Final Fantasy II Review
You're given tasks to complete in a very linear fashion. I admit that I have gotten spoiled with the more freeform style of play that most modern RPGs offer so it was a tad irritating to feel this restriction. Since there is no in game journal keeping track of what I need to do or where I need to go I keep forgetting, especially if I hadn't played in a few days. But this is just the way games where back in the pre-iPod days. You roam around talking to people and some times someone will say a word or two that's so interesting that you'll want to “learn” it , don't worry you'll know which word since it's always highlighted, so later you can “ask” others about it. Eh, that's cool I suppose. But it's odd that when you “ask” a person about a term one time they will give a great answer and the next time they have no idea what you're talking about.
Battles. Yep, there are going to be a lot of those and they are almost always going to be random. I do not care for the random battles, I like to see who's down the path or hall before I end up in a fight. The battles themselves are the normal old-style turn based fights. Each turn begins with you deciding how and who each member of your party should attack. You can take as long as you like to set up your plan. Once everyone in your party knows what to do the battle starts and all you can do is sit back and watch. After a while you either win and get some cash and experience, or everyone is dead, or something in between. What really stinks about FFII is the way leveling-up is handled. I guess some people could like it but I sure didn't. What happens is that instead of leveling up in the traditional sense you just get better at whatever it was your were doing during the battle. For instance, if you had a character who used a sword through the whole battle then your sword experience would go up. If a character did nothing but cast heal spells then they would get really good at healing but pretty well suck at everything else. I found this is be a huge bummer. Oh, and the only way to increase your HP is to actually take damage. So, strange as it may seem, you will probably start to attack members of your own party just to increase their HP. I believe there's a saying about who needs enemies with friends like these that could be applied to this logic.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
78%. Final Fantasy II is an interesting blast from
the past for those die hard FF fanatics. Others may not enjoy the fantasy so
much thanks to a very odd leveling system.
