Final Fantasy II has long been considered one of Square Enix’s weakest mainline entries in the series. It tried to push the property forward in terms of storytelling, but its interesting but deeply flawed leveling system failed to impress many players over the years.
In Final Fantasy II, you play as a group of young people who go against an empire that wants to conquer all. Compared to its predecessor, the emphasis is on characters and political plot. It’s not a particularly memorable story, but it adds weight to the adventure.
However, actually progressing through that story can be tedious. The game has a “keyword” mechanic, where you learn different phrases by talking to non-playable characters. The idea is that these key words can be used to open up new topics for conversation and advance the plot. It feels like a step.
As we alluded to, Final Fantasy II hides even more strange ideas. In the aforementioned leveling system, performing certain actions in turn-based battles increases base stats and weapon proficiency. Taking enough damage increases your maximum HP. Casting spells a few times boosts intelligence. It’s a pretty revolutionary system on paper, but it falls apart quickly in practice.
The main problem is that these stat increases take a very long time to stack up. there is. Not to mention that party members can attack each other to maximize profit, so everything is very exploitable.
So thank god for the Pixel Remaster boost. the way more tolerable. These additions alone arguably make this the best version of divisive Final Fantasy.
