Final Fantasy II

I don't always review RPGs but when I do, I review them for quite a while. You better enjoy this ride, because it will be full of animated male characters that seem effeminate and female characters that would definitely kick their counterparts' asses. That was a huge buildup, but we're here on our second review of the Final Fantasy series. A lot has changed since the first one and I feel the developers at the time were experimenting with what they could do for their games. Final Fantasy 2 or maybe it is a taboo to use actual numbers instead of Roman numerals (Don't even know why they go by that unless they want to look fancy, if it does look fancy at all) ANYWAY, Final Fantasy 2 just like it's predecessor got released so many times I lost count, but thankfully I played it only once and beat it only once on the PSP version.

As opposed to the first game, Final Fantasy II actually does a lot of things that are right and is considered in my opinion a substantial upgrade in every aspect. I also love the artwork in the early final fantasies pre Tetsuya Nomura (Don't be hatin') more so because it really looks complex and sophisticated as opposed to flashy, spiky haired characters. When it comes to JRPGs, it became a standard for characters to not represent their gender and I got used to it early on to their effeminate male characters. Why would I mention this? Because I come from a culture that thrives on the masculine male role model, that perhaps a lot of fans or players would find it hard to relate to a character or be convinced by their actions. Moving on from that, Final Fantasy II actually has a story now even though it is not all that memorable to me.

Not only did this installment have a story, but it also surprised me of how emotional it could be, given it was still in its 2D form before the glorious transition of the series to 3D. From what I recall is that the game starts in a village attack by and your characters are saved by the queen to form a resistance group to fight against the emperor terrorizing the world. Firion, Guy (WHO CALLS A CHARACTER GUY, GUY?), Maria and Leon go through mythril caves and chocobo forests to endless towers of monsters and struggling characters that eventually saves the world from oblivion. The story still sounds cheesy simplistic, but it really surprised me how effective it was later on and the buildup was quite tense.

A wild chocobo has appeared! RIDE IT?

Final Fantasy II also started to feature certain staples in the series that later on become a pillar in the series and a trait that every player looks forward to including chocobos, a gigantic bird like creature that your character rides the same way a human rides a horse that eerily resemble the bird creature featured in Nausica of the Valley of the Wind if you are familiar with Miyazaki's movies of Studio Ghibli. Another staple in the series feature our friendly character called Cid that literally shows up in the series for the purpose of airship maintenance. I don't even know why or how the characters are so openly willing to accept him/her in their party since he always comes out of nowhere. I also liked how there is a whole keyword system in the game that introduces concepts and ideas exclusive to the setting and the world that are frequently mentioned in dialogue just in case a player is confused about something going on.

When it comes to gameplay, I was quite surprised for the spike of difficulty with Final Fantasy II. What I thought was a button mashing race in battles and free experience in the first game turned out to be quite the opposite in the second game. I am used to, for the most part to sift my way through battles with free XP only to have enough gold to upgrade my gear for the party, not in this game especially. Developers have experimented with Final Fantasy quite a bit, and this is one of their experiments where instead of gaining levels through Experience at the end of every battle and learning spells, characters upgrade their stats literally the more you use a certain stat. What does that mean, I wonder? It means exactly what it is which was disappointing to me and harsh at the time. The more you attack with swords, the stronger your character will be with swords and the more... he gets hit by a sword, the higher his defense would be. It sounds really challenging because it actually is.

To me, the earlier Final Fantasy installments were really harsh especially because not only do you have to spend a great deal of effort on powering up your characters but at times it felt forced because you won't have the right weapon for the right character and their builds would become fixed. The intention is good for offering great variety with your characters, but in my experience I was left with handicapped characters that needed 50 phoenix downs for them to stay alive in almost every dungeon and I'd fight every boss as if it was the final boss.

I suppose I wasn't entirely engaged in the battles in Final Fantasy II. It feels like any other but the skill system drew me back that I was aware of skipping a few fights not to mention the somewhat disengaging battle theme in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, Final Fantasy always featured good music but not in this one. I guess it is fair to say I favor some games in the series more than others and this is one of the games that I don't favor. This and the third Final Fantasy are the only ones that I admit to escaping from battles consistently for their difficulty. Regardless, it is worth going through at least once.

Very much like the first game, Final Fantasy II is released on many platforms.

Very much like the first one, This was not the only installment that came out for Final Fantasy II and these days you can also find almost on any platform. I recall in 2005 Final Fantasy 1 and 2 both came out on the same cartridge (Called Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls) and Final Fantasy 2 had a bonus dungeon. Not to mention the original bundle on Playstation. I don't need to mention you can also find it on the appstore and Google Play, but I just did. Looking forward to reviewing more challenging JRPGs as much as Final Fantasy II