went balls-out with it. Not only does armor serve a duology of statistics in this manner, but how evasive you are affects how frequent a chance your agility might go up, making your character speedy and more likely to go first in turn order. While heavy armor would slow you down, make you tank hits, but would let you live at low health more frequently, increasing chances for your health and stamina to raise. The higher stamina, the bigger health increases you get. What this means is that when buying armor, you don't just go for the one with the biggest points. You prioritize based on your build. The game doesn't directly tell you about these kinds of increases, you have to kind of jump between equipment and status screens to see how it affects your characters current build and run with it for a while to see how it changes your growth in the long term. I believe most people who dismiss FF2 are not familiar or do not engage with these systems and miss out on what the game is trying to do.
Now, I brought that up to mention that a main difference between NES and psx/psp ff2 is that weapons in the original FF2 ALSO affect numerous things without telling you. Daggers make your chance of agility growth higher. Maces increase magic ability. Swords increase evasion (i think), etc. The fact that these modifications are hidden and on every single weapon means the game is trying to make you think conceptually what kind of weapon should i try out, and experiment and see how the game feels and how your characters respond to the builds you give them, beyond just what the stat points are telling you. The psx/psp versions got rid of these hidden mortifications.
I bring this up because it shows just what kind of a game ff2 is. It's really unique in that it wants you to consider the real weight and aspects of the material of the armor you equip. Leather armor is lighter than bronze, which is lighter than steel, but the lightest of the metals is silver. It wants you to look at a shop window and think about how heavy an armor you want, how much protection really, and then what kind of weapon would go well with it. It wants you to consider the equipment beyond the name and associated values it has by considering long term and short term changes it will cause in your playstyle. And then the plot will talk about financing the resistance army to have them access to the legendary mythril, which will help in the fight against the empire, who have been hogging mythril ore and blacksmiths to put others at an arms disadvantage! The gameplay's attention to equipment dynamics appears in the storytelling as well.
Furthermore, the psx version reduced monster strength, and the psp version reduced it even moreso above that. I would personally suggest to play the psp verison if you want to simply get a taste for the kind of game ff2 is, but play the nes version if you want to dive in to the more complicated and strategic version of the game.
No, the self-attacking is not necessary whatsoever. Not on any version of the game. In fact, the game punishes this later by introducing percent hp damaging enemies.
The way I play this game is just by experimenting and trying weapons and armor out based on available gold, and then swapping stuff out when I get new unexpected weapon types from dungeons. You can really do whatever you want, honestly, experimentation is the name of the game. The guest characters that join your party are meant to serve as ideas for the types of builds you can do potentially, one of the first you get is a guy that fights with his fists, to show you that you can get so good at unarmed combat that weapons actually make him worse.
I personally don't even pick roles or attempt traditional classes by focusing magic or a physical build or anything, I just do whatever and see what sticks.
I believe ff2 came out in america too late to be seen as the creative systems heavy game it is and too early in the midst of the FF7 induced plot-king era of the rpg renaissance. FF1 and 2 honestly have really cool stories, they're just not told with plots the way later rpgs are, but rather with dungeons, stats, difficulty, gameplay choices, npc dialogue, and world exploration. the types of games ff1 and 2 continued to stay popular in Japan, and the gameplay and battle designer, Akitoshi Kawazu, later went on to make the SaGa series, which kept the type of leveling system ff2 had and continued to expand on his experimentation, open ended style. His departure in ff3 shows the end of the evasion/defense dichotomy style of gameplay and more traditional ff combat we now know and the rise of the prebuilt class change style of game.
sorry for big comment but I hoped it helped without being too overbearing! try it out at your own pace :)
Next, the NES FF games are completely different depending on which version you play, and I personally recommend sticking with the NES versions for the three as my personal favorites, but some of the other ones have more quality of life, usually at the cost of the original vision/experience. I know you didn't ask about this but I figured I'd just point it out below. Trust me, it will make sense later.
FF3: everything else that isn't NES doesn't feel like the original at all anymore, basically a whole new game
FF1: All versions after NES were bundled with ff2 on the same new engine and have a different battle calculation formula that makes the game kinda slow and makes everyone miss a lot more for some reason. All versions after PS1 (gba/psp) are greatly reduced in difficulty and bastardized magic system, to the point of making the game pointless and annoying. Keep in mind the original game is meant to be played in such a way that the dungeons are meant to be explored in multiple runs where you choose specific rooms you enter to get loot and get out before you die. Rinse and repeat until you've found the key item. The reduced difficulty kinda makes it a slog cause theres no danger forcing you to prioritize and make choices in the gameplay and in your builds so its just long treks with no respite.
FF2: The ps1 version and the psp version I believe are identical and differ from the NES in a lot of really interesting ways. They all share the same stat leveling system, but in the NES version stats can level down depending on actions you take. For example, using physical weapons has a percent chance of making magic (intellect) go down, although the percent chance is less than the chance of your strength going up. I believe this is further modified by the type of weapon you use, with daggers, staffs, and bows having a much smaller chance of magic going down. The ps1/psp version eliminated the stat decrease chances. This kind of takes away from the concept of characters naturally becoming their roles but also makes it more freeform.
Second, the original version had hidden modifiers on each weapon--
Before we understand this concept, a unique thing about FF1 was that armor would either increase your evasion or your defense. Heavy armor would make your defense increase at the cost of evasion, while light armor would do vice versa. The game would make you choose different armor builds depending on what you wanted, mages usually benefited more from evasion, but sometimes enemies would hit so hard a little defense wouldn't hurt. So you could go for a heavier chest piece, but get lightweight gloves. The lightest armor was no armor, if you want to gamble! FF2 took this concept and went balls-out with it. Not only does armor serve a duology of statistics in this manner, but how evasive you are affects how frequent a chance your agility might go up, making your character speedy and more likely to go first in turn order. While heavy armor would slow you down, make you tank hits, but would let you live at low health more frequently, increasing chances for your health and stamina to raise. The higher stamina, the bigger health increases you get. What this means is that when buying armor, you don't just go for the one with the biggest points. You prioritize based on your build. The game doesn't directly tell you about these kinds of increases, you have to kind of jump between equipment and status screens to see how it affects your characters current build and run with it for a while to see how it changes your growth in the long term. I believe most people who dismiss FF2 are not familiar or do not engage with these systems and miss out on what the game is trying to do.
Now, I brought that up to mention that a main difference between NES and psx/psp ff2 is that weapons in the original FF2 ALSO affect numerous things without telling you. Daggers make your chance of agility growth higher. Maces increase magic ability. Swords increase evasion (i think), etc. The fact that these modifications are hidden and on every single weapon means the game is trying to make you think conceptually what kind of weapon should i try out, and experiment and see how the game feels and how your characters respond to the builds you give them, beyond just what the stat points are telling you. The psx/psp versions got rid of these hidden mortifications.
I bring this up because it shows just what kind of a game ff2 is. It's really unique in that it wants you to consider the real weight and aspects of the material of the armor you equip. Leather armor is lighter than bronze, which is lighter than steel, but the lightest of the metals is silver. It wants you to look at a shop window and think about how heavy an armor you want, how much protection really, and then what kind of weapon would go well with it. It wants you to consider the equipment beyond the name and associated values it has by considering long term and short term changes it will cause in your playstyle. And then the plot will talk about financing the resistance army to have them access to the legendary mythril, which will help in the fight against the empire, who have been hogging mythril ore and blacksmiths to put others at an arms disadvantage! The gameplay's attention to equipment dynamics appears in the storytelling as well.
Furthermore, the psx version reduced monster strength, and the psp version reduced it even moreso above that. I would personally suggest to play the psp verison if you want to simply get a taste for the kind of game ff2 is, but play the nes version if you want to dive in to the more complicated and strategic version of the game.
No, the self-attacking is not necessary whatsoever. Not on any version of the game. In fact, the game punishes this later by introducing percent hp damaging enemies.
The way I play this game is just by experimenting and trying weapons and armor out based on available gold, and then swapping stuff out when I get new unexpected weapon types from dungeons. You can really do whatever you want, honestly, experimentation is the name of the game. The guest characters that join your party are meant to serve as ideas for the types of builds you can do potentially, one of the first you get is a guy that fights with his fists, to show you that you can get so good at unarmed combat that weapons actually make him worse.
I personally don't even pick roles or attempt traditional classes by focusing magic or a physical build or anything, I just do whatever and see what sticks.
I believe ff2 came out in america too late to be seen as the creative systems heavy game it is and too early in the midst of the FF7 induced plot-king era of the rpg renaissance. FF1 and 2 honestly have really cool stories, they're just not told with plots the way later rpgs are, but rather with dungeons, stats, difficulty, gameplay choices, npc dialogue, and world exploration. the types of games ff1 and 2 continued to stay popular in Japan, and the gameplay and battle designer, Akitoshi Kawazu, later went on to make the SaGa series, which kept the type of leveling system ff2 had and continued to expand on his experimentation, open ended style. His departure in ff3 shows the end of the evasion/defense dichotomy style of gameplay and more traditional ff combat we now know and the rise of the prebuilt class change style of game.
sorry for big comment but I hoped it helped without being too overbearing! try it out at your own pace :)
Looks like I asked the right person! That was some excellent insight... I'll give the NES games a try, and maybe the PSP version for FF2. Thanks again for taking the time to answer my question and more, I'll be saving it to use as reference before I start playing the games.
This review and comment section have been an education. Thank you so much, dwardman! I hope more people looking to play the early FF games will comes across this and be able to use it as a resource.
TresLeches
2 years ago