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I am gonna be arrogant here and say that I am probably one of the very few people who has played all the way through FF2.
There's a good reason for that. The game has long been touted as being overly difficult, in part to an "innovative" battle system where instead of leveling up the usual way, you instead....build stats. Agility, Defense, Mag Defense, HP, MP, etc. How do you gain these? Easy! You want more stamina (which in turn, builds HP), you...take a hit to the face! Want more MP? Use spells! Leveling up your spells? Repeated use.
Somehow, it seems as if HP is given/leveled up more easily in this remake than in prior versions which may skew my review slightly.
It seems so intuitive, creative, and simple but in actuality, it's a practice in frustration. Everything's fine as long as you follow a fairly linear path and know who to talk to - speak to the wrong person, go to the wrong part of the world map, however, and you'll find yourself becoming increasingly acquainted with the "Game Over" screen. I had this happen repeatedly when I first busted this out years ago on the PS1 (sup Final Fantasy Origins) and almost broke my controller. I wasn't safe from it this time around either, but at least E was there to keep me in check. There was one night where I almost stopped and was ready to sell it so we could play something else.
As for the story, the main reason I play RPGs, it's a bit sparse. A real shame considering it has SUCH potential. I tend to gravitate towards those RPGs whose stories are a bit more believable, a bit more political (see: Suikoden <3). It's a very simple story - a group of people (presumably late teens) loses their parents in the war, join the resistance, and kill the Emperor - who has, of course, gone a little bit crazy and power hungry, offs some cities, the usual. And while there are a fair bit of characters that join you temporarily on your quest to help flesh things out, it simply...isn't enough. Those characters join briefly, give only a few sentences of back-story (and no side quests to flesh this out!) and...leave. Some die, some just vanish. I barely remember which is which. I'll sum it up this way - I spent 26 hours on this and still didn't know what my characters were fighting *for* - neither did the Emperor/Last Boss, who simply says upon his defeat "Who...who are you!?" Who are we, indeed.
This is where it all starts - Chocobos, fighting against an EMPIRE (see FF4, FF6, FF12, FF13), "Cid" spotting, crystals, etc. Surprisingly, that's where the similarities end. Already noted, the story is very shallow - it really even reminds me more of one of the spinoff series instead of an actual Final Fantasy (a la Mystic Quest, Final Fantasy Legends, etc.). The reason for this is most likely that Final Fantasy 2 was not produced by Hironobu Sakaguchi (Square, now Mistwalker) but rather by Akitoshi Kawazu who just so happens to be responsible for the SaGa series (including Final Fantasy Legends) and the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles series.
I really wanted to like this game. Truly. There's so much potential (the characters, setting, and feeble interactions in the game) and it's just squandered. While playing this, it just didn't have that certain "feel" that most Final Fantasy games do. There's no sense of adventure, no endearing relationships, no real reason for killing the villain. It really feels like this game is a product of getting wrapped up in minutiae - the potential is there, but it just doesn't fit in. Maybe they just had too many ideas (or not enough...)? The GBA version does attempt to make up for this by having an epilogue of sorts included. Honestly though, since it runs parallel to the main quest (these characters go on an adventure while the main FF2 party is doing their thing), there isn't much it adds. It seems a little tacked on, after-thought attempt to enhance what little story there is and garner fans.
If you like Final Fantasy and you desperately need to play 2 for completion purposes - go at it. Save it for a weekend when you have little else to do, or a time when you have spare time to grind mindlessly (say, for example, when your roommate wants you to watch stuff with them, but you don't really want to). This is a title only for die hard fans of the series. I wouldn't at all recommend this to a casual gamer or even someone who plays every other RPG series - the story isn't there, the gameplay is frustrating at best, and there is little to no reward for your efforts.
-A
This is where it all starts - Chocobos, fighting against an EMPIRE (see FF4, FF6, FF12, FF13), "Cid" spotting, crystals, etc. Surprisingly, that's where the similarities end. Already noted, the story is very shallow - it really even reminds me more of one of the spinoff series instead of an actual Final Fantasy (a la Mystic Quest, Final Fantasy Legends, etc.). The reason for this is most likely that Final Fantasy 2 was not produced by Hironobu Sakaguchi (Square, now Mistwalker) but rather by Akitoshi Kawazu who just so happens to be responsible for the SaGa series (including Final Fantasy Legends) and the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles series.
I really wanted to like this game. Truly. There's so much potential (the characters, setting, and feeble interactions in the game) and it's just squandered. While playing this, it just didn't have that certain "feel" that most Final Fantasy games do. There's no sense of adventure, no endearing relationships, no real reason for killing the villain. It really feels like this game is a product of getting wrapped up in minutiae - the potential is there, but it just doesn't fit in. Maybe they just had too many ideas (or not enough...)? The GBA version does attempt to make up for this by having an epilogue of sorts included. Honestly though, since it runs parallel to the main quest (these characters go on an adventure while the main FF2 party is doing their thing), there isn't much it adds. It seems a little tacked on, after-thought attempt to enhance what little story there is and garner fans.
If you like Final Fantasy and you desperately need to play 2 for completion purposes - go at it. Save it for a weekend when you have little else to do, or a time when you have spare time to grind mindlessly (say, for example, when your roommate wants you to watch stuff with them, but you don't really want to). This is a title only for die hard fans of the series. I wouldn't at all recommend this to a casual gamer or even someone who plays every other RPG series - the story isn't there, the gameplay is frustrating at best, and there is little to no reward for your efforts.
-A
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