And now for Part 2 of my recurring series in which I ambitiously try to play through every single game in the Final Fantasy franchise, from FF1 through FF13-2, with as many of the ‘side’ titles, spinoffs, and other games along the way as I can manage.

For those who are still unfamiliar with my premise (read: probably everyone), here’s a recap:

Most people have already played many/most/all of the games that I’m going to write about in this series (weirdly, as I compiled the list of games, I personally have not played a fair number of them). I don’t care. I’m going to look at all (most? I’m bad with structure, we’ll see how long this lasts) of the following things from these games:

– Some objective data. What version of the game did I play, and why did I select that one. Since it is now obvious to me that I’m going to play a fair number of ‘remakes’ in the early Final Fantasy games, I’m also going to research the differences and try to note some of them here. This was a big part of my experience with FF1, which I am now intending to revisit as a part of this series later.
– Is the game any good? Seriously! I’m sure some of these games suck!
– Is the answer to that question, “It just doesn’t hold up”? Why? <– This question is not going to last into the more modern games, but I suspect it could affect games even as recent as FF7, the graphics of which I'm afraid will hurt my brain.
– How would I place this game in a historical context? I want to watch the series evolve and devolve and side-volve as I go.
– Did I enjoy this game? What were the emotions and insane facial expressions I went through while playing it?
– How many times I frantically Googled maps for enormous maze-like dungeons because I no longer have the patience to solve them on my own?
– Was it… challenging? Were these games ever hard? Does the challenge ebb and flow?
– No MMORPGs. Sorry FF14 fans, I don’t ‘do’ MMORPGs anymore. Plus, the plan here hopefully doesn’t involve spending a bunch of money acquiring and (especially) subscribing to games.

I think all of this is extremely important knowledge, and that the human race will be improved by my research.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the second game in the Final Fantasy series…another that I had never played before… Final Fantasy II.

It’s not surprising that I hadn’t played this game before, and it’s probably true for a lot of people, even now. FF2 was never translated into English on the NES system, and, indeed, was not widely available in other languages until the “Dawn of Souls” release (with FF1!) in late 2004 (exact date varying based on your nationality). The reasons for this are murky. I have heard that Square didn’t think FF2 and FF3 would sell well in the United States and other markets outside of Japan, as well as a handful of other explanations. Suffice to say, it hardly matters now, over 20 years later.

What version did I play? Why, oddly enough, I played the iOS version. I had purchased it as a game to play during downtime at work, so I already possessed the version. I had not gotten as far as I’d expected to during said downtime, but I hit the afterburner after I decided to take this series a little bit more seriously. The main differences from the original, according to my research, are the the graphics are much prettier (muuuuuuch prettier, and high res!), you can dash, and the game does away with the ‘ineffective hit’ if your target dies after you’ve input a command but before it is executed. I have also heard that in the original game, your HP only upgraded if your character took significant damage, whereas the version I played seemed to award an HP up to all characters every ten battles or so. I do not think I could have completed the game relying on just that HP-up.

FF2 is the first game in the series (well, it is only the second game…) to feature that story-connective-tissue I discussed in the original. In this case, the basic premise is that four youths were attacked by soldiers of the Palamecian Empire near the town of Fynn. Three of them later wake up in the city of Altair, having been saved by Rebel sympathizers. The three friends join the Rebellion and, frankly, do most of the heavy lifting themselves. Although the narrative certainly isn’t as comprehensive as some of the later titles (indeed, Final Fantasy IV is the first game that begins to look like a ‘modern’ JRPG title), it does do a little more to guide you from place to place. I will admit that I still used a world map to help me figure out what was where, but I found my overall need for outside assistance in making it through this game in a reasonable amount of time was much less than Final Fantasy.

Okay, now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. The thing everyone either seems to tolerate or completely loathe about FF2… and that’s the leveling system. Unlike every other game in the series (at least, that I’ve played), you do not gain experience levels in FF2. At all. Instead, your stats raise when you use them, or need them. For example, attacking repeatedly with your weapons begins to raise your strength. Having a shield equipped and being attacked begins to raise your evasion. Using magical spells raises your intelligence (Black) or spirit (White). Suffering damage raises your max HP, but also your Stamina (which determines how much HP you gain when your HP goes up). Spending 30 minutes casing spells in one battle slowly may eke out some extra MP for you if you have the patience. Now, obviously, this makes some of your stats comparatively hard to raise (max MP, again, anyone?), and since you need some of everything to be successful in this game, I can see how it would cripple some parties, and make it unfun to play. I’m totally with you.

But I kind of secretly really enjoyed it.

If only because it gave me the freedom to turn the girl of the party, Maria (who as you might expect starts out fast and with good magic, and terrible physical stats) into a frenzied dual-sword-wielding dervish, while the typical FF hero, Firion, became a Red Wizard, standing in the back row and slinging spells. Of course, I could have mixed and matched those attributes any way I wanted, and, indeed, Maria also had some of the most formidable spells (such as Flare) at her command, and youth #3, the hulking Guy, was an excellent back-up White Mage. Balance can be hard to achieve in FF2, however, because once you’ve passed a certain point with Strength or Spirit or Intelligence, the magic stats begin to lower your strength, and vice versa. As a result, if you want to have a balanced character, you have to always be using a mix of abilities and never go into auto-battle mode or spend every turn curing wounds.

Fortunately, mixing abilities also has its benefits, as your spells and weapons gain ‘levels’ as well, as they are used, becoming more powerful (and in the case of spells, more expensive).

The plot of the game is still pretty rudimentary, but it does introduce a couple of key staples of later games: FF2 is the first title to feature chocobos, Cid as an airship commander, and the order of Dragoons. It was also the first game to use the MP system that would be a series staple for about fifteen years or so, though it would not reappear in the next title.

I should also note that FF2 can be quite difficult. I often felt the enemies were challenging during the early-mid part of the game, but I also think I hit kind of a critical mass with leveling up stats and eventually became overpowered. Because of the mechanics of the game, that condition never really changed; no matter how high my warrior woman’s strength got, it seemed that it could always get a little bit higher. I occasionally found it beneficial to grind out a couple levels of new spells (most of them are pretty ineffective at level 1) but this was a fairly painless process. The difficulty is also tempered by the easy availability of powerful items like HiPotions and Ethers, which are not as expensive as they should be given how much they alleviate the difficulty of the later dungeons.

I suppose my overall impression of the game was pleasant…but it’s not one of the series’ stronger entries in my mind. It stands as a bit of an odd duck; not really influential on later titles, except perhaps as a failed experiment. While it advances in some ways from the original game, these are not significant advances, and even the unique character sprites won’t be carried over into the next title… which I will write about soon.