Final Fantasy II (1988 Video Game) User Reviews

A very rare and unique gem for Final Fantasy fans!!!

[zaisjr · 8/10 · 17 March 2011]

This review is for Final Fantasy II, the original version. This is not a review for the American Super Nintendo release, which truly is Final Fantasy IV.

For the longest time you could only find Final Fantasy II on the internet through emulators. The few Americans who got a chance to play it were in for a real treat. This game was the beginning of the Chocobos and the beginning of the Cid era. This game is where Final Fantasy began to have some swagger to it.

Unlike the first Final Fantasy, or any Final Fantasy game for that matter, this game rid itself of the standard leveling system. Players don't level up from experience, their skills level up instead. So if you have a character who you constantly use for physical attacks, that character's physical attacks will level up. If you constantly use a character for magic attacks, that character's individual spells will level up. All of your characters can also use magic. While it is basically impossible to make a good hybrid character, the option is definitely appreciated. This type of leveling really opens up your strategy options.

The story is less rigid than the first Final Fantasy. There are also more twists and dramatic points. The characters are much less watered down than the first Final Fantasy installment. The game also isn't as vague as the first Final Fantasy. Unlike it's predecessor, Final Fantasy II does a decent job leading you to your next mission or item. Instead of having to travel the globe speaking to every single character or guessing where you have to go next, this sequel does a nice job guiding you around the game.

Final Fantasy II is not without shortcomings. The game still had the average graphics of its predecessor. The music was forgettable, but still decent. The game was also stretched out longer than it probably needed to be. You still weren't allowed to save in the dungeons, which would have been a nice improvement.

This game is definitely an improvement over the first Final Fantasy game. It's not for everybody, but definitely worth playing if you want to see origins of many Final Fantasy influences. It might also be beneficial to play the Final Fantasy Origins version of Final Fantasy II. This Playstation version upgraded the music, graphics, game play, and added a game saving feature to help out in the dungeons.

The actual Final Fantasy II video game

[Aaron1375 · 8/10 · 19 September 2016]

I played the original Final Fantasy on the NES and thought it was an okay game, but nothing I was overly thrilled with and then a few years later I played Final Fantasy II on the SNES and really enjoyed it as it made me a FF fan! Then years later I find out that the Final Fantasy I played was actually part IV and that there were two FF games I had not played. Well, three, as Final Fantasy V was also not released in the United States initially either. So, I got this game on the PSP system and I have finally played through it and have to say I enjoyed it more than I did the first game in the series and I am a bit perplexed as to why it was not released here. A lot of the earlier role playing games were so vague as to what you were supposed to do. Look at Hylide, Mother and a host of others, heck, even the original Legend of Zelda was a bit vague at times. Even on the Sega Master system and Genesis the Fantasy Star series was incredibly vague. This one actually points you in the right direction, develops a story and you never feel lost. It also does a better job than its predecessor of creating its characters as they have personality. Of course, this is just a preference as I had a friend who loved the original game because you could build your team however you wished and he did not like the fourth game while I wasn't wild about the first, but as I've stated loved the fourth game.

The story has a group of four youths being taken down as they try to flee their hometown of Flynn. An evil emperor is trying to take over the world and his soldiers overrun the land. Three of the four youths find themselves in the rebel hideout where their wounds have been tended to and they are soon begging for the chance to work with the rebels to not only retake Flynn, but stop the emperor and his devious plans which include building a giant flying fortress to rain terror upon the land. Every time they thwart one of his plans, he devises something new to terrorize the denizens of the world. Hell itself cannot seem to hold back this fiendish man in his plans to rule the world!

The game play is a bit different than other Final Fantasy games as far as the leveling system goes. Other than that, it plays out much like any other Final Fantasy game of the era as you go from town to town buying equipment, learning clues and then proceeding through dungeons and caves to try and get what you need to progress. The leveling though is very different as in this game it is not done on a point system, but rather, if you get hit and lose so many of your hit points your HP at the end of the fight will increase at the end of the battle. Same with MP and nearly all attributes. You get targeted by a spell, your magic defense increases and if you use a weapon or spell and their level goes up as well. It is different, but it is a bit strange too. By the end of the game the most effective way to increase HP and MP is to literally attack your own players and cast Osmose on them!

So, this FF game was rather good and I am surprised it was never released in the United States when it first came out. I had to play it on the PSP hand-held system, so that is what my review stems from. However, I can say that I am pretty sure the graphics and other things were upped in this version of the game as it looks more like an SNES game than a NES game. Still, I would think the story and stuff are all the same, so I don't believe it to be too vastly different. Things that appear here that would later return and become series regulars include Cid and Chocobos. Though the Chocobo does not really factor too much into this one, you could go the entire game without riding it and you don't really miss anything by not using it. So I enjoyed this game, more story and more reminiscent of the fourth game so it was a nice diversion.

Brilliant

[Lepie · 16 September 1999]

Final Fantasy II was a game I arrived upon during a mad rush to play every Final Fantasy game that ever was. I had played 1, 6, 7 and most of 5 when I found it for the NES emulator, completely translated, and it blew me away. The music is downright haunting, and the plotline, although odd, is totally gripping. It moves fairly fast, and a few characters die, but it is certainly one of the best games I've ever played.

Clumsiest of Them All

[HedonisticActor · 4/10 · 5 October 2007]

Final Fantasy is one of the game series started in the 80's that suffers from so called Curse of the Second Installment where the second game of the series is weaker than others (other examples from these game series are Super Mario and Legend of Zelda). It's usually because developers try something new after their best-seller.

Story in Final Fantasy II is anything but new. Rebellion's fight against evil empire of Paramekia (or Palamecia, who knows) feels too much taken from Star Wars. There is Luke Skywalker-clone, Darth Vader-clone, Emperor-clone, even Deathstar-clone. Characters are not personalities, bad guys has no clear motives. It's also annoys that too many characters are so eager to sacrifice themselves.

The new part in the game is an unique system where is no experience points or levels. All skills are developed how often they are used, for example magics become more powerful. There is a good reason why this system has stayed unique. Developing any other than attack power is very slow so most of the magics won't receive their fullest potential before the game is over unless players develop their characters day and night. It's not a problem because dungeons are once again too large and of course, without save points.

Game's atmosphere is the reason why there are more than two Final Fantasies. Nobuo Uematsu's music is good, specially world map music is beautiful and makes forget for short time that's it's only 8-bit voice. Also monsters are mostly own design and they are mostly not ripped from Greek mythology or AD&D universe. Only die-hard fans and nostalgics should try this, for others it's not worth of it because of it's clumsiness.

Final Fantasy: A New Hope

[nruss78 · 5 November 2004]

Yes, this plot line is a blatant Star Wars spin off (I'd say rip off... but it only captures the essence of the world and doesn't use copies of the characters seen in the movie) but the game is solid. It was fun to play and it was interesting to watch somewhat... (I loved having one of my main characters as a villain at one part) but great this game is not. Unless you have an extreme amount of patience or a lot of free time you will spend a long, long, gruelingly long time just leveling up your characters to adequacy. The idea of a more realistic battle system for use in turn based combat was an excellently cool and fun idea in appearance... but actual application left me board after the first few battles. Look, if I wanted to train my hands to be able to hit something harder I'll do it in a gym and not in a video game I play for fun and relaxation. Yes, this game rocked... but it wasn't infallibly rocking.