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I've never played it. I am just about done slaughtering 6 (again) as best I know while I'll probably still dink around in the Colleseum to get a few items I've missed later. But back to II, is it a fun game? I saw the retrospective thanks to Cloud Clone (forgot the number, sorry) I'm thinking about replaying FFI aswell, but Ive heard good things about II. Different leveling and magic system based on damage and type of action and from what I understand the same idea as FF4 with your characters(they change throughout the game). In the retrospective it said it was one the most different games of the series. Anyone out there love, hate or have neutral feelings for this game. Ill most likely give it a try anyways because it and 3 are the only ones I havent played. Sorry if this seems like a strange post but a few pros or cons would be nice, thanks. Your responses are most helpful.

This post has been edited by doomgazeblossom on 3rd August 2007 21:24

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"Death to Mystic Enemies" ~ Heckran

"Say yer prayers Lynx! Not that they'll do you any good." ~ Schala "Kid" Zeal

"Hold yer Seahorses"

Final Fantasy 2 is an extremely tedious game. It's playable, a small majority of people actually love it. I don't hate the game, but it's a definite grind fest. The way particular things raise is probably one of the most frustrating things about it. Like HP, being hit once or twice isn't going to give your character MORE HP. Having your health being reduced below half from full health and ending the fight with it still there gives you a bit of a chance. Like I said tedious.

And good luck on having your magic ever reach max level without wasting at least a week of your life focusing on nothing else.

Honestly, the storyline to the game is nothing special either. It's a decent game if you want a break from the norm, but nothing outstanding in any regard, and as I said, very, very tedious.

This post has been edited by Zero_Hawk on 3rd August 2007 12:46

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This one time I punched a bear in the forehead TO DEATH! I still have the scars on my chest. I am the manliest man that ever did man.

League: Z3roHawk
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Wii U: Zero_Hawk
FF14 - Goblin - Zero Hawk <Fiend>

FF II is my least-favorite game in the series, bar-none. It uses a watered-down version of the SaGa exp/stat system that wasn't very good to begin with, and when you combine that with bad scaling (bad in the GBA/PSP version, downright bloody terrible in the NES version) you have a very tedious and painful leveling-up experience.

You combine that with an unremarkable, uninspired plot and characters and you have probably the one FF game that simply isn't worth playing. I'm not going to sugarcoat it - I *really* don't like this game.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

Really? That's what you guys thought of FFII? I absolutely loved it! Yes, it was frustrating, but I still loved it. The storyline, leveling up not so much, but I definately didn't find it as hard as some people claim it is. I especially loved the GBA version, what with the;

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

Special second game they included in FFII, where you play as all of the dead characters in Hell... It's pretty out there, but definately awesome

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We, who cannot see into tomorrow, have no way of knowing... But... But... If you don't find dreams yourself... if you don't capture your ambitions... happiness won't just come to you.

I Actully kinda liked FF II. Yeah sure maybe the whole Magic and Lvling up was just crap but, i liked it.

I haven't played it much, but I did for a while, and in my experience, the story line wasn't much. It was better than 1's though... though that doesn't take a lot.

The leveling up system is very tedious, as mentioned and if you want to play this game and do well in it, then I think you'll need to dedicate alot of time to it.

Like I say however, I haven't completed this game and so can't really give a full view on it.

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In the end, it boils down to two simple choices. Either you do or you don't.

FF II is my favourite of the series.
The system, although slow, lets you make anything out of anyone.
I like the cast (first ever Cid FTW), the story, which is very StarWars-esque, and the flow of the game.

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"I fell off the mountain of words at around the 10,000ft mark. Tell my family...they owe me money." -Narratorway

"If you retort against this, so help me God I'll shove any part of your anatomy I can find into some other part. Figuratively, of course." - Josh

"We have more, can deliver tuesday." - Del S

Good old CoN

It was harsh to play, and i didnt get into the story, so i disliked it out of the bunch. but it wasnt the worst Final Fantasy (X-2 was crap!).

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You Can't Escape...
Nowhere to run...
Nowhere to hide...

Quote (SilverMaduin @ 3rd August 2007 10:23)

FF II is my favourite of the series.
The system, although slow, lets you make anything out of anyone.
I like the cast (first ever Cid FTW), the story, which is very StarWars-esque, and the flow of the game.

This is one of those monsters I was talking about. For shame SMad. Shaaaaame.

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This one time I punched a bear in the forehead TO DEATH! I still have the scars on my chest. I am the manliest man that ever did man.

League: Z3roHawk
Steam: Zero_Hawk
Wii U: Zero_Hawk
FF14 - Goblin - Zero Hawk <Fiend>

In my opinion, I found it alright, it isn't the worst in the series, its just not one of the best in the series.

I loved FFII. The leveling system was quite different than what I'm used to, and that alone ranks it up there as one of my faves. The 4th person in your party changes at different stages of the game (as far as I've gotten) which also was pretty cool. Pretty solid story and I like the character customizations you could do as well.

I've yet to beat it (like I said in earlier posts, my PS2 stopped reading my PSX games), but overall, in FFOrigins, I've been playin' FFII considerably more often than the original FF game.

I could see why the majority doesn't like it, and for the most part, good points are made as to why, but I, personally enjoy this game and it ranks as one of my favorite games.

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"Thought I was dead, eh? Not until I fulfill my dream!"
Seifer Almasy


"The most important part of the story is the ending."
Secret Window


"Peace is but a shadow of death."
Kuja

I love FF2. Love it quite a bit. It's one of those games that was simply too much ahead of its time to be appreciated, but caught up in an era where technology and game dev were just not advanced enough to allow it to realize its full potential.

FF2's system, in theory, is PERFECT. Your characters grow according to how you play them without any intervention on your part. If your guy's got some big, heavy swords and armor equipped, he'll grow to be a fighter. If your guy relies on magic, the game will end up making him a magic-user. It's great - it adapts on its own to the way you play it with complete transparency. You simply cannot ask for more than that.

In practice, the system was not implanted as well as it should've been. It moves too slowly and doesn't allow you to progress fast enough through the game unless you spend hours building up your characters. Also, for many gamers, FF2 was only discovered long after the FF series established its ATB battle system as the norm. It was just too different to be enjoyed the way it should've been.

Personally I think the system is wonderful and I'm disappointed Square stopped working on the Romancing SaGa series (a must-play if you like FF2; ESPECIALLY Romancing SaGa III.) RS could've been bigger than FF if nurtured a little and given more of a chance than they have.

The extra quest in the GBA remake is awesome. It's great just seeing your party go from nearly dying on their way through the first cave to uber-demons from hell that can wipe the floor with anything by the end.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

I like it, despite the flawed advancement system and overall tediousness. I still think it's a pretty enjoyable game every now and then. I just wish that they'd have remade it with a rebalanced advancement system, where your characters' proficiencies level up at an acceptable rate, and where you can't have your characters beat each other up to gain stats or equip shields and become invincible. They went in the right direction with making stats level up faster, and eliminating the cancel bug, but it wasn't really enough.

This post has been edited by Zeromus_X on 4th August 2007 03:59

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OSonic Rave
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XRagnarok

I agree with the overall consensus. Its not that bad of a game. Its even downright decent. I rate it above FFIII. I wouldn't call it "above average", but its not the suckfest so many people make it out to be. Its not as good as FFI though, which is a big letdown.

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Oh sure, I don't have to get kicked in the junk to activate it, but I like it anyway. -- Thief commenting on the difference between Throw and Blue Magic.

I thought the levelling system was pretty cool, but, honestly, the plot and characters are terrible IMO. Things happen randomly, all of a sudden, and sometimes make no sense. Some random, generic orphans (with no personality) decide to avenge their parents and become strong enough to defeat the Lord Master of Hell. Am I the only one who found that strange? And what's with all the short-term party members who have little dialogue and die or leave not too long after you get them?

The game is rather short, too- there aren't that many places to explore and it's very linear.

...K, I'll stop ranting now.

This post has been edited by Samurai Bob on 10th August 2007 13:56

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FFIVDS looks awesome, right? Especially the character scans. I mean, look at that CGI scan of Yang. You see it and you just think...badass. And then you look at his polka-dot pants, likely stolen from a Dr. Seuss book. And then you just...shiver.

I think I would have liked it more if it weren't for the whole thing with learning words and asking everyone about everything. I thought the characters leveling up the way you use them was great, but other things about the game made the interesting level system not worth it.

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C#ADAAABbGAAAFAGAEAFADAEAC#AFADAEAC#ADAAABbAGAA
AEAFADAGAEAFADAEAC#AD

I actually really enjoyed FF2. Yeah, the battle system is completely borked, but that's half the fun. Once you know how to manipulate it, you're golden. And I thought (believe it or not) that the music was some of the best I've heard in any FF.

Now I kinda want to play it again.

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Some ghost of me might greet my son
the day he is delivered.


Eternal Sleep, Track 1-1: The Blue Planet

i liked some of the story....liked the part where....um...no i didnt really like it all that much. i really hated the leveling up system. in the beginning, no one ever attacked maria, and later when they did, she died. so i had to beat the game with her having 20 hp. i didnt really like the emperor 'i died but now im back from the dead and ill try to kill you again'. but fails and dies.....again. i also really hated Leons very quick mood swings. first hes your friend and you are searching for him. then hes evil and wants to kill you. then he joins you. then after winning, he leaves, saying hes not good enough and you walk off screen. game over. no after conflict development, nothing, it just ends. it leaves you with a feeling of wanting more.

so i didnt really like it.

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Aujourdhui a commence avec toi.

Quote (kuetipo @ 10th August 2007 10:12)

I think I would have liked it more if it weren't for the whole thing with learning words and asking everyone about everything.

I actually loved that. It gave me a better sense of interaction than just walking up to someone and hitting A, and WOAH BIG SURPRISE! They instantly know what you want. It gave a bit more depth to conversations because you could tentatively bring up something and get some more info about it even if the plot doesn't directly call for it at that point.

One improvement, IMO, would've been to automatically add new words instead of forcing you to go learn them when they're CLEARLY labelled as being learnable - it's not tedious (you usually only do it once or twice per conversation at best) but it feels kind of pointless. You have no reason not to do it and short of being blind, you can't really miss it either.

I'd love to see a more advanced, better-refined system like this in other RPGs. The whole "hit A and progress with the storyline" thing feels a bit dry sometimes.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

I think that aspect of the game also gave it more of a reality feel when speaking with NPCs and I like the more involved conversationalist method between the main character(s) and random NPCs.

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"Thought I was dead, eh? Not until I fulfill my dream!"
Seifer Almasy


"The most important part of the story is the ending."
Secret Window


"Peace is but a shadow of death."
Kuja

Regardless of what other people have against this game, I thought FFII was a much better experience than FFVIII and FFX-2 combined. Atleast FFII had a traditional Final Fantasy plot (which was later re-used in FFIV), not much of a big deal but it's still nice to see any Final Fantasy game staying true to their name.

Alot of people don't really like the stats system. I would agree that it's not the best in the series, but it was a brave effort to try to challenge the player a bit more, and not just go to one dungeon into a specific random fight where you get ######## EXP to level up from Lv. 26 to, like... 50.

The stats system atleast helped balance out a character's usefulness. A character with max speed, attack power, defense, and magic is just unfair and makes other allies either useless or just the same.

When characters are different, say a Knight and a White Mage, then you got yourself a unique party because the knight obviously excels in attack, defense, and hp, while the white mage is the complete opposite and has the best magic and mp.

...And that's what FFII's system intended it to be. But everyone has their own opinions about it and I understand.

I actually liked that Keyword system implemented in-game. It added some fun into the game, but it wasn't anything special either.

But one thing I truly did admire about the game was their weapons/shield mastery system. I mean, how cool was that? You wouldn't have to always equip "the strongest weapon" (unlike in other FFs), except for the best weapon for the kind you use.

Not the best FF and it's probably inbetween my least favorites and my most favorites. FFV, FFIII, and FFVI are definitely much better than FFII.

Depends what you're playing it on. On the NES it's tedious and rather boring, in Origins on the PS1 it's much better and quite playable, but it's prolly best played in Dawn of Souls for the GBA.

The GBA one seems to fix a lot of the tedium that's left in the levelling system, so you're not left 'attacking yourself' to gain HP/magic/etc. What's more the additional story after the main game offers a great challange, and even offers a final boss that doesn't have the same silly 'weakness' the one in the main game had.

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The Arcana are the means by which ALL is revealed.

As a long time fan of SaGa Frontier, a game I'm playing thru again, I enjoyed seeing the roots of one of my fave games. Yeah, it isn't as consistant as SaGa, but everything has to begin somewhere.

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think you're a true rp dork - try it live action shifted lands

Quote (Samurai Bob @ 10th August 2007 10:56)

Some random, generic orphans (with no personality) decide to avenge their parents and become strong enough to defeat the Lord Master of Hell.

LOL that is quite possibly the most hilarious storyline ever! Genius! That should be made into a blockbuster movie. "Orphans vs. The Lord Master of Hell", directed by Uwe Boll.

I've never played FF2, but by the sounds of the leveling system, I think I'd like it.

This post has been edited by SonOfASubmariner! on 4th September 2007 07:49

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NEVER put salt in your eyes.

*gets out the "STFU FF2 IS THE BEST THING SINCE GERMAN FOOD" arguing stick*

I love FF2. Along with FF1, it was the first FF games I played, and it's got a helluva lot of memories for me. Personally, I think the level-up system isn't as bad as everyone says - you don't NEED to have all lvl 16 magics to beat the game - just skill and perseverance. Sure, the storyline wasn't great... but come on,

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

you get to fight the lord masters of Hell and Heaven!

Plus, the bonus dungeon they added on in the DoS version was pure win. The first hour or so is the most tactical fighting you'll encounter in such a short space of time in a 2D FF. RANDOM ENCOUNTERS are like boss battles, for heaven's sake!

Also, they brought in FF mainstays like Cid, chocobos, Dragoons (though they can't jump in this version) and the semblance of a storyline.

Oh, and did I mention the music? Christ, if every RPG had the tunes that FFII did, I'd buy a Gamecube just to play it.

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This is, quite possibly, my favorite FF game to date.
The leveling system is pure genius. Almost no two parties are ever really quite identical. It allows for so much openness. The plot wasn't even that bad. 4 youths get their parents killed in a siege, and in a desperate attempt to escape, are nearly killed. Then they get revenge.
There's really nothing wrong with this game, especially if you know how to level fast (and I do; i had 999 magic on everyone 5th hour into the game).