Final Fantasy II

[moon_hotel]

I know Final Fantasy doesn't exactly count as a "niche" series, but I've been playing it for the first time recently and just marveling at what a weird, weird game it is. It's a pretty clear forerunner to the SaGa series, and IIRC it was even directed by the person who would go on to create the SaGa games.

First of all, the straight-up leveling system from the first game is gone, replaced with a "use certain attacks to power them up" system. This is cool if you want your characters to be equally good at everything, since you can just slap whatever weapons on them and fight a few battles to level up their axe/sword/dagger/etc skills, but unfortunately the same thing happens with magic. So as a result, ALL of your magic starts out really weak. I tried to use Esuna in battle to cure a status effect and it ended up missing because I rarely used it in the first place :'^)

It's a real shame that the game is so mechanically lopsided and grindy, because I really like the story so far. It's one of those "rebels fight against the evil empire" stories, except you actually do clash with the Empire at nearly every turn, infiltrating their warships and falling into their traps. It feels way more tight-knot and intimate in that way than, like, FF6 does, since 6 has a much bigger world and you're constantly exploring little tangential stories in it.

Anyway, I very rarely hear anyone talk about FF2, so I was wondering if anyone else here has played it. (For the record, I'm playing the Dawn of Souls version on the GBA.)

Comments

[jackvambrace]

I have the psp version of 1 and 2. I didn't get very far in it, I used to be really into 100 percenting stuff, so I just holed up at the start leveling everything up and didn't really get far with it. Did end up with a white mage that could bare knuckle a man into the stratosphere though. I should pick it back up. I've actually played some of the SaGa games, mostly frontier 1 and 2, I need to pick them up again too.

[moon_hotel]

I was really kinda fascinated by Frontier 1 when I was younger. I actually asked for a copy of it for Christmas but got Granstream Saga instead, which might br, like, the weirdest and saddest Christmas present story I have lmao. I feel like Frontier would be great if it had been less rushed in development and also if it were like, just a LITTLE less incomprehensible, but that's kinda part and parcel of the SaGa games in general I think.

I've actually been playing SaGa 2: Hihou Densetsu for the DS lately as well (it got a fan translation), and it's really fun! Having actual descriptions and longer character limits for terms goes soooo far towards making that game easier to understand.

[jackvambrace]

I mostly played Saga Frontier 2, but I kept getting stuck and my save file kept getting eaten by one of those 8 in 1 memory cards that were supposed to have extra capacity. I picked 1 back up on psp and got to the end of Red's story but kinda put it away for a bit.

I remember Granstream Saga too, it's sorta related to Illusion of Gaia and Soul Blazer I think? Also might have been the first game I played with nudity? I remember showing it to a friend and distracting him while I skipped the cutscene cause I got embarrassed.

[melodyrose]

I have actually played it! and tended to sit there and grind for a while. I think at least the GBA version dropped stats dropping when you raised other stats (I've mostly played the Origins version, myself, though I do own dawn of souls.)

it honestly holds a really soft, squishy place in my heart though. Yes, it's kinda broken as hell, but i really dig the story and i liked when I first played it that the leveling style was so very different from most rpgs. You kind of had to think of how to raise things, and all that. And it was possible to make anyone do anything but it really paid to specialize.

Also just a heads up - what esuna can cure is based on the level so that may be why your spell missed :) Above level 7 though, it can raise the dead! :D

... I study game mechanics a lot. i find them super fascinating.

BACK TO MY POINT: I really liked the concept of the leveling system, broken though it was. I also REALLY liked that you had these transient members of your party. I don't know it pulled me more into the story. and I liked to extrapolate a lot about characters based on what they had levels in.

I did tend to devolve into making all my characters punch each other for the hp gains though >.>;

Also speaking of SaGa, I keep meaning to go back into Unlimited SaGa. But that game is so obtuse... Obtuse enoguh that i can't actually recommend it to anyone - and I usually have no problem figuring out weird systems through analysis. but that one gives me trouble :(