Box Art
Game: Final Fantasy II
First Released: December 17, 1988, Famicom
Developers: Square
Platforms: Famicom, WonderSwan Color, PlayStation,
mobile phones, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation Portable,
Virtual Console, PlayStation Network, iOS, Android
Rated: E, for Fantasy Violence
First Released: December 17, 1988, Famicom
Developers: Square
Platforms: Famicom, WonderSwan Color, PlayStation,
mobile phones, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation Portable,
Virtual Console, PlayStation Network, iOS, Android
Rated: E, for Fantasy Violence
How I Came To Play This Game
Castle Altair
When I got the first Final Fantasy, I chose to get the Dawn of Souls version for the Gameboy Advance. It included both Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II. After I beat the first Final Fantasy, I started on the second one.
Story
First Battle
The story follows four young people named Firion, Maria, Guy, and Leon. Their hometown Fynn is attacked by the army of the Emperor of Palamecia. He had summoned monsters from hell in a plan to conquer their world. The kids' parents are killed, then they are attacked and left behind. They are rescued by Princess Hilda of Fynn who has started a resistance in the nearby town Altair. Leon is seperated from the group before their rescued. The three left decide to join the fight to stop the Emperor. They go all over the world fighting to thwart the plans of the Emperor. One such incident involved a giant warship called the Dreadnought that flew around destroying towns. They went on board, stopped the Dreadnought and rescued Princess Hilda. Along the way they team up with other people such as Liela, Gordon, Minwu, Josef, and Ricard. They saved the last Wyvern egg, which hatches into a Wyvern, and gain the spell Ultima. They find out that Leon had been the Emperors right hand man, the evil Dark Knight. They defeat the emperor, who comes back to life as the Hell Emperor. They go to his castle Pandemonium and defeat him in a huge battle. After the Emperor's defeat, they go back to Castle Fynn
and regroup with the other survivors. Leon feels guilty for what he did and decides to
leave the group on his own journey.
and regroup with the other survivors. Leon feels guilty for what he did and decides to
leave the group on his own journey.
Pros And Cons
Story
Attack on Fynn
The story, though too long to tell in this review, was more developed than the first Final Fantasy. For one thing, the characters you control actually have names. It even shows a mugshot of the character when he's talking. However, I think the developers focused too much on the story and not enough with the gameplay.
Characters
Player Characters
You name the characters whatever you want at the beggining of the game just like the first one, but you can't choose a job class anymore. Instead the some of the characters had already determined job classes. I came to like the characters in this game, and was upset at first when some of them died. This is the first Final Fantasy game to include Chocobos. Chocobos are large yellow flightless birds that you can ride to get to places quicker. When you ride them, a catchy tune plays.
Gameplay
Altair
The gameplay remains largely unchanged from the first one. The main diffrence is the level up system. In the first game, you started at level 1, and when you gained enough experience, you would move to level 2. In Final Fantasy II, the more you use something the better you'll get. To get stronger spells, use the spells you have enough times. To get more attack, defeat more enemies. More MP, use your MP a lot. More HP and Defense, get hit by enemies. This is called the Skill-Based Advancement System. The only problem with this system is that you can gain much more experience than needed simply by attacking yourself. What I did, was I had three characters attack each other, and one character healing. Then I would set the cursors to the proper positions. Then I would tape the button down. The characters would continually attack themselves and then get healed over and over again until the enemy runs away or someone runs out of MP. This would level up Attack, Defense, Spells, HP, and MP.
Graphics
Hell Emperor
The graphics of this one, like the first one, resembled the SNES because I was playing the Dawn of Souls version. They were actually less quality than the first one, even though their on the same cartridge. I'm glad that the game didn't use the exact same graphics though.
Music
I have to say that the music of Final Fantasy II wasn't a good as the first one. However, I still liked the Wild Battle Theme, Victory Theme, and Chocobo Theme. It's good that the game used diffrent music than the first one.
Releases
Playstation Box Art
Final Fanasty II was originally released in 1988 for the Famicom. It was never released for the NES in America. Then in 1994, it was packaged with Final Fantasy and released for the Famicom as Final Fantasy I & II. In 2001 it was released with updated graphics for the Wonderswan Color. Then in 2002, it was packaged with Final Fantasy again and released for the Playstation known as Final Fantasy Origins, which had FMV scenes. It was paired again with the first one and released in 2004 called Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls for the Gameboy Advance, which had improved graphics and sound. Several mobile phones saw a release of the game. Another updated release was in 2007 for the PSP. This retained all extras from the Gameboy Advance release, as well as updated graphics and sound.
My Version's Extras
Soul of Rebirth Mode
The Dawn of Souls version of Final Fantasy II included another quest known as Soul of Rebirth. The quest went into what happened to the four characters that died in the main quest. It ended up that their souls were taken to a place that allspirits killed by the Emperor go to. The characters that are controlled were Scott, Minwu, Josef, and Ricard. They even find a town of people who were killed by the Emperor. After obtaining the Ultima spell thay travel to a parelell version of Pandemonium and find a light version of the Emperor. He explains that when Firion, Maria, and Guy defeated the original Emperor, he split into two. One of evil and one of good. He had summoned the souls of all he killed to ask for forgiveness. With the help of other spirits however, the heros realized that it was all a trick and they defeated the Emperor once and for all. They then got to see the ending of the main quest and then went to the afterlife. This extra mode is also in the PSP release of the game.
My Rating
I give this game a 7/10. Mostly it was a good game, but it didn't live up to its predecessor.