Was FINAL FANTASY II Actually That BAD?! 

Masamune was in the original game just before facing Tiamat the second time near the end of the game.

No it just isn't made for casual JRPG fans. Think about it, the people who hate Final Fantasy II...what do they think of other 8 bit JRPGs and what do they think about the SaGa franchise? Final Fantasy II is both of those. People say the Mastery system is "good in theory but bad in execution" are lying to themselves. They have redone the mastery system for Final Fantasy II 6 times,there's 12 SaGa games,The Legend of Legacy and The Alliance Alive (both were made by former SaGa staff members) if they haven't thought it has worked even a single time...they just don't like the Mastery system. Final Fantasy II "wastes your time" as much as any other 8 bit RPG. Ys I is only 6 hours long but it would be about 3 if it wasn't for the backtracking. People in the west legally only got Final Fantasy II in 2003 so it was going to be seen as archaic no matter what. Even judging it to the SaGa series it came across as archaic, it came out 4 years after SaGa Frontier II. 😊

The Teleport and Toad spells absolutely destroy 90% of the game once you get them. Both sre effectively instant-death spells, but you can access them much earlier than the actual Death spell, and work on far more enemies, even most bosses.

Fun Fact: FF9's pandemonium is the song you hear at 29:40, only slowed down.

Cool video. While Final Fantasy 2 is not a game I'd really play for fun, it has some merit as paving the way for things that would come later, those things namely being Final Fantasy solidifying its direction away from the quirks of Final Fantasy 2 and the SaGa series. Maybe if Final Fantasy 2 was originally localized for territories outside of Japan and if it had been positively received then Final Fantasy and JRPGs would probably be a lot different.

People will drag FF2 for the exact same reasons they praise Morrowind and TES games. -use skills to level skills -spend hours grinding -open world go anywhere even if you arent supposed to yet -branching dialog and keywords -hitting yourself for HP is literally falling off buildings to boost acrobatics

28:37 Kain's last name in IV is also Highwind. Also the King of Tycoon in V is named Alexander Highwind Tycoon, though I'm not sure if his full name is ever mentioned in the game. The battle mechanics of this game really do feel like a prototype of the SaGa series sometimes.

I was always hesitant to try it because everybody bashed it. But I tried the pixel remaster and loved it!

Most importantly, FFII paved the way for SaGa which is an absolutely fantastic series. Minstrel Song and Romancing SaGa 3 ranks higher for me than most FFs.

the game designed to help you progress NATURALLY with those dungeons encounter rate, and most dungeon only have 5 floors, except on the late game (Typhoon/Mysidia/Pandaemonium). but projared worshippers surely HAVE TO beating themselves to this very date and cursing the game, because their only REAL LIFE ACHIEVEMENT is by having 9999 HP. Its short, and fun FF entry with ton of replay value. You can finish the game easily in under 10hours with around 3k HP on each characters and 200MP on Firion/Maria without projaredWorshippers masochist exploit.

Played it for the first time as the Pixel Remaster. After doing some grinding in the early zones, I ended up over leveled for most of the game. Not ridiculously powerful but strong enough to continue without much trouble. Additionally I would just hit optimize and my party would swap weapons. Eventually they all ended up skilled with most weapons.

I see you renamed the cast to later FF games. When I play FF7, I'll be sure to do the same and rename Cloud, Tifa, and Barret to Firion, Maria, and Guy respectively to balance the pettiness.

i despise cheating in video games i will never ruin the enjoyment of playing a game how its meant to be played

FF II has its issues like you mentioned but I love that they experimented with different ideas. Skyrim and other games used the same kind of skills based leveling. But yeah the random battle frequency is just nuts and the story is just not engaging enough to keep going.

I played the Origins version. The game has a lot of problems. I can’t imagine it being anyone’s favorite. Trap rooms with tough encounters after 1-step, trap floors with ridiculous encounters on the lower floor (looking at you ghast), and one section in particular requiring me to ferry my party back and forth across a long stretch of ocean to refill my magic for grinding. I did grind, and went out of my way for as many weapons/armor chests as I could find. Blood Sword definitely made a particular fight an absolute joke which I rather enjoyed after all the bullshit I went through. Maybe I’ll play the Pixel Remaster version someday if they ever add boosts from the console releases. It’s the only one I haven’t touched in that collection.

FFII is pretty low on my list, but I don't hate it. I really like rotating fourth characters, Minwu in particular. I also appreciate what they were trying to do with the leveling system, even if it is clunky and easily abused.

Final Fantasy 2's growth system reminds me of FF8's junction system but without leveling stats. If it was just drawing magic and junctioning the magic would purely change the stats of a character..

My first experience with FF2 was a translated rom, and my first full playthrough was Dawn Of Souls on the GBA. The training style of character growth, I had already enjoyed in Daggerfall and Quest For Glory, so while it did take me off guard at first, I figured out an optimal way of grinding, which involved putting a shield in the dominant hand, nothing in the other hand, and a weight on the A button. They'd punch themselves in the shield while I walked away, and when I got back, they'd reach the next tier of monk damage. I laughed when the Emperor claimed to be "beyond the hand of man," and then my party punched him to death pretty quickly. Of course, the experience was helped by the fact that Dawn Of Souls actively increases how quickly character get powerful, thus reducing grind times.

Nice work. Looking forward to the rest of the remasters.

The Pixel Remaster was the first version where that was finally good. It's still the most grindy one, but the auto-battle helps immensely here. I'd just equip my characters with weak versions of whatever weapon I wanted to build up and let it do its thing. Meanwhile, have my spellcasters work on healing or buffs of something. It proved quite effective.

I think most people don't like FF2 because it's gameplay is more close to the Saga games (Instead of leveling up, the characters' individual stats increase) which I feel that makes it the predecessor to the Saga games.

Not a bad review but your constant increased intonation at the end of sentences make it sound like you're just pausing during a huge run-on sentence.

Of the 3 NES game remakes, FF2 is actually my favorite.

Biggs and Wedge got their start in FF6

the leveling system is easy to understand the tougher the enemy encounters the better stat growth your party members get easier enemy encounters net you next to nothing only wasting your time fighting weaker trash

FF2 for Famicom was translated into English, put on a NES cart and even advertised in Nintendo Power. The only reason it wasn't released on the NES was the system was at the end of its life cycle. Nintendo of America made the decision not to release it or 3 in North America.

I've loved this since I first played it (I pre-ordered Final Fantasy Origins to get it) and its among my five favorite games in the series. Final Fantasy Legend/Saga II was the first Square RPG I ever played so the stat growth system was familiar and I've always had a soft spot for rebellion against evil empire stories.

Have two characters cast berserk, one cast blink, and one cast haste on everyone to start, no weapons go unarmed and you'll punch your way to the final boss.

Empty rooms in dungeons aren’t an issue if you use the map properly. Go in one room and you see inside every room on that floor, then you know where to go

I just beat the Pixel remaster, 100% it too. I thought it was 0K but the last dungeon got pretty annoying. I don't think the game was well balanced either, tbf most FF games suffer from balancing (funnily enough 13 is prob the best in this aspect, the one people always cry about). Overall it's probably bottom tier for me, even below 12 and 15, but it wasn't terrible.

I really hate FF2 (I'd even put it below 13) but I can't say people can't like or love it. I mean, my most favorite Megaman is Megaman 3 lol

Before I watch, when I originally played this in the mid to late 90s I didn’t like it; it was different and we don’t like things that are different. It didn’t help having only a fan translation and no formal manual to understand the game mechanics. It wasn’t until I got it on PS1 and had some form of instructions to understand how the game is played that the game opened up to me and I had a new appreciation for the game. Considering the memory limitations of the NES I think the story was good for its time The story contained a strong theme of loss. It’s is now my 4th favorite FF game.

The only problem I had with this game was the advancement of the storyline. . . I got so lost trying to figure out how to move the story along that I was an absolute demon by the time I figured out what went wrong. . . Some advancements in the story required interactions I had to guess at and wander aimlessly talking to folks I never thought of to unlock things . . . . It was incredibly complicated

i recently finished my playthru of FFII, your words perfectly sum up my experience with this game aha. I look forward to your future videos :)

played this first on the PS1 so i knew what i was doing , it was differernt but still love this game . is it bad no . but just like mario 2 , zelda 2 , castlevania 2 and other games , they tried something new and they were all good.

Normally you'd get a guaranteed encounter with an enemy whenever you tried to exit those empty rooms. They used to be an absolute pain in the butt. I suppose they undid that with the pixel remaster, which is actually a very good thing. Those rooms were pretty much the incarnation of frustration before. With that factor gone, they are just empty rooms and meh. Pretty much one of the worst parts of the game was alleviated. Try one of the older ports, it will drive you insane. I can promise that, haha

It's not a bad game. It's 100 times better than the FF 7 remakes.

A review of a game, with a focus on its achievements/trophies? Surprised I haven't seen that more to be honest. Still sad these Pixel Remasters skipped Xbox as that's my main system, but I do have a PS4 as well.

Really good review, although something about it sounded familiar.... Oh yeah, you lifted almost my entire review from steam!! I spent hours writing that review, and was considering making it a video... but I honestly don't really mind, its nice to hear my words on youtube... but if you're going to read my review word for word, maybe the least you could do is chuck my steam profile an award as a thanks? Would be nice. Or link your sources your copying from, I'm sure you mashed in a couple of other peoples hard work. SMH. Honestly, I am flattered though.

Really great video! I've owned the PSP version of FF2 for a very long time now but never really got around to beating it. Figured the pixel remasters would be a good chance to give it another go, and from watching this it honestly comes across as just a nice little fun rpg romp with some kinks here and there. Keep up the good work!

Final Fantasy II's mechanics aren't bad, just poorly implemented. The progression-by-use system is the very foundation of (among others) the Elder Scrolls series, and we all know how popular *that* series got over time. But because of how... janky it was, and because Square wanted a more defined progression system, they lured Akitoshi Kawazu (the brainparent of Final Fantasy II's system) away from Final Fantasy, and he went on to create the SaGa series (which started off titled "The Final Fantasy Legend"), which... is an eccentric series, to say the least.

Just beat the PSX version of the game today! I love this game, despite all of its flaws. My biggest problems with the game were that the game had a nack for being annoying, either for the sake of padding or from not properly implementing mechanics. Dungeons regressed from FFl thanks to adding empty rooms with forced battles, which makes maps a must have. Magic leveling took too long since magic increased by 1 point per use, meaning you'd have to cast a spell 100 times before it raised up a level; the exception to this was Cure since you could cast it multiple times in the overworld if your party was low health, and it would raise by 2 points per use. Without the cursor select bug, you'd never get proper use of magic except for buff spells if you used them enough. Even if you were willing to level up these spells individually, only a select few spells have any real uses. These spells are: Osmose at any level, Holy/Flare if you get them high enough, Cure, Life, Berserk, Haste, Shield/Shell, Warp at any level, Blink, and a high level Swap if you plan on increasing your MP and HP. All of the buff spells are useful at any point, but I can't say the same for offensive spells at all. Almost all enemies that get annihilated by a type advantage spell are killed just as easily with simple attacks, although Holy and Flare are good for all enemies with high physical defense. The same can't be said for Ultima, which is this game's ultimate disappointment. The wrath of the ancients said to annihilate ancient evil gets out done by *EVERY* spell that can deal damage, with Flare 16 dealing 1000 damage less than Flare 16 at a measly 560 damage, and getting outclassed by Holy 10 by over 500 damage. The coveted war-ending spell that people died trying to obtain is completely obsolete in comparison to everything short of a wooden staff, all according to the developer's flawed intentions. There is basically no reason you should use offensive spells after the beginning of the game outside of pure curiosity, since you can do just about anything with a Berserk or Haste cast. There is also the 4th party member slot, which is less of an issue compared to everything else, but still. You get temporary party members of various strength, who range from being above average to deadweight. Since the game assumes how much experience you have at certain points in the game, you typically get members who only serve as a fourth member and nothing more. The exceptions to this are Mindu, a powerful white mage for the early game, and Leila and Josef, who are strong fighters with an Ice Bow and unarmed respectively. Excluding Leon, if your fourth party member is underleveled, they are going to stay that way until they leave your party since there is no point in powering them up. These are my main gripes with this game, and they are singlehandedly responsible for giving this game a bad wrap. If you get around this game's status as a black sheep, however, you get to experience one of the unique RPGs around. You get a grim war story with a heavier narrative than in FF1, with a depressing story where victories are almost always followed up by another loss, music that pairs excellently with the courageous but hopeless, and a flawed but functional experience system that allows for a lot of replayability. This game is good, and Final Fantasy as a series only got better from here. Whenever you get the chance to, you should give this game a try.

I missed one key term for the platinum, I talked to someone in the wrong order and now I have to replay the entire game if I want the it 😩

In a proverbial sense, it is fair to say that Final Fantasy is a D&D fangame. Whereas Final Fantasy II is the first real Final Fantasy. I also find it funny how many later tropes that started in FFVI that you've attributed to FFVII.

The wonderswan/ps1/gba/psp/pc remakes really improved Final Fantasy II. The original Famicom release had a great set (it was the first "dark and depressing" rpg) and music but the gameplay was totally broken. The remakes corrected that and also introduced one of the best boss themes of the series:Batle scene A.

The interact barracuda 2 programable controller can make it easier to power up. Getting unarmed skill to 12 or higher allows you to plow through battles. Max sword skill combined with 2 blood swords makes the final boss a joke.

The thing is final fantasy two tried to do what skyrim did before skyrim did it. Having the ability to create your perfect party by playing the game how you wanted to was entirely ingenious. It's just they needed more time in the oven to cook this because it's already hard to balance a 2d turn-based RPG. But yeah aside from Final Fantasy 5 and 15, this is my favorite Final Fantasy game.

I thought FFII would have made a great candidate for a souped up "remake" approach to show off the story (possibly including the novelization) and characters, and tweak the progression system a little bit and revamp the dungeons

Final Fantasy 2 AKA the First Saga game, prove me wrong

I played the very original Japanes version in early 90s and found it extremely difficult due to a weird levelling system. But loved the story line.

I don't know why you don't have more subscribers. This was a great review!

I've played FF2 on GBA and while I couldn't say I hate it I also didn't like it, Pixel Remaster's exp toggle and turn off encounter sounds like a godsend to me as those are what I have problems with. Skill & stats grind is kinda absurd for this game so the faster the better, and while I don't really mind encounter rate but some of the enemies do being either annoying or shot up in difficulty spike at some points and don't get me started on that horrible Dungeon design with all those empty rooms. Would give it another shot with PR version. Also f**k Soul of Rebirth, glad PR didn't include it even tho it's good for the lore but it waste more time having to grind more party members when you know they will be dead in the main story.

Finally, a new review of one of my favorite GBA games. Surely this man will speak well of this game

Best thing to say about FF2 is that FF2 walked so the rest of the series could run

It's my least favorite and one i can't defend or enjoy much at all. The high encounter rate alone, especially in treasure rooms is rage inducing.😭

~25:00 -- you didn't even need Blood sword cheese to beat the emperor! 😲 But yeah, that's some cheese you can use for this particular game is to hit the emperor with the blood sword (think there are two in the PSX version, don't recall about PR) and itt'll do a TON of damage. That said, looks like you didn't need it.

I still call the leveling system in this game my worst enemy, there’s a reason it was never done again the story was good, but god that leveling system will always leave a poor taste in my mouth

My problem with FF2 is the game is too short and lacks bulld up. Whereas most others keep you hanging and then you feel the big "oh that's what's happening." And they really missed an opportunity to expand the game when the 4th hero (Leon) comes bsck, but tries to be the bad guy after the king is defeated, but bring the king back immediately, so again there is no build up and suspence. It just makes the game a lot shorter and less interesting than it could have been. Yeah, Leon was the dark knight. They should invested a little more time into that. I'm not saying Leon should have been the final boss, but he should have brought some drama....well for more than 5 seconds anyway.

FF2 is my favorite game in the series. I want a FF2 Artistic Revision that actually looks like Amano's designs to the extent that is possible. But also I like to see other artists involved too. Although I think all the FF1-6 could use an Artistic Revision I feel like FF2 would benefit the most from it. I know the story probably feels extremely basic but to me it is an absolute classic. People will say the story line is just Final Fantasy meets Star Wars because sure both are about rebels vs the the empire but the mood is entirely different. FF2 is bleak. Or at least I felt like that was the mood that they were going for. Although that's probably true for a lot of FF games I felt like that sense of melancholy really began in FF2 while FF1 has a much more whimsical adventurous feeling to it. So while I would want the original plot to remain with the orphans joining the Wild Rose Rebellion I also want the story expanded. Particularly for the temporary fourth party members. I believe the core theme of FF2 is about struggling with loss. I think it would be great if the longer you play as the temp 4th player the more destruction the Palamecia Empire causes so you're racing against the clock but the clock is also ticking down for your fourth player. I think a voice acting option would really help. One major possible addition that I think would add a lot of depth to the story is while you sleep as your party you wake up as Leon while he is a Dark Knight of Palamecia and you get to play as the villain maybe even form a team with the despicable Borghen and walk down a path of violence and destruction in order to gain favor from the emperor and be bestowed new dark powers. The twist is that while you do gain new powers the destruction that you cause means you lose out on gaining other powers and items when Leon turns good.

FF II & XIII are one of the most underrated games I personally enjoy.

I recently 100% ff2 myself. I thought it was good maybe not the best in series but not the worse either though I don't think I could rate a worse I loved all the ones I played so far even spin offs like type 0 and world of final fantasy. Actually i just started 8 for the first time and was so confused when they used squall instead leon because they call him leon in my favorite sqaure enix series kingdom hearts. Although i have been trying to keep to defult names as much as possible i had to make exception for 8 i couldnt play with the main charcter named sqaull so he's leon doing my gameplay

I enjoyed the hell out of the iOS port but I would be interested in trying the quality of life updates. For how weird it is, FF2 is one of my favs.

Nice video! Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with it and break down your thoughts. Just a few pressing things on my mind as I ramble like a mad man. How, exactly, can you determine if it "was that bad" by playing the pixel remaster? Any other version of the game would be better to determine that! Your video is just about the latest version of Final Fantasy II. The pixel remaster. The steam version, to be specific. Because over half of the video is just listing the steam achievements while sort of describing the events the player will encounter throughout the game. Which were done on a single playthrough (not sure how using an achievements guide counts as playing blind, but whatever). They put cheats in the main menu these days. The pixel remaster is like the 8th or 9th version of the game, each previous iteration having used an earlier version as its base and making its own subtle changes/improvements (and fixing bugs/glitches while unfortunately adding a few more of their own). Every single time, pixel remaster included. Don't get me wrong, your video was not bad by any means, but it is very different from tackling a pressing question (at least in my mind -- it's why I clicked on this video after all), which is if any people actually like Final Fantasy II. From what I can tell, it is no one's favorite Final Fantasy and I'm not convinced people who've said they've beaten it have actually done so! So in your case, proof is given with this very video (albeit the absolute easiest and least tedious version of the game to date) on completing it and I'm super interested in what you have to say about your experience. Unfortunately, when the pixel remaster is all we're willing to give our first shot to, it just feels like a hollow and almost meaningless, because judgements can only be assumed like its tedious, unintuitive elements. For many things, like overall difficulty or the fun you have while playing, determining what the other versions (let alone the actual original) are like is virtually impossible. I guess I'm just looking for that unicorn, the player who truly loves Final Fantasy II, and could tell me about it. How cool Firion and the characters are, how they fit into a fan's headcanon, etc. Tell me how the grind wasn't counter-intuivite. Tell me how the leveling and fighting made you feel after conquering a long, tedious dungeon. Tell me how this strengthened you as a person. Don't tell me that you just pushed through because it wasn't that bad playing a more advanced version of the game with every quality of life feature handed to you right out of the box. The beginning of narrative-based games that would become the series we all know and love is one thing, but actually talking about how it impacted you personally, that's what I want to hear. At the very least, telling me how it isn't that bad compared to any other game in the series, even if you have to liken it to the first Final Fantasy or something universally hated like the After Years. It's just that there's no meat to the argument whatsoever. It is easier to argue that any other mainline Final Fantasy is better! I'm going to need some sufficient evidence to the contrary.

Nice to see fellow Final Fantasy 13 enjoyers out in the wild.

There story is a bit convoluted;proceeds to describe Star Wars.

I played ff2 and I watch 2 other people play it as well. I was like and had no issues with the emperor. I also played on PC where the boosted xp and gil is not a thing. The two people I watch had a lot of issues being him. One didn't even beat him. I really liked this game, it had its faults (all those stupid empty rooms) but in general it was fun. I actually like it better than ff3. The entire time I played ff3 I kept thinking that the jobs were useless. You kept getting better versions of them and in the end I beat it with 2 ninjas and 2 sages.

2 was a epic game. It is in my top 3 FF favorites. oh yeah in the OG's, the random encounter being as high was to help your stats.

Pixel remaster rebalances it so it isn't near as annoying as it used to be. Unfortunately that also trivializes a lot of it makes it super easy. That said, will mention the good, excellent soundtrack that is one of the best in the series. Very ambitious game on release with it's focus on story. That said, other games have done the story focused game much better. Leaving Final Fantasy 2 in the unfortunate position of not being much fun to play. It is definitely the worst of the first 9 games. It isn't even a really bad game, and one could argue that it is better than FF III, but this series peaked about Final Fantasy 5 - 9. The earlier games all have their issues, the later games have a massive identify crisis and suffer from the curse of popularity. Final Fantasy XIII is worse though.

If I can make an honest critique here, I think your videos could do with a bit more attention to sound. For most of this video I fight to hear you over the sound track.

My 1st final fantasy i ever play , i got it since famicom cartridge , and yet my number one game of all time ❤

Japan... we will release FF4 as FF2 and FF6 as FF3 so there wont be any confusion.

Biggs and Wedge are from 6 originally not 7

I got ff origins for my 12th birthday day and finally got to the final boss at 25 yrs old.

I am currently planning the psp version and it's pretty good.....

You obtain the ultimate spell, Ultima... which sssssssuckkkkkkkkkkk

I've been playing through all the Pixel Remaster games (recently started 6), and FFII is my second favourite after 5.

Wait... FFII is the one they hate for NES? FFII was my favorite for thr NES. If anything FFIII was the one I could see being hated. And it's definitely better than Final Fantasy 13! Did I just shift into a different universe?

Final Fantasy VII and VIII fans hated II. True JRPG fans like me loved it.

Hiii amazing vídeo!!!! Ost song around min 6 and 7 ?

I'm glad I've finally got to complete FF2 thanks to the pixel remaster. It's definitely not my favorite but I enjoyed it for what it was. The story had some decent twists, the leveling system is very exploitable making the game easier, and am I so glad we got a dungeon map. My God, was that a huge help navigating when everything started to look the same on each floor. I feel that out of all the FF games that could use a remake, FF2 would benefit the most. It's leveling system while controversial could carry over better for modern action gameplay; possibly similar to FF7R. The story is pretty barren due to it being an NES title but that leaves a lot open to add scripted dialogue and character development. Fleshing out the story of the main cast and possibly Leon as his time as a dark knight (think Fou-Lu from BoF4) along the Emperor could bring some interesting ideas. I think FF2 as a remake has huge potential for improvement; however, it is also a huge risk given its status amongst gamers.

This game wasnt terrible but it had some serious flaws and oversights. Such as becoming overpowered way too early by manipulating the battle to hit yourself or the totally broken magic system.

I wonder how many people who hate FF2 also like SaGa. cause if that's so, they're hypocrites.

The game isn't terrible by any means it's just that they concepts were executed poorly. The enemy placement was wildly imbalanced. You could run into mid-game enemies not three steps from the starting town, and escaping is borderline impossible, leading to unavoidable game overs. Magic was useless when you were multitargeting, unless you were hitting a weakness. All multitarget spells divide their effectiveness by 8 (there can be up to 8 enemies onscreen, and there are usually less than that). Status effects were useless unless you cast them hundreds of times and by then, you could have just leveled and attack spell or weapon and just killed them (which is a problem in a lot of JRPGs, which is pronounced a hundredfold here). It was a shame to because status effects were actually elementals and certain enemies were weak to them or could absorb and be healed by them. Hell, even the Final Bosses super meteor attack is a joke. Magic was expensive to regenerate, what happened if your HP and MP is low and you can't afford an inn(You can't even heal up partially, it has to be all or nothing)? Permanent status effects that were expensive to remove. You could raise people to 1 HP for free and that's it. Esuna and Basuna needed to be leveled if you wanted to remove the nastier effects. The aforementioned trap rooms were used constantly and wore out their welcome to the point I didn't want to explore dungeons and I cringed when I was forced to select one of several to progress a dungeon. Not to mention, they fucking teleport you inside of them when you enter. It's not like you can just poke your head into a room, see it's empty and leave, no you have to endure the same gimmick over and over and over again. Encounter tiles from FF1 were actually interesting and had a point and can be used to power level your characters if you knew what you were doing. Certain stats were a pain to raise more than others. You could raise HP and Str to god tier levels, but forget raising Agility. The battle music was obnoxious, imagine listening to it for hours and hours do tedious grinding driving you insane. Playing it on the NES and casting a spell on multiple enemies and watching an animation play out and then text boxes popping was pure torture. Once you got the canoe from Minh (which you can get in the first 10 minutes of gameplay), literally 90% of the world opens up. There is very little the Ship and Airship can take you can't get on foor. The world map doesn't feel designed very well. The antagonists in this game are built up very poorly compared to the original. Garland, Astos, and Vampire all had build up to them comparable to the Four Fiends (Vampire dies from one Fire 3 attack and appears as a random enemy later in the game). Even Bikke the Pirate left an impression on me. Not a single boss from this game sticks in my mind like the FF1 bosses, even the ones you just meet on encounter tiles like the Piscodemons that guarded the crown or the Zombie Dragons that guard the tail, or heck, even the random assortment of Mummies and Cockatrice you run into in the room that has a robot with a Cube in it. What do I remember about FF2 bosses? There is a Soul Flame thing that absorbs all magic, even status effect magic, there is the Behemoth in the "Monster Tournament" who is literally the only enemy you fight. Random Elemental Dragons in boxes that guard treasure you don't really need because Swords and Fists pretty much take care of everything (well that and Demons from AD&D mythology like Azaroth and Beezlebub.... like did we treat Lich and Tiamat this way?). The overall plot of the game has a smaller scale than FF1s. You actually have a grand quest to go fight the Four Elemental Generals and the first boss you fight Garland(and the 5 bats in the room you fight him in), actually has a major role in the grand scheme of things. The overworld music is happy and upbeat and the battle music doesn't drive you insane. Here you are just four random kids that get their ass kicked the first 2 minutes and you are you are just common refugees who are told to just stay there and be good little NPCs and you have to go right back to your Doomed Hometown that still had the same people who just curp stomped you in it and you have to go there and do a thing (i forget what) to even officially inducted into the La Resistance. The music in the second game is lonely and sad the whole time. The major antagonist is just a guy who wants to "Rule the World" but he just doesn't do much in the grand scheme of things other than destroy random towns and build a gigantic airship to terrorize people. I remember more about the one-shot villains in the third game than this guy. The motivations from the antagonists from FF1 were more understandable than this guy. He doesn't even have a name, he's just called The Emperor. All in all the game felt like it had a bunch of ideas that sounded good and then stuck to each other without anyone thinking how you everything would fit together.

Anyone see the similarities to star wars and fft? Or did anyone read the memory of heroes book version of ff1-ff3? Fun times. 27:27 smoking marlboros for bad breath 😂

Are you also 8-bit music theory? Kind of have the same voice/speaking style/interest in retro games?

FFII was an important one, not a good one. It introduced a lot of what is in FF today like chocobos and whatnot but the mechanics of the game are on drugs lol

Having just beat it myself. It was ok. Not great, not terrible, ok. Like a C on a report card, bit annoying to deal with but not a bad grade.

I loved it for its time. I first played it on origins on ps1. It was an all new ff game! I also love SaGa so there you go.

It definitely has some ambitious ideas that don't work as intended and the main three characters are pretty dull (although I do like Firion's general design) but I think the last couple iterations like Dawn of Souls and Pixel Remaster elevate this to being a decent (but flawed) game. Hot take but I like this game more than the technically superior but very on rails FF IV.

Another great video! Keep up the great work!

You are confusing the underworld of Final Fantasy 4 with hell. In FF 4 there simply is more area of the world that is below the surface. Think of it as a giant cave. If anything, the moon segment of FF 4 was more akin to hell.

I didn't enjoy the game much. The leveling system makes it too grindy and the dungeons with the empty rooms was irritating

11:15 YOU SAID DOO DOO! … anyone got the reference?

I liked the game when I first played it, just waiting for the game to go on special on the switch so I can buy it

I liked it, im playing the WonderSwan Color version and i like to play with the leveling system. Managed to get used to it.

Yes it is and I still had the PIXEL remaster of it and will NEVER ever play it ever.

i really like the game but the only annoying thing are missables because i want the platinum

What is the opening music?

The lvl mechanic just freaking tedious lol

FF2 isn’t trash but the leveling system and certain mechanics just aren’t that good compared to the other classic games