12th February 2003, 4:44 AM
Final Fantasy II Review
By Ryan Usher
Final Fantasy II, known as IV in Japan, was the first really great game in the long-running series in my opinion. This ten-year old game sported, for its time, good graphics, excellent music and solid gameplay that was improved upon a hundred-fold for the next installment. Because it's unfair to compare this game to its predecessor, I'll leave FFIII out of this. You are Cecil, the captain of the Red Wings Airship Squadron of the kingdom of Baron, the most powerful nation in the world. Feeling that missions of petty theft and murder that his king commands him to complete are too much, Cecil rebels against his king and slowly discovers just how vast this evil is, and the consequences of it completing it's goal of acquiring the four Crystals of Earth.
Graphics
The graphics of FFII could rightly be called NES graphics with 16-bit enhancements. Graphically, not much really stood out and took advantage of the SNES's extra power, leading one to believe this game may have started development on the NES. The environments are large and colorful, but character graphics are very small and squarish. Monsters are large and have a fair amount of detail. Magic animations, for its time, were pretty nice, though some of the more complex ones create noticeable slowdown.
6.0
Sound
The sound for this game is quite good, and when compared to the graphics, it's much more apparent that the sound was developed with the SNES's far-superior sound capabilities in mind. While nothing really stands out, altogether it's a nice ensemble.
8.5
Gameplay
Not quite so varied as RPGs are nowadays, but it's still soild RPG fare. There are many places to explore, and there are three world maps! Certainly a very epic game, and definitely worth playing.
8.5
Modern Appeal
If you like traditional RPGs, there's not much to dislike about FF2. It's a regular RPG. No more, no less.
Purchase Price
I had an easier time finding this game than I did finding FFIII, but this was four years ago as well, and you would likely have to resort to eBay and pay $60-plus for it. Unlike FFIII, this game was and is an SNES-exclusive, for it was not re-released in the FF Anthology CD in 1999. If you can't stomach playing it on an emulator, good luck finding it.
Total (not an average) : 8.0
By Ryan Usher
Final Fantasy II, known as IV in Japan, was the first really great game in the long-running series in my opinion. This ten-year old game sported, for its time, good graphics, excellent music and solid gameplay that was improved upon a hundred-fold for the next installment. Because it's unfair to compare this game to its predecessor, I'll leave FFIII out of this. You are Cecil, the captain of the Red Wings Airship Squadron of the kingdom of Baron, the most powerful nation in the world. Feeling that missions of petty theft and murder that his king commands him to complete are too much, Cecil rebels against his king and slowly discovers just how vast this evil is, and the consequences of it completing it's goal of acquiring the four Crystals of Earth.
Graphics
The graphics of FFII could rightly be called NES graphics with 16-bit enhancements. Graphically, not much really stood out and took advantage of the SNES's extra power, leading one to believe this game may have started development on the NES. The environments are large and colorful, but character graphics are very small and squarish. Monsters are large and have a fair amount of detail. Magic animations, for its time, were pretty nice, though some of the more complex ones create noticeable slowdown.
6.0
Sound
The sound for this game is quite good, and when compared to the graphics, it's much more apparent that the sound was developed with the SNES's far-superior sound capabilities in mind. While nothing really stands out, altogether it's a nice ensemble.
8.5
Gameplay
Not quite so varied as RPGs are nowadays, but it's still soild RPG fare. There are many places to explore, and there are three world maps! Certainly a very epic game, and definitely worth playing.
8.5
Modern Appeal
If you like traditional RPGs, there's not much to dislike about FF2. It's a regular RPG. No more, no less.
Purchase Price
I had an easier time finding this game than I did finding FFIII, but this was four years ago as well, and you would likely have to resort to eBay and pay $60-plus for it. Unlike FFIII, this game was and is an SNES-exclusive, for it was not re-released in the FF Anthology CD in 1999. If you can't stomach playing it on an emulator, good luck finding it.
Total (not an average) : 8.0