Game

So after FF1, I was still kinda feelin’ the NES RPG bug, and I mean hey… its sequel is right there, right? I had played FF1 before, a few times (though I had never beaten it). I had never played FF2, nor had I ever even seen anyone play it. I knew the main character cause of Dissidia, and I knew some horror stories about its mechanics… and also, I knew most people do not like it very much. This game suffers from what I call “NES Sequel Black Sheep Syndrome”. Games like SMB2 or Zelda 2 where the following game changes a lot of mechanics and tries something new, and people don’t like it. But usually with that, there’s a lot there that’s interesting, and some people really latch onto it. And people kinda have with FF2. There are absolutely FF2 fans out there, many who watched my stream. But they will also be the first to admit that while a lot of what FF2 came up with is cool, it was far, FAR improved down the road with other games that use its mechanics.

Since these mechanics ARE the most important part of FF2, lemme explain them. You have no levels in FF2, whatsoever. Instead, you gain stats after battles. These stats are, intrinsically, based on doing a thing. Cast more spells? Your intelligence goes up. Take more damage? You become sturdier and your health goes up. This makes sense, on its face. Practice a thing to get better at it. Unfortunately, a few times I found that I just had to grind, and grinding is slow and annoying, because stat growth is a chance-based system. Even if you attack a lot, your strength isn’t always going up, there are hidden algorithms determining what works. Fortunately, it is VERY easy to cheese. If you choose an action with a character then back out to reselect it, those algorithms count that move you didn’t actually do for some stats. You can’t gain health or mana this way, but you CAN gain strength, intelligence, and grind up your spell levels. This is VERY slow and boring. And if you don’t do it, your stuff will be low, ESPECIALLY spell levels. Spell levels are VERY important, and very, very boring to grind. But maybe the most egregious of these things is that, to gain health, have 1/9th lower health at the end of that battle, which makes going into a battle and having your characters beat the shit out of each other a viable strat that you’ll be doing, a lot. And it’s very funny when you’re doing this, because enemies run away based on the max health of your characters, so eventually they’ll run away cause you’re all being fucking weirdos. There’s also one other thing about this stat system though.

Game

FF2 has got to be flat out the meanest and hardest FF game, if you go into it blind. If you don’t know the mechanics and are just playing it casually, you will get your ass beat in. This is because stats can raise, but they can ALSO go down! You attacking a lot? Your intelligence goes down. Casting spells? Strength goes down. This makes dual-classing kinda awkward. You’ve gotta plan out your characters before hand and not level them wrong. I did do some multi-classing with Firion, because Spirit, the white mage skill, cannot go down. Though attack CAN go down from casting white spells, so he was never quite as strong as I’d like. Statistically, it should only go down 1/6th of the time from a stat up, but y’know, bad luck is bad luck.

This isn’t the only reason this game is mean as hell. The dungeons have a lot of rooms we’ll call “trap rooms”. If you go into them exploring the dungeon, you’re put in the middle of the room, and the encounter rate is skyrocketed. So now you’re facing a lot of enemies and it’s annoying as fuck. I used maps, so I avoided all this. And since I knew the mechanics beforehand and had planned it all out, the game wasn’t very hard. But for a casual player? Yeah, this shit would be VERY frustrating, I understand why people didn’t like it.

Game

While this game is very weird in the context of FF, it introduces a lot of recurring themes and ideas in the series. While there are no moogles, there are Beavers that serve a similar purpose. There’s a Cid for the first time, with his airship. And of course, a plot. With like, characters. Your characters are their own people, and they’re not like… unique, or very interesting? You’ve got Firion, who’s a nice guy who’s kinda stupid. Maria, who is uh, a girl. Guy, who’s characterized as an idiot savant cause he talk like this, unga bunga, but he’s cultured and can speak beaver. And then a rotating cast of fourth characters, most of which die in wild ways, hopping in and out of the party. It feels very FF4 in that way. None of these characters are anything to write home about.

Game

Also, this game has a keyword system. You learn keywords and can say/ask about them to certain people and things, as well as using items in this menu. This is kinda cool in concept, but again, not utilized perfectly. It’s cool in some instances, but often times you’re confounded and there’s some really confusing nonsensical ways to progress, needing to ask one person something kind down the list, with no idea of knowing. Guides are recommended in this game.

This game is very interesting and cool and I don’t dislike it, at all. I quite enjoyed it. But I understand why it’s not universally loved. It has a lot of cool ideas, and those ideas would later be used, by the director of this game, for a series known as SaGa. This is basically SaGa 0, a test run. And I’m glad they tested it here first, before they ran with it. I am very glad I finally played it, but it’ll be a WHILE before I get the itch to try it again, tbh. And maybe just play the GBA version.