Pixel Remastered is a third of the way to saints.
To say I’m not a fan of the Famicom Final Fantasy II is like saying I’m a hockey team fan. Haven’t won the Stanley Cup in a while: A fairly understatement of the degree of pain. I don’t want to know what the original game was like, but after playing the pixel remastered version of his FF2 to the end, the game needs a unique boost function to make it a game that can be beaten as is I was able to confirm that cursed all the time.
Final Fantasy II is set in a world plagued by the military rule of an evil emperor who invades a small town at the start of the game and assaults its young residents for no apparent reason other than “Silly, because.” Except for those who go missing or are kidnapped before the rest of the group wakes up, the group is rescued by a rebel princess named Hilda, who, after a brief skill test, is allowed to join the rebel army. . overthrow the emperor. As the story progresses, the party (his fourth member is always replaced due to story changes) goes so far as to eventually overthrow the Emperor. It’s the series’ first serious attempt at plotting with named characters, and while it does enough to get you going in the right direction, there’s not much to write home about.
Final Fantasy II is best known for two controversial systems: “keywords” and their level building. The keyword system requires you to select a menu to learn a word (thankfully written in red font) and ask people about it to unlock objectives. I didn’t get the hang of it until I pulled out the strategy guide, and even then I fumbled through the menu more than once or twice. Luckily, the system never went back. Another distinctive system is the “use and build” system found in the same producer’s “Final Fantasy Legends” (SaGa) game. Thankfully, Pixel Remaster gives you the option to set fixed HP growth and growth. It quadruples, so I didn’t need to have party members punch each other to build health. However, this progression mechanic applies to anything, including spells and weapons. I tried to keep my team on standard weapons and use shields for extra defense, but the game doesn’t respect that choice and does as much damage as possible, even if they have weapons equipped. Giving was based on “optimized” equip settings. A character who has never used that weapon before. And later in the game, I started healing random enemies using attack commands, but that “Healing Wand” actually has his one of the highest attack stats in the game. I found Is this a remnant of the sharpening method of “beating yourself”? Either way, it didn’t work so well. But at least if you keep the boost fixed at 4x his, you could get a decent weapon in just a few fights. The “encounter-only door system” was also largely rendered useless in FFII to the level of parody, justifying toggling encounters on and off.
Remasters mostly made NES games look like 16-bit games. It’s a good design choice, even if the main character looks a lot like his Cecil from FFIV. While I actively avoided playing Final Fantasy II tracks in Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line due to the aforementioned antipathy, there are new arrangements in the game that truly shine and are clever. There are some Nobuo Uematsu tracks. As mentioned in FF4, personally not so disappointing, but the ‘Dawn of Souls’ quests from previous versions (Gameboy his Advance and PSP re-releases) are not included here .
Perhaps the greatest praise I can offer about FFII Pixel Remastered is that the accuracy of healing items seems to have been fixed when you need them during combat. Another feature that the game “provided” is to distinguish between status effects that expire at the end of combat from status effects that remain, and they have separate healing spells. The spell still “missed”. Thankfully, this didn’t happen late enough to significantly hinder the enjoyment of the game. Make sure to play FFII with Pixel Remastered if you’re up for any Final Fantasy vision quests. if necessary.
