I wanted to like this game.
A narrative based, gameplay focused, dungeon crawler with a freeform leveling system, elaborate dungeon designs and interesting encounters? That sounds extremely like my type of game. It's a shame every single aspect of Final Fantasy 2 is built with seemingly player annoyance in mind.
For starters "narrative based" is being a generous term. Yes, there is an actual linear plot in FF2 compared to FF1 which was more freeform. However, while FF1 was effectively not interested in making a cohesive plot for the sake of player freedom and exploration, FF2 builds itself around defeating the evil empire, forsaking said exploration. Every event in FF2 is structured around moving a central plot. Your party is composed of 3 young adults who lost their families at the hands of the Empire, now joining the rebel forces in order to fight back. There is a sense of urgency and dread at the very beginning of the game that is exciting and tantalizing. You can feel the Empire's strength and how powerless you are. They bomb villages, they kidnap important npcs, they kill party members. It's all great stuff that helps you buy in into this world. However, as you progress through the game, this feeling runs dry. The narrative beats quickly become few and far between. You would spend anywhere between 1-2 hours in a dungeon, just to get 3 boxes of dialogue that moves the plot forward, before being sent back to another 1–2-hour dungeon. Ultimately it becomes another key item collector just like FF1, with much worse execution.
Let's talk about the dungeons since they are such a prevalent part of the game. When I say FF2 is a dungeon crawler, I really mean it. You will spend anywhere between 80-90% of the game neck deep in a dungeon somewhere. They are constant. It is so crazy that at certain points there are dungeons inside dungeons. And these are not modern jrpg dungeons which are essentially hallways with some side paths to explore; these are actual mazes. Traps and winding looping paths are everywhere. FF2 is more than happy to send you down elaborate multiple floor path that leads to a trap. Not even treasure, a trap. Some crazy paths do actually lead you to treasure...like a potion. On top of that, the enemy encounters are fairly difficult. The game loves throwing tricky enemy formations at you. You'll have classic formations of big tank + healer; or status inflictor + damage dealer. But later on, you'll have even crazier formations, including enemies that straight up one hit kills you or turn the party against each other. You need to always be on your guard and plan strategically cause some random encounters can very much cause a party wipe. Bosses are very difficult as well, coming from the philosophy of "there's only one way to defeat me and I'll provide no clues on what that is". These dungeons are downright devious. As an Etrian Odyssey fan, I love long elaborate dungeons with traps and difficult encounters, but the sheer volume of which FF2 comes at you is simply too much. I was already fatigued of it all by about the halfway point. By the time I reached pandeamonium, I was basically running away from every encounter just to be done with it.
The absolute worst thing about the game, however, is the encounter rate. The encounter rate is beyond absurd. It's worse than absurd, it's omnipresent. You cannot even breathe without triggering a random encounter. It completely drains and sours every aspect of the game, causing everything to be a test of patience. Want to explore the world? Have fun dealing with random mobs every 4-5 steps. Want to see what is at the end of that hallway in a dungeon? Just know that you'll have to fight at least 5 different encounters before you reach the end. It is just so freaking annoying. I dreaded every moment of the game because the encounter rate would simply never let up. It very much ruined the experience for me.
One last thing I'll mention is the leveling system. The infamous leveling system was about the only thing I knew of the game going in. I thought it was going to be this obtuse thing that I needed to spend dedicated time to learn so I can engage with it. But it ended up being totally natural? The system boils down to leveling up the stats that you use. So, if you use physical attacks, your strength will go up; if you use magic, your magic attack stat will go up. I ended up playing naturally and it never became an issue. This could be because I'm simply built different, but I anticipate that this was another case of the internet overreacting.
Ultimately, I appreciate FF2's ambition and what it was trying to achieve. It would have been a much safer option just to make a bigger FF1, but instead the team decided to make something expressly different. And while I enjoyed some of the ideas that was conveyed, I feel like this execution was more failure than success.
A narrative based, gameplay focused, dungeon crawler with a freeform leveling system, elaborate dungeon designs and interesting encounters? That sounds extremely like my type of game. It's a shame every single aspect of Final Fantasy 2 is built with seemingly player annoyance in mind.
For starters "narrative based" is being a generous term. Yes, there is an actual linear plot in FF2 compared to FF1 which was more freeform. However, while FF1 was effectively not interested in making a cohesive plot for the sake of player freedom and exploration, FF2 builds itself around defeating the evil empire, forsaking said exploration. Every event in FF2 is structured around moving a central plot. Your party is composed of 3 young adults who lost their families at the hands of the Empire, now joining the rebel forces in order to fight back. There is a sense of urgency and dread at the very beginning of the game that is exciting and tantalizing. You can feel the Empire's strength and how powerless you are. They bomb villages, they kidnap important npcs, they kill party members. It's all great stuff that helps you buy in into this world. However, as you progress through the game, this feeling runs dry. The narrative beats quickly become few and far between. You would spend anywhere between 1-2 hours in a dungeon, just to get 3 boxes of dialogue that moves the plot forward, before being sent back to another 1–2-hour dungeon. Ultimately it becomes another key item collector just like FF1, with much worse execution.
Let's talk about the dungeons since they are such a prevalent part of the game. When I say FF2 is a dungeon crawler, I really mean it. You will spend anywhere between 80-90% of the game neck deep in a dungeon somewhere. They are constant. It is so crazy that at certain points there are dungeons inside dungeons. And these are not modern jrpg dungeons which are essentially hallways with some side paths to explore; these are actual mazes. Traps and winding looping paths are everywhere. FF2 is more than happy to send you down elaborate multiple floor path that leads to a trap. Not even treasure, a trap. Some crazy paths do actually lead you to treasure...like a potion. On top of that, the enemy encounters are fairly difficult. The game loves throwing tricky enemy formations at you. You'll have classic formations of big tank + healer; or status inflictor + damage dealer. But later on, you'll have even crazier formations, including enemies that straight up one hit kills you or turn the party against each other. You need to always be on your guard and plan strategically cause some random encounters can very much cause a party wipe. Bosses are very difficult as well, coming from the philosophy of "there's only one way to defeat me and I'll provide no clues on what that is". These dungeons are downright devious. As an Etrian Odyssey fan, I love long elaborate dungeons with traps and difficult encounters, but the sheer volume of which FF2 comes at you is simply too much. I was already fatigued of it all by about the halfway point. By the time I reached pandeamonium, I was basically running away from every encounter just to be done with it.
The absolute worst thing about the game, however, is the encounter rate. The encounter rate is beyond absurd. It's worse than absurd, it's omnipresent. You cannot even breathe without triggering a random encounter. It completely drains and sours every aspect of the game, causing everything to be a test of patience. Want to explore the world? Have fun dealing with random mobs every 4-5 steps. Want to see what is at the end of that hallway in a dungeon? Just know that you'll have to fight at least 5 different encounters before you reach the end. It is just so freaking annoying. I dreaded every moment of the game because the encounter rate would simply never let up. It very much ruined the experience for me.
One last thing I'll mention is the leveling system. The infamous leveling system was about the only thing I knew of the game going in. I thought it was going to be this obtuse thing that I needed to spend dedicated time to learn so I can engage with it. But it ended up being totally natural? The system boils down to leveling up the stats that you use. So, if you use physical attacks, your strength will go up; if you use magic, your magic attack stat will go up. I ended up playing naturally and it never became an issue. This could be because I'm simply built different, but I anticipate that this was another case of the internet overreacting.
Ultimately, I appreciate FF2's ambition and what it was trying to achieve. It would have been a much safer option just to make a bigger FF1, but instead the team decided to make something expressly different. And while I enjoyed some of the ideas that was conveyed, I feel like this execution was more failure than success.