Final Fantasy II

Release Dates Statistics Europe Release Date - 14 March 2003 Japan Release Date - 31 October 2002 North America Release Date - 8 April 2003 Title: Final Fantasy Origins Developer: Square-Enix Publisher: Square-Enix Platform: PlayStation One Genre: RPG Players: 1 Our Rating: 9/10

Final Fantasy II Only one year after the release of the first Final Fantasy, Square introduced Final Fantasy II in Japan. After the success of his predecessor, this game was very popular amongst its fans. Will the remake keep it as popular or will it only pull the game down? Storyline The Kingdom of Fynn falls to the clutches of the Empire. Four orphan youths lose their homes, and are left with nothing. The remaining survivors of Fynn hide out in the town of Altair, not too far from the castle. There, a rebel group is formed. In an act of despair, the youths join the Rebel Army and try to stop the Empire from bringing more chaos into the world. Score: 97% Graphics The graphics are pretty much the same as Final Fantasy I. The only difference is that it looks a little bit looser and wider. It also seems as if the amount of colour in the game is less, making it a little less attractive on the eye. None the less the graphics are still better then most other 2D games. Score: 82% Gameplay Final Fantasy II introduced a sort of level-up system, that didn’t use experience to gain stats, but the actions in battle. For instance, if you were to attack a lot physically, you would gain more strength. If you were to lose a lot of HP, the maximum amount would grow. Using this system you could decide what your characters strengths would be, or their weaknesses. The Magic system, unlike Final Fantasy I, did use a Level system. The more frequently you used a spell, the more it would grow stronger, and would grow to a next level. The same goes for the weapons. You have a variety of weapon types to choose from and the more often you attack with a weapon, the more hits your character gives with it and handles it much better. As you play the game, you have total freedom of pretty much going anywhere. The only thing holding you back are the strong enemies. Though you can get pretty strong at the beginning if you train in a strategic and efficient way to allow you to travel to places where enemies were too strong before. Also, the game is pretty straight-forward and you’ll never get stuck on what you have to do. The game shows nice variety because you have three standard members in your team: Firion, Maria and Gus, but the fourth member will come and go and will always be different then the one before and have it's own abilities and advantages. Score: 92% Difficulty The game starts on Easy mode. After you clear the game once, you can choose Normal Mode which can disable dashing, Auto Target etc. Also, like I said before, from the start of the game it is possible to go pretty much anywhere, meaning if you train your characters good enough, you can stroll through the game as if it were nothing. Although, Square did arrange the game in such a manner, that your base stats won’t grow (much) if you fight against weaker enemies, which reflects reality a bit. This means that you have to proceed through the game where the enemies are stronger and get stronger, to increase your base stats. So don’t think that if you train once in the beginning, the game will be a piece of cake, it’ll still be pretty spicy. Score: 90% Music Because the story of Final Fantasy II is more serious, the music is more dramatic then the music from Final Fantasy I. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing though. This way you get really sucked in to the game, and you feel what is happening through the music. The soundtrack of this game is less universal then that of Final Fantasy I, meaning there is a small selection that will prefer this soundtrack over the one from FFI. Score: 94% Overall Final Fantasy II is an excellent piece of FF history. Mainly because of the exclusive level-up system that makes this game so very interesting and shows how this FF differs from the rest of the series. The storyline is very good, with lots of ups and downs in the story which keep you playing and get you sucked into the game, which is very nice. The replay value of the game is a little less then Final Fantasy I, but that’s because FFII has fewer different ways to clear the game. You can try to clear the game using only fists for instance, those kinds of things. Great game, but the lesser one in the Origins pack. Score: 91% Final Fantasy Origins is a must have. Especially FFI, which shows many, many hours of gameplay and won’t bore you very quickly. FFII is also very nice to have, due to the good storyline and the different level-up system you should’ve at least tried. All in all, a true FF fan should have this in his or her collection. Though a casual gamer should also buy this, because it’s a piece of excellent RPG-history.